CoreDial Acquisition Key to BCM One Competing Against RingCentral, 8×8, Vonage

BCM One and CoreDial coming together via acquisition provides more muscle to compete against RingCentral, 8×8 and Vonage.

That’s according to Jon Arnold, principal of J Arnold & Associates. The deal, which we first told you about last week, combines CoreDial’s strategy, team and technology with BCM One’s SkySwitch platform.

J Arnold & Associates’ Jon Arnold

Competing against RingCentral, 8×8 and Vonage is a “tough slog,” Arnold said.

“The more critical mass you can get in this space, it’s just going to be easier to compete against these cloud guys who frankly don’t offer as good a long-term business play as what CoreDial and BCM One offer because they will allow the channel to own the customer,” he said. “The customers can brand their own. That’s not so easy to do if you go with RingCentral, 8×8 or Vonage. You don’t own the customer in the same way.”

BCM One-CoreDial Acquisition Combines the ‘Best’ in UCaaS

Paula Como Kauth is BCM One’s vice president of marketing.

BCM One’s Paula Como Kauth

“This transaction combines the No. 1 and No. 2 white-label UCaaS platform providers into one,” she said. “It leverages the best technology strategists into one company to continue to evolve our private-label solution. This transaction combines the best UCaaS experts and professionals to arm resellers with the most advanced and most reliable communications and collaboration platform.”

This acquisition came about to support BCM One’s continued confidence and investment in UCaaS market growth, particularly to support hybrid working environments, Como Kauth said. Gartner predicts that by 2023, the number of remote workers will have doubled to over two-thirds of digital workers. Moreover, by 2024, 75% of business users will not use a traditional desk phone. That’s up from 30% in 2020.

“SkySwitch (BCM One’s white-label UCaaS brand) and CoreDial have been direct competitors selling private label UCaaS solutions,” she said. “Together this creates an enhanced white-label UCaaS offering providing the best-in-class technology to empower MSPs, VARs, SIs and channel partners with a reliable and cost-efficient UCaaS platform to deliver to their SMB customers.”

Combined Partner Programs

BCM One and CoreDial’s partner programs will combine over the course of 2022, Como Kauth said.

“Keep in mind, BCM One and SkySwitch will continue to support the existing CoreDial UCaaS platform and partners,” she said. “But now existing CoreDial partners also have the opportunity to diversify their private-label UCaaS offering to the SkySwitch platform if they choose.”

This kind of “rollup” with BCM One and CoreDial has been inevitable, Arnold said.

“There are a lot of small regional players that are under capitalized, so you can pull them together for critical mass,” he said. “It’s a little like what RingCentral is doing with all these partnerships with Avaya, Atos and Mitel to get the footprint. CoreDial has always been a really good, strong player. They’ve done a great job. So this is a logical move.”

Players like CoreDial give the channel an easy way to get into the business, Arnold said.

“One of the key things that CoreDial brings is a platform called CoreNexa,” he said. “That allows the channel to get into the business end to end. It takes care of the billing, it pays [state taxes] because that’s a messy business, and they provide the marketing support. So CoreDial is really good at that. BCM One has kind of a similar model, but I think CoreDial brings a stronger focus on that.”

CoreDial Didn’t Need to Sell

CoreDial also has a good mobile piece and a good contact center piece, Arnold said. But more importantly it brings a customer base.

“CoreDial didn’t need to sell,” he said. “They’re good guys and they know what they’re doing. But like any of them, they all have a regional base that they grew from [and] that’s a hard model to scale on a national basis. So when you put these pieces together now, it becomes a little easier to do that.”

In UCaaS, there are a lot of companies and they all have good offerings, Arnold said.

“But I wouldn’t say anyone is markedly better than the other,” he said. “They’re all good at what they do. So the long-term, sustainable success is to execute. How well can you get to market, acquire customers and keep customers. And that’s where a platform like CoreNexa really helps because you’re good to go. All these guys have to do is sell and service their customers, and we’ll take care of the rest for you. And that’s an attractive model for those guys.”