vendor power rating - offering enterprise cloud ... vendor... · leading providers in their...

Vendor Power Rating

Fuze, Inc.

Licensed for Distribution23 January 2018 | Research Note 2018-3

Authors: Jim Lundy, Adrian Bowles

Summary

The Aragon Research Power Rating is a vendor evaluation of leading providers in their respective markets. This report provides an overview of the current state of the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) market and a Power Rating on Fuze, one of the leaders in UCC.

Executive Summary

This Vendor Power Rating is a comprehensive review of all aspects of Fuze, a leading provider of Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) Products and Services.

Since its founding in 2006, Fuze has grown both organically and via Technology acquisitions and now competes against the largest providers in the UCC market for both Cloud Based Phone Systems, Web and Video Conferencing, and its entire UCC Platform. In various Research Reports, Aragon has rated Fuze as a Leader in both UCC and in Web and Video Conferencing.

Fuze has been expanding its Executive Team and in 2017, added Colin Doherty as CEO. Co-Founder Steve Kokinos is still involved as the Executive Chairman.

The Vendor Power Rating reviews all aspects of a technology provider to provide an analysis of all the different aspects of its operation.

© 2018 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Topics: Fuze, Inc. as a Unified Communications and Collaboration Technology Provider

Issues:

• Who are the providers in the UCC Marketand how do they compete?

• How will Fuze fare as the UCC MarketEvolves?

https://aragonresearch.com/

https://aragonresearch.com/pricing/

Digital Workplace Service RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2018-03 January 23, 2018

For Fuze, the summary of its Power Ratings is in Table 1. The detailed analysis is in the rest of the report.

Fuze Product Offerings Very Favorable• Products and Services Very Favorable • Technology Very Favorable • Pricing and Packaging Favorable

Corporate Viability Favorable• Strategy Very Favorable • Management Team Very Favorable • Operations Favorable

Go To Market Favorable• Overall Approach to the

CustomerFavorable

• Sales/Distribution Very Favorable • Services and Support Promising

Table 1: The Aragon Power Rating Summary for Fuze.

Copyright © 2018 Aragon Research Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Aragon Research and the Aragon Research Globe are trademarks of Aragon Research Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This publication may not be distributed in any form without Aragon Research’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Nevertheless, Aragon Research provides this publication and the information contained in it "AS IS," without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent allowed by law, Aragon Research expressly disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Aragon Research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Aragon Research does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Aragon Research is a private company and its clients may include firms or financial institutions that have financial interests in entities covered by Aragon Research. Further information about the objectivity of Aragon Research can be found at aragonresearch.com

https://aragonresearch.com/

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ © 2018 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.


Table of Contents

Executive Summary 1 I. Introduction 4 II. Market Overview 5 III. How the UCC Market will Evolve 6 IV. Fuze Overview 8 V. Fuze Product Offerings 10 VI. Fuze Corporate Viability 12

Management Team 12 Strategy 13 Operations 13

VII. Fuze Go To Market 14 Overall Approach to the Customer 14 Sales/Distribution 14 Support/Services 15

VIII. Aragon Advisory 16IX. Bottom Line 16



I. Introduction

The race to add more visual collaboration inside and outside of the enterprise is being driven by the need to work faster and compete in the global market. Today’s Web and Video Conferencing providers are evolving to meet this demand.

The integration of web and video conferencing has entered a new era. Leading providers are challenging standard conferencing capabilities, pushing the envelope on multiple fronts. This stems from the user demand to have live video conferencing capabilities on mobile, desktop, and in conference rooms. As a result, we are seeing newer providers emerge who will readily compete with the incumbents.

There are a number of major providers of Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC). Because of the increased need for multi-mode communications, we are seeing one of the largest shifts happening as enterprises retire their legacy PBXs in favor of modern UCC offerings from providers such as Fuze.

