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Differentiation for the Channel with Mia Distribution

15 Jul 2019

Taking a unique approach to UCaaS for resellers  

With their “Channel UC” solution and UCaaS platform, Eclipse (powered by Centile Telecom Applications), Mia Distribution hopes to deliver robust and world-renowned communication solutions.   

As the unified communication environment continues to transform and evolve, countless new companies are beginning to get involved in the environment. There’s an opportunity still in this growing market for anyone who can differentiate and offer real value to their customers. Mia Distribution aims to be one of those providers of truly lucrative experiences in the UC space. 

Mia Distribution historically started off by supplying end-to-end UC hardware products to companies via the APAC reseller channel, with vendors like Cisco, Poly, Yealink, and Jabra. However, now, the organisation has moved into a new strategy for 2019, creating a brand-new voice enablement strategy for the reseller channel partners who want to offer their end-customers a more comprehensive UCaaS solution. The updated offering from Mia Distribution comes with everything from all-in-one cloud-based billing, to tier 1 carrier interconnect for SIP trunk and more. With their “Channel UC” solution and UCaaS platform, Eclipse (powered by Centile Telecom Applications), Mia Distribution hopes to deliver robust and world-renowned communication solutions. 

I connected with the Sales and Product Manager of Mia Distribution, Matt Milne, to learn more about what Mia Distribution is doing to stand out with their UCaaS offering in the Australian marketplace. 

Tell Us About Mia Distribution 

As companies like Cisco continue to grow, there’s a good chance that we’ll see more small and agile service providers and distributors building out their own competitive solutions. Mia Distribution is just one of the companies entering the market this year. According to Matt, it’s a family-run offering that’s been running for about 8 years now, starting as a telephony distributor before building an end-to-end UCaaS offering

“We started to develop more value-added niche skills so that we could home in on something unique. We also have an open-standards approach which fits with any platform” 

“The business is really growing with this flexibility, and we can connect with any customer – no matter how big or small.” 

Mia Distribution has hundreds of active resellers in their community. Although the organisation came a long way working with and developing through BroadSoft, they knew that they needed to do something different if they wanted to compete, which is why they decided to move to Centile – an agile environment for offering UCaaS. With Centile supporting their Eclipse UCaaS solution, they can provide resellers with a carrier-grade platform that comes packed with value-added applications like contact centre, mobile app integration, and CRM support. 

Mia still supports a lot of BroadSoft solutions, but they also found that it’s essential to have something unique to give their partners in the current environment. “With video conferencing from Zoom, Channel UC cloud-based billing, channel SIP, and full auto-provisioning functionality, we can give our resellers everything they need to become service providers in their own right. We’re taking away the complexity of a reliable UCaaS solution.” 

How Are You Empowering your Channel Partner Resellers? 

Through a selection of cloud-based billing platforms, unique value-added services, and carrier-grade SIP solutions, Mia Distribution aims to make sure that they’re not just a one-trick pony for their resellers. “There’s massive growth in UC throughout Australia now, which means that people can see a lot of value from the solutions that we offer. Mia can offer everything from all-you-can-eat SIP trunk packages to permanent SIP trunk rates and more.” 

The focus that Mia has on channel enablement means that resellers can have more direct ownership over the contract that they build with their end users, which drives more power towards the business. What’s more, because Mia started off as a UC hardware distributor, they were able to create relationships with key vendor partners so that they can even offer OpEX-based leasing models on headsets and handsets. The close relationship that Mia has with vendors ensures that they can also speed up the certification processes on new devices. 

Mia is making sure that resellers can offer best-in-class endpoints and UC solutions to its customers. The UC platform that they offer has also been thoroughly tested and is constantly supported by the Mia local support team. “Our team can handle all the porting for partners and the back-end infrastructure, while resellers get to choose the functionality and features that they want for their strategy. It’s a very popular model in Australia.” 

The Mia Distribution UCaaS offering through Centile is the “Eclipse” platform, which is available now, and according to Matt, has far exceeded the company’s expectations. “We’ve got two huge ISPs that are really helping us to scale, and we can provide support to resellers of any size – regardless of whether they’re large or small.” 

According to Milne, today’s resellers are looking for alternatives to options like Cisco in the current marketplace, because they want to make sure that they have something that suits their own strategy for UCaaS. The existing Australian space is educating itself about hosted solutions, and they’re getting increasingly interested in the cloud. “The way that we created this platform was to start off by giving exclusivity to 3 larger partners in 2018. This year, we rolled out the commercial platform, which has accomplished amazing things already. It’s growing at about 45% per month – which is huge when you consider that Cisco and Microsoft are there in the background.” 

Matt believes that the Mia Distribution offering provides a unique and compelling opportunity for UC endpoint vendors. They’ve been able to make it simpler for any channel partner to get started with one-touch provisioning and easy set-up. This means that channel partners can do amazing things with their offering from the ground up. “With our instant messaging, Zoom for video conferencing, cloud-based billing and carrier-grade SIP trunks, it’s a very compelling platform.” 

Additionally, all the while, Mia Distribution is focused on staying agile within the Centile environment, so that it can continue to differentiate. 

“The UC industry is an awesome place to be right now; we’ve found it to be an exciting and fast-growing space”