How Channel UC is pioneering cloud communications – empowered by smart APIs and Enreach

Sydney-based cloud communications enabler Channel UC is set to accelerate its growth to the next level, thanks to a combination of market experience, investment in technology and people, and how it differentiates its proposition to its channel partners through added-value wraparound services, such as call centres and recording apps. Enreach for Service Providers is essential to Channel UC’s go-to-market strategy, chosen for its technology and commitment to fostering an excellent working relationship. Through its cloud-based UC platform, with flexible multi-branding and multi-tenancy options, Enreach enables advanced telephony and a foundation for integration across a wide range of third party applications and services from Channel UC and selected vendors, to create an open ecosystem of choice for partners and their customers.  

Headquartered in the heart of North Sydney’s business district, Channel UC is a cloud communications enabler that gives resellers, telco carriers and MSPs across Australia a comprehensive source for their customers’ ICT requirements. Building on over a decade of IP telephony and unified communications experience, the company’s strategic approach to the marketplace puts it in a solid position to help its partners embrace growth opportunities in the region today.  

Beyond hosted telephony, Teams and Operator Connect, one of the most significant benefits of Channel UC’s approach is its focus on adding value through additional wraparound and integrated services. This line with the growing demand for converged contact solutions across communications, collaboration, and productivity, for which “The market demand is ready, says Brad Milne, Managing Director, Channel UC. “Different wraparound services that plug into our telephony or Microsoft solution make us more attractive to our partners and make them more sticky to their end users.” 

To deliver these wraparound services, Channel UC has carefully selected a set of vendors, each specialist in their field, across areas including contact centre solutions, call recording, analytics, and CRM integrations. This more blended approach also supports ICT convergence, an existing and robust trend in Australia, with managed service providers traditionally focused on IT moving into the telecom space and vice versa.  

Another major trend in the region is the massive adoption of Microsoft, including a push for integration with traditional phone systems into Microsoft, especially in the mid-range market.  

Brad provides an example of this in practice: “The Enreach platform integrates with Microsoft Teams and provides all the telephony elements. So when you make a call, Enreach is running that, but Microsoft is driving the chat and video. Plus, there is integration with other applications, such as contact centres, CRMs, and reporting tools.” 

Since the environment is cloud-based, partners and their customers can choose how they would like to communicate, such as via a softphone and headset or more traditional phone systems. Adds Brad, “Even on the Microsoft side, we see many people still taking the phone, while people prefer using a headset. So it depends on who you're selling to: this is about giving people options.”  

Underpinning all these capabilities is Enreach for Service Providers’ cloud-based UC platform, providing core telephony functionality and more. The relationship between the two organisations dates back to 2017 when Channel UC was looking for a hosted telephony platform and, by coincidence, a chance conversation on an aeroplane led to Channel UC adopting Enreach’s cloud-based unified communications platform in 2018.  

The collaboration between the two companies has grown year on year, and the Enreach platform is an integral part of how Channel UC delivers its portfolio.  

Brad cites the quality of the relationship between the two companies as critical. “People buy from people, and we have an excellent historical relationship with the Enreach team.” Brad and his team know that should they have any questions, they can pick up a phone and speak directly to one of the Enreach team. “Having a good relationship is as important as the quality of the hosted telephony platform.” 

That said, Enreach’s innovative technology platform plays a vital role and goes beyond telephony to make a broader contribution to Channel UC’s wraparound services strategy. Notably, the latest version of Enreach’s open API suite is designed to simplify seamless integrations with other vendors’ solutions even further.  

Says Brad, “We can plug our chosen specialist vendors into the UC platform because Enreach’s approach is to ‘play nice’ with other vendors, even competitors. Also, when selecting those vendors, we always look closely at their APIs, too.” 

“For instance, through the Enreach API suite, we integrate a contact centre solution into the Enreach platform so that Enreach provides the telephony component, and the other vendor provides the contact centre features. Also, there is visibility of user presence across the entire environment, so colleagues can see whether or not they are available to take a customer call.” 

Furthermore, Channel XChange — Channel UC’s OSS BSS portal — has been built in-house but is enabled by Enreach, providing partners with an easy-to-use experience. “Exchange is our portal where our partners can carry out ordering and provisioning, including licences, SIP trunks, direct routing, Microsoft Teams, and Operator Connect.”  

Through the Enreach platform, Channel UC will also expand the range of white labelling options available to its partner community: “There is a massive demand for this, and so we are excited about the additional white labelling options the Enreach platform is designed to provide.” 

Channel UC has also spent the past couple of years investing in its structure and people, with operations, professional services, pre-sales, sales, billing, marketing and development teams. “We have a very strong set of departments, we know the partner community, and, through our history, we are known as an organisation to trust. Together with our technology capabilities, all this means to scale to the next level. Our partner community is already expanding daily and across the range in size terms, for instance, a recent project to support over 4,000 enterprise end users.”  

With its future-facing focus, innovative technology adoption, expertise and experience, Channel UC is in a position to continue its impressive growth and, at the same time, help Australia’s channel community make the most of the many opportunities available to them and their customers. Enreach for Service Providers looks forward to continuing to help Channel UC on its mission to be a leading cloud communications enabler in the region. 

Download the business case here