Aragon Vendor Power Rating Overview

The Aragon Vendor Power Rating Methodology provides a deep dive analysis of a particular Technology Provider in the context of its market. Aragon evaluates three key elements of a provider that should be considered by buyers making enterprise investments:

• Product Offerings: Considers the quality and scope ofproduct and service offerings, pricing and packaging,maturity and technology.

• Corporate Viability: Considers the strength and viability ofstrategy, management team track record, and the efficacyof and investment in operations, including sites, processes,and ecosystem.

• Go To Market: Evaluates the overall approach to theCustomer, sales/distribution, services and support.

We rate each element on a five-point scale as follows:

• Very Favorable. Users should view this provider as one toinvest in going forward.

• Favorable. Investing in this provider should be considered



safe. There may be areas for improvement but including this provider in strategic plans is sound.

• Promising. Prospects and Customers should realize thatthere can be variability in a growing enterprise and takethat into account.

• Warning. Customers and Prospects should realize thatthere may be cautions in certain areas or offerings of aprovider.

• Unfavorable. Customers and Prospects should considerany unfavorable rating to be a significant risk and evaluatealternative providers.

II. Market Overview

The nature of work and the workplace itself are undergoing fundamental changes, with people persistently connected by digital collaboration technologies and an evolving distributed work environment. Collaboration is no longer limited to desktops, landline phones, or videoconferencing rooms. Wherever people are, they expect mobile devices, cloud services, social networks, and video technologies to allow them to communicate effectively and help to nullify distance and time barriers.

One of the current challenges that enterprises face is reconciling their different Collaboration and Communications options. Aragon views Web and Video Conferencing and their associated use cases as part of the larger Unified Communications and Collaboration landscape (see Figure 1). The important thing to realize is that today, many of the Web and Video Conferencing and/or UCC capabilities may be integrated with other business applications, such as CRM.



Perhaps the main driver of change in this market is the impact of Real-time Cloud Computing, which has given smaller providers the ability to challenge established ones. Leading vendors today offer both Web and Video Conferencing. Traditional Web Conferencing vendors now combine desktop and mobile web conferences with video; similarly, traditional room-based Video Conferencing providers now also offer Web Conferencing, with screen and application sharing. VoIP is also included as part and parcel of these offerings.

III. How the UCC Market Will Evolve

The go-forward approach to UCC will be an integrated offering that leverages multi-communication options. Email will be sidelined as Messaging becomes integrated and in many cases, will be the launch point of a conversation. However, this will not occur for several more years.

The differentiating characteristic will be the platform play. There will be multiple angles to the platform and many will try to leverage their core strength. For example, Cisco has been rewriting its core UCC Platform for two years to be open and flexible. Others, such as Microsoft, are also talking interoperability, although in a more controlled fashion. Both Cisco and Microsoft face challenges in reconciling the complexity of their portfolios as they attempt to transition from not only offering overlapping services, but also from on-premise to pure cloud offerings. The demand for the key



elements of the UCC platform is being influenced by current shifts in the market:

Voice: Services Are Shifting to SaaS and Hybrid

While Hybrid Cloud is sometimes a component offered by large providers, we are seeing an increased shift to Cloud based UCaaS offerings. The reason more Voice services are shifting to SaaS and Hybrid is because it provides the best of both worlds: it allows leveraging on-premise infrastructure with the flexibility that the Cloud offers on a go-forward basis.

Due to the Cloud, the number of players in Voice is growing, as is the pressure on traditional on-premise PBX suppliers. Microsoft has made a big push into Voice thanks to its recent integration with Skype for Business, which is now bundled into the Office 365 E5 Edition. Microsoft also made things a little more complicated by refocusing its efforts on its Mobile Messaging offering Microsoft Teams, which will leverage Skype for Business Services. In many cases, enterprises want to replace an aging PBX and the shift to Cloud has served as a Revenue engine for many providers. On top of all that, the need to be able to offer Cloud based Voice capabilities on a Global basis is becoming the new normal for providers.

