Challenge
Cisco, the world's leading provider of IP data and voice solutions, recognized that there was a growing trend towards managed services that involved its solutions. While many Tier-1 telecomunication carriers were investing in Cisco solutions, Cisco saw that mid-sized CLECs and managed service providers (MSPs) were not always prepared to make the up-front investment in a complete Cisco platform.
MSPs were being expected to carry the full business case risk of investing in the Cisco infrastructure while endeavoring to build a managed service business revenue stream.
Solution
Cisco made the decision to build its own Cisco managed service platform and rent the infrastructure to managed services buisnesses and CLECs on a "as a Service" basis.
This platform is called Cisco UCaaS (unified communications as a service) and is based on the Cisco HUCS architecture.
Benefits
Cisco's MSP customers have experienced a number of benefits:
- Faster customer acquisition, leading to a reduction in associated costs and in the number of pending customers changing their mind
- VOSS day-1 deployment tools meant that the site deployment costs were significantly lower
- VOSS day-2 support tools enabled customers to perform their own MACs in real time
- Engineering staff are able focus on new collaboration services rather than basic administrative tasks
- Consistency in based configuration has removed the risk of data drift and inter-customer data conflicts
- All services are now managed in a central service catalog, allowing for better reporting and billing integration
- New services can be added quickly, and are more easily bundled within existing or value-add packages
Testimonial from Cisco:
"Cisco and VOSS have enjoyed a dynamic and successful relationship since 2003. VOSS works alongside Cisco to deliver strategic collaboration solutions to many of our most significant customers. Cisco values VOSS highly as a result of VOSS delivering quality fulfillment management platform that adds to Cisco’s overall HCS value proposition."
Eric Schoch, Director of Unified Communications, Cisco Systems
