Markets Are Growing!
Statistics in a new industry report says that the telecom market is expanding. Telecom equipment and software sales rose 5.4 percent last year to $165.7 billion, with the sale of wireless devices accounting for much of the growth. Other areas driving growth are convergence, unified communications, and wireless services, as well as IP and IP-hybrid equipment.
Growth is expected at 10% in 2006!
- Another report estimates that the web conferencing market will grow at a 27.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2011. What are the key factors driving this growth? What are the strongest investment opportunities for investors in the market?
- In 2004, approximately 26 percent of revenues in the web conferencing market were generated from the small & medium business segment. What does this mean for large businesses in the marketplace? How can software vendors effectively capture this growing market segment?
- The software industry is currently experiencing a high level of consolidation activity as companies that were previously acquiring small market players are now being purchased. What factors are driving this market trend, and is it likely to continue into 2006?
Had Your Annual Check-Up?
The backbone of American commerce is the “Sales Department.” The saying is old, but true, that nothing happens in our economy until somebody sells something.
For the past two years, the Warranty Renewal Program at Forum Communications has been making it easier and easier for our product owners to maintain extended support agreements on their Confer III, ALERT and Consortium systems. We also recommend this as an ideal time for our dealers and our end users to sit down and assess how your teleconference system can help take you to the next step. We welcome suggestions from our dealers on how we can make this process “friendlier” for you.
Many things can happen in one year:
- New conferencing products and software upgrades are released
- Personnel moves, promotions, transfers
- Right-sizing or maternity leave moves workers to home offices
- Competitive influences require more travel
- Increased travel equals more remote conference calls
- Competitive influences require more meetings and less travel
- Increased training requirements
- Market positioning is revised
- New marketing programs utilize web conferencing to replace Open House events.
Facts you need to keep in mind and how to turn them into opportunities:
FACT: Forum’s WebMeet and Sympozium products let you host webinars for training and marketing events.
HOW TO: Email your invitations, provide a reason to register and attend, host a half hour webinar, streamline your prospecting and qualifying process with Forum’s web tools.
FACT: Customer’s may have increased incentives to buy, expand or upgrade their conferencing technology, NOW.
HOW TO: Call and ask them! Create a list of new features that interest you and talk about them, such as how the Confer systems now have an attendance report option. This may be a good time to upgrade a Confer system to add GUI controls and blast-dial functions to an existing system, or more ports. How about a trade-up to a Consortium or Sympozium? Both have many new features to increase efficiency and provide secure access to your calls.
FACT: More travel means employees have to work harder to accomplish what they used to do in the office.
HOW TO: While many executives are widely using PDA’s, on-line databases and schedulers along with other tools, this may be a good time to help your customers assess how they can use conference calls this year to eliminate some of that travel, or to schedule daily team meetings to track progress and eliminate delays while the boss is on a road trip? They may need to add blast-dial functions and scheduling to implement that smoothly. Guidelines and accountability may have to be enforced by management’s example. It is difficult for some to change a one hour water-cooler session into a five or ten-minute conference call. Is it worth the increase in productivity in today’s market? That’s up to your customer to decide.
RE-Use and RE-Cycle Technology
The U.S. Postal Service is considering a nationwide recycling program for computer and telecommunications equipment.1 Your local community may already have a recycle program for old PCs and outdated cell phones.
Depending on the size and culture in your community you may see any or all of the following:
- Private-sector companies that refurbish and re-sell used equipment
- Women’s shelters recycling cell phones for personal emergency calls
- Retail locations and mail-order companies recycle and refill toner/ink cartridges
- Non-profit agencies accept old PCs and peripherals for half-way houses & other training centers.
You may also have city-sponsored program for technology collection, primarily to keep old technology out of our landfills. Some programs may even break parts down into base components to recycle the plastic and metals involved.
You may work with companies that built their business on re-furbishing and re-selling legacy telephone systems or computers, knowing that what their large customers had outgrown might be a perfect and affordable fit for their small and growing business clientele. If you are supporting your legacy customers (or you may be a legacy customer trying to squeeze another year out of your system) take a close look at Forum’s extensive Product Menu. Our products are designed for maximum flexibility. Our Confer line can be connected to analog ports. We offer hybrid conferencing systems that let you connect to analog and T1, or T1 and VoIP (SIP). Our WebMeet B web conferencing product can bring your existing voice-conference capability into the new millennium. We offer many options for large and small business solutions! Ask Forum Communications how we can help to extend the life of your communications infrastructure.
1 The Postal Service envisions promoting
the recycle program using its 38,000 retail locations, 290,000 letter
carriers and an un-named business partner.