Web and Video Conferencing: Digitizing Open Spaces and Smaller Huddle Spaces

As enterprises rush to digitize not only conference rooms, but also open workspaces and smaller huddle areas, we are seeing a fivefold growth in video-enabled conference rooms/spaces from 2016 to 2020.

Part of this growth will be due to the reduction in the cost to deliver Video, and part of it will be due to the increase in Video quality that will make virtual meetings closer to meeting in person. Enterprises need to look at Video meetings and Video collaboration and where they will impact the business. In areas like healthcare, Video will have a profound impact on areas such as patient care.

Mobile Collaboration: Messaging Is the New Way Forward

Mobile Collaboration is poised to become a business platform where e-commerce and business can be conducted. The



vision and the execution around chatbots is gaining speed and new products are coming online to take advantage of this trend. This shift means that the power struggle to own Mobile Collaboration is on; inevitably, this will have a growing impact on the UCC Market.

IV. Fuze Overview

The company got its start in 2006 under the name ThinkingPhones and started to build out its core Voice based Platform. It built a solid customer base and as the market evolved, made a series of acquisitions to build out its product and services portfolio.

In 2014, the company acquired Whaleback to bolster its core UCaaS offering and to acquire a solid SMB Customer base.

In 2015, it silently acquired Contactive and Parlai, which added Identity Graph and machine learning to the portfolio. These acquisitions set the stage for real-time data, content analytics, and AI at the core of the platform rather than expanding capabilities through partnerships. The rise of content analytics creates the ability to track and monitor content ideas from meetings and conversations to draw new insights about how topics are permeating through the organization.

Later in 2015, the company acquired Web and Video Conferencing Leader FuzeBox and immediately rebranded as Fuze.

Fuze is a now a complete UCC provider that focuses as much on Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) as it does on HD Video Conferencing. Fuze also provides a seamless experience in mobile environments. The ability to launch a video meeting from any device and share high quality content makes Fuze standout.

Fuze has continued to receive outside investment to allow it to scale and be positioned to compete against larger providers. In 2016, it received $112 Million in funding and in 2017, received an additional $134 Million in funding.

Note 1: Fuze at a Glance

Location: Boston, MA

CEO: Colin Doherty

Key Offerings: Fuze is a cloud-based communications service that offers audio and video conferencing, collaboration, real-time data analysis, and many more high-level features for a fixed price.

Products:

• Cloud UCaaS

• Collaboration

Availability: Available now

Website: https://www.fuze.com/

https://www.fuze.com/



Figure 2: Fuze evolution as a UCC Provider.

Fuze has continued to push the envelope on ease of use and has also expanded its video conferencing capabilities. As web and video conferencing and Voice converge, Fuze offers a complete collaboration experience that includes business voice, Mobile Messaging, presence, and content sharing in a single offering delivered through a unified platform for distributed teams. Additionally, Fuze Rooms offers a full, intuitive video meeting experience for conference rooms, and in 2016, Fuze also added webcasting to the portfolio.

As Fuze offers a seamless experience across voice, video, and messaging in desktop, mobile, and room environments, it has been replacing multiple vendors in new deals by consolidating the formerly disparate tools into the easy-to-use Fuze platform.



V. Fuze Product Offerings – Very Favorable

Products and Services

Fuze offers a unified enterprise cloud communications solution that can be offered standalone or as a platform.

• UCaaS Voice Full Voice Platform Operates globally• Collaboration Featuring web and HD audio and video

conferencing• Messaging Ability to instantly collaborate with others• Analytics Using an identity graph to derive insights• Call center With workforce management and skill-

based routing

The success that Fuze is having in the market is directly attributable to the Product offerings. For both UCaaS and Collaboration, these market-leading offers are now being bundled more in large and major account situations.

