DRaaS: Another Arrow in the Partner’s UCaaS Quiver

The cloud can provide added piece of mind in the event disaster strikes.

With so many businesses adopting unified communications – and bringing along the cloud – partners should be aware of the disaster-recovery options that go with it.

We’ve compiled this one-stop shop on disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), beginning with that initial customer conversation all the way through post-sale.

**Source material by Michael Finneran**

Go in-depth with DRaaS with Michael’s Report, “UC Demands Rethinking Disaster Recovery Plans.” Click here for access.

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Customers, for the most part, now understand the basics.

They know the business benefits that make the move to UC as a service — productivity, agility and cost savings being the big three.

But there are important disaster-recovery benefits that give partners an ace up their sleeve when talking to customers.

A channel partner would be wise to heed these bullet points and explain to a client the many ways that downtime can impact their business.

Take five minutes and enter some numbers into this downtime calculator. It could be a real eye-opener.

With disaster recovery as a service, even small businesses get uninterrupted access to application services and data.

Customers, however, might think their on-premises system is virtually disaster-proof. But when you ask them these questions, they might hem and haw a little bit.

There are different types of disasters, and every company has different needs.

As with any sale, “know your customer” is a critically important adage. The more you know, the better solution you can sell.

Many vendors’ UC platforms are all-encompassing, meeting a whole host of unified communications and collaboration needs. Naturally, that’s appealing to the customer.

Here’s a link to the Nemertes UC&C benchmark mentioned in the graphic above.

Partners looking for more than the recurring revenue that pours in from the sale of DRaaS/UCaaS should remember that keeping the line of communication open with the customer could lead to some professional-services opportunities.

Consider your ability to recognize key vulnerabilities and potentially add services or equipment that could help avert or lessen a disaster’s impact.

Furthering that point …

Many businesses test their fire-alert procedures once a year, and testing the fortitude of a disaster-recovery service is no different.

Network techs, in fact, should conduct live tests of each application, system and failure scenario regularly. Partners can monitor these drills for speed and effectiveness, then recommend upgrades — a value-add.

Backup power and network access should also be tested frequently and maintained.