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6 Key Considerations for Implementing Value-Added Services on Major Cloud Platforms

Value-added services

April 16, 2024

By Mike Wilkinson, CP&MO, Akixi

There is no hiding from the fact that Cloud Communication platforms like Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams have seriously disrupted the telephony market.

Take Teams, for example. At the end of 2023, Microsoft announced Teams number of users had reached 320 million monthly active users. Of these, around 17 Million currently have, and use, a PSTN license, also known as Teams Phone. And this number is accelerating rapidly.

Service Providers face a challenge.

Revenue

Margin

Differentation

As a result, we are seeing considerable interest among service providers in enhancing their telephony platform portfolios with value-added services (VAS).

From my experience, there are some key points a service provider must consider when rolling out value-added services:

1. Be realistic about attach rate

The majority of value-added services have attach rates in the 10-20% range. However, in some exceptional circumstances, attach rates can be much higher. This is especially true when they are delivered as a managed service. At Akixi, we can advise on how to improve your attach rates significantly.

2. Unit cost of production

If your attach rate is in this 10-20% range, the cost of delivery of the service must be optimized.

You must ask yourself, do the vendors you are working with have a common platform for VAS delivery, and does this easily integrate into your customer workflow?

3. Automation

I could have included this in “unit cost of production”, but I feel it is important enough to call it out on its own.

Make sure that your VAS partners seamlessly integrate into your automation strategy and come with built-in automation capabilities for deploying and managing services. This is particularly crucial in the Microsoft Teams environment, where VAS solutions are still in their infancy regarding mass deployment.

4. Value chain and branding

Can your VAS partner support your value chain, including management at multiple levels, administration demarcation, and branding at various levels? Issues with the value chain and branding can compromise your service, potentially resulting in lower sales and market share.

5. Tenancy

Can your VAS provider deliver you a cloud-hosted dedicated instance for their service? Without this capability, you might encounter unwelcome upgrades that impact the customer experience. Additionally, can your VAS vendor provide a test instance for you to sanity check releases before going into production?

6. Risk sharing

Certain value-added services carry more speculative elements than others, so having a low-cost early deployment model is important. What are the initial costs associated with your VAS vendors? Are there hidden costs that come as the service scales? You should look closely as to whether their product can really meet your business goals.

At Akixi, we deliver value-added services designed to enhance service providers portfolios. Contact us below to learn more about how we can assist you in enhancing your attach rates, optimizing production costs, and seamlessly integrating automation into your strategy. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to differentiate your services and drive revenue growth.

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