Fuze has also rounded out its UCC Portfolio with its Fuze Messaging offering. Fuze Messaging includes a strong persistent chat offering for desktop and mobile that supports many of the advanced team collaboration use cases for the general knowledge worker. Fuze has the opportunity to double down on the storytelling for Fuze Messaging, given its strengths as part of the overall Fuze Product Portfolio.

The Strength of the Platform

The platform enables synchronous and asynchronous collaboration within an enterprise and between the enterprise and its partners and customers, while ensuring persistent content and context.

One of the things that stands out about Fuze is a robust set of enterprise third party integrations, unsurpassed in this market. One opportunity for Fuze is to offer these integrations in an Integrated Marketplace to make it easy to integrate them at an Administration level.

Note 2: Fuze UCC Platform Integrations. Fuze has major partnerships and integrations with 19 Major Enterprise Software and Services Providers.

- Act-On

- Adobe Document Cloud

- Atlassian

- Box

- Bullhorn

- DropBox

- DocuSign

- Google G Suite

- HubSpot

- Microsoft Office 365

- Marketo

- NetSuite

- Oracle

- Salesforce

- SAP

- SugarCRM

- ServiceNow

- ZenDesk

- ZOHO



Technology – Very Favorable

The Fuze Technology underpinning the Voice, Messaging, and Web and Video Conferencing product offerings is a notable strength.

Fuze has leveraged an approach to innovation by acquiring leading best of breed technology firms and integrating their technology. This approach can be challenging, but the Fuze team has executed it very well.

In Voice, Collaboration and Messaging, Fuze can compete against any provider. It is interesting to note that the quality of the experience is a reflection of the technology itself:

• Calls are very clear whether leveraging VoIP or PSTN• Video is very clear and reliable• Messaging is easy and works well

Pricing and Packaging - Favorable

Fuze offers a straightforward pricing and packaging approach that leads to smooth customer journeys. Even though it currently leads with UCaaS, due in part to demand, Fuze also has many customers that buy the entire Platform.

In our view, Fuze has made it easier for a large account to do business with it, thus the Customer Journey can be viewed as being smoother when dealing with a large enterprise. For small enterprises who want to buy online, this remains as an opportunity for Fuze.



VI. Fuze Corporate Viability - Favorable

Viability starts with capitalization, and Fuze appears to be well positioned on this front. In 2016, Fuze received an investment round of US $112 million, which fueled the growth of about 450 new customers.

On February 9, 2017, Fuze received an additional round of US $104 million, with an additional US $30 million added in May of 2017, which puts it on a path to IPO and fuels international growth and product innovation.

The growth of Fuze reinforces its current financial viability. With consistent performance on a quarterly basis, Fuze has a strong outlook for its scale out.

Management Team

Fuze has a strong management team, with extensive relevant experience; continuity is counterbalanced by fresh perspectives. For example, ThinkingPhones co-founders Steve Kokinos (Executive Chairman) and Chief Product Officer Derek Yoo (formerly CTO) remain very active, albeit with revised roles in recent years.

To scale, Fuze added CEO Colin Doherty, in February of 2017 after a series of successful CEO stints in the networking space, as well as Chief Sales Officer Chris Doggett, who joined in June of 2017 and brings broad experience in sales and channel strategies from his roles in security and management consulting firms.

We believe this mix of insiders and newcomers is appropriate for a post-acquisition organization, and the individuals on the team are well suited to the challenges ahead.

Note 3: Key Members of the Fuze Management Team.

Co-Founder Steve Kokinos is Executive Chairman.

Colin Doherty was named Fuze CEO in February, 2017.



Strategy – Very Favorable

Fuze has aggressively pursued a strategy of targeting larger deals for voice as a service with a focus on enterprise level service and support, and expansion into new regions with additional language support.

This strategy appears to be paying off, as deal sizes are increasing, and international sales—focused on Latin America and Asia Pacific—are up. In Q3 2017, Fuze reported a 93 percent YOY growth in EMEA activations and the opening of a new data center in Brazil.

The strategy fits well with the realities of the market in general and the strengths of the management team in particular.

Operations – Favorable

UCC success in the eyes of the enterprise is dependent on maintaining operational excellence and responding to the inevitable issues that arise in a Cloud based service catering to a globally distributed user base. As a result, Fuze has invested heavily in its data centers.

The investments in Cloud have helped Fuze to grow and serve its customers. We expect continued investment as demand continues to increase for Cloud based UCC offerings.

The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) recently recognized Fuze with the Certified Support Staff Excellence Center designation after the support organization achieved Level II certification.


Digital Workplace Service

RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2018-03 January 23, 2018

VII. Fuze Go To Market - Favorable

Overall approach to the Customer

Fuze has a direct sales approach to the market. With a focused Account Based Selling Strategy and strong Sales leadership, Fuze is gaining traction with an approach that is similar to what others such as Salesforce and Microsoft leverage.

Fuze uses a high touch and no nonsense approach that can speed up the customer journey. We would note that one of the things we like abut Fuze is that it does not make firms go through the same sort of negotiation as others (such as Microsoft) do for an enterprise agreement.

On top of that, even large firms like Cisco have had kinks in their armor by depending too much on third party distributors like CDW.

Sales/Distribution

The direct approach is working well for Fuze. With a new Chief Sales Officer, Chris Doggett, and strong leadership in Europe, Fuze is fighting the sales war on two fronts (see Note 4). The account wins are strong and we see Avaya, BroadSoft, Cisco, Unify, and Microsoft as key competitors.

For medium and large enterprises, having this approach to distribution works. We would highlight the fact that the very strong sales organization is one of Fuze’s key strengths. It has well trained Account Executives who are laser-focused on meeting customer needs.

That said, for smaller enterprises, being able to buy online is still an opportunity that Fuze will need to evaluate as it continues to meet the needs of both SMB and large enterprises.


Digital Workplace Service

RESEARCH NOTE Number: 2018-03 January 23, 2018

Support/Services

Fuze is still growing and fast growth companies often need to scale support, just as they scale up Sales. Because of the UCaaS and Collaboration offerings, Support for these offerings until recently was separate. This could create confusion for administrators. Fuze does have well documented escalation procedures, but sometimes there have been delays in callbacks.

We would note that the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) recently recognized Fuze with the Certified Support Staff Excellence Center designation after the support organization achieved Level II certification.

David Johnson recently joined Fuze as the SVP of Worldwide Customer Success and Support. He is an experienced Support executive and as such we expect Fuze to continue to make investments in Support to enhance the customer experience. Fuze recently named Hadrian Sousa the VP of Global Services under Chris Doggett. He brings more than 15 years of experience in presales and post sales engineering and professional services, extensive knowledge of best practices in channel partnerships, and strong leadership experience.

Note 4: Additional Members of the Fuze Management Team.

Chris Doggett was named Chief Sales Officer of Fuze in 2017.

David Johnson is the SVP of Worldwide Customer Success and Support.

.

Hadrian Sousa is the new VP of Global Services at Fuze.



VIII. Aragon Advisory

• As the UCC market evolves, enterprises shouldreevaluate their current approach to Collaboration andCommunications.

• Enterprises need to look holistically at Web and VideoConferencing for both ease of use and integration withother critical business applications.

• Enterprises may have to adopt complementary pointsolutions to accommodate specialized workers forspecific use cases.

• Fuze, as a Cloud-native UCC provider with a full techstack, is a leader in this emerging category.

IX. Bottom Line

The Unified Communications and Collaboration market is undergoing change and consolidation, as providers move services to the cloud and business leaders understand the transformational impact that video can have in the workplace, and with partners and customers. Fuze is an established leader in this growing market. Enterprises should evaluate Fuze and other leaders as they look to shift to a fully integrated Digital Communications Stack.

vendor power rating - offering enterprise cloud ... vendor... · leading providers in their...

Documents