14 replies to this topic

[hitman79]

Hi guys,

Recently, Cisco has reduced the price of UC500 series. This is a great news but my company is still struggilng to sell the product as there are other products in the market which are 1/10th of the price of this product. My company deals with the Small Business market in London. I have done around 8 UC520 installations mostly before the recession. Now as the company is struggling with selling the business and there are customers asking for a really cheap solution it is getting really hard for the company to sell this product and the sales team are coming back to us (technical guys) and asking us why cisco is more expensive then other manufacturers? I did some research and found out that Cisco is more reliable and have some extra features, when I told this to the sales team they laughed at me and said that mostly small businesses does not need a lot of features anyways. Now it has made me think that where does UC500 fits then?

Will appreciate your advice and thoughts on it.

Thanks.

[rova]

I think that UC500 series is for prestige SMB class, clients which will be proud with this brand.
This is clients which use cisco equipment they know about it benefits.

I don't like UC 500 because it uses Flash card with limited life insteаd hard disk for mail boxes.

[hitman79]

Thanks rova for your comments.

I think the people who know about Cisco its perfect to sell them. That means they are actually looking for Cisco products but the people who are just looking for A IP Telephony solution then its very difficult to convince.

I understand what you are trying to say, but the problem is UC500 series is geared towards small business which means that most probably there wont be any IT guy in the company or these guys will not have the understanding of networking/IP telephony.....so that rules out the possibility of these guys knowing about Cisco.

Will love others comments on it as well.

Thanks.

[ComputerDude]

You said Cisco is lowering the price of the UC500. Out of curiosity how much cheaper are we talking? The lowest I have seen a UC520 for is 1800 dollars.

[hitman79]

Hi Computer Dude,

Not sure how much they have reduced the price, but I know it is still not cheap. Can find the actual price from the Sales team if you would like.

Thanks.

[ComputerDude]

Hi Computer Dude,

Not sure how much they have reduced the price, but I know it is still not cheap. Can find the actual price from the Sales team if you would like.

Thanks.

No need to go out of your way. I was just curious if you knew off the top of your head. I had looked at implementing a UC520 where I work but I think we are just barely too large for it as it only supports approximately 80+ phones if I remember correctly. So it looks like we will go with a full call manager suite (probably way over kill) but I am not complaining because I know next to nothing about the VoIP world so it will be a good learning opportunity for me

Thanks

[ArronG]

Hi guys,

Recently, Cisco has reduced the price of UC500 series. This is a great news but my company is still struggilng to sell the product as there are other products in the market which are 1/10th of the price of this product. My company deals with the Small Business market in London. I have done around 8 UC520 installations mostly before the recession. Now as the company is struggling with selling the business and there are customers asking for a really cheap solution it is getting really hard for the company to sell this product and the sales team are coming back to us (technical guys) and asking us why cisco is more expensive then other manufacturers? I did some research and found out that Cisco is more reliable and have some extra features, when I told this to the sales team they laughed at me and said that mostly small businesses does not need a lot of features anyways. Now it has made me think that where does UC500 fits then?

Will appreciate your advice and thoughts on it.

Thanks.

Half of the time, the problem is not the initial cost of the kit, it's the greedy salespeople !
I have come accross this situation many times...

Customer A has two telephone system quotations. Their requirements are simple. 10 users,
10 DDI's, BRI ISDN and voicemail.

Telecom Company A Quoted £5000 for a Samsung system
System £3400
Handsets £1000
Installation £600

Telecom Company B Quoted £8400 for a Cisco system
System £3900
Hansdets £1000
Project Management £1000
Installation £1000
Maintenance £1000
SmartNet £500

As most salespeople get paid on commission it is in their best interests to bundle as much services and products
they can get away with. This looses a huge amount of deals.
I'm not denying the fact that Cisco is a more expensive product, but you get what you pay for.

When I'm up against another company selling non-Cisco kit we always enquire (subliminal of course) the type of
budget and the weightings involved. If the company is dependent on price then they get a quote for the raw basics, if they
are looking for the best system for their needs then we normally get the deal !

ArronG

[hitman79]

Hi ArronG,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I know what you are trying to say, but I have worked with my Sales team in compiling a couple of quotations and also went to a couple of initial meetings. I found out that the companies are been quoted for a Samsung or a Linksys systems (or similar) which are very cheap as compare to Cisco. Obviously, the client asked us the question why should they pay more when they can get such a cheap solution. Apart from reliability and good support in favour of Cisco, I did not know much about the other systems, so we could not convince the clients why the Cisco system worth the price.

The second doubt in my mind is (and that is mainly with VoIP) that if the system is so expensive, will the customers really spend money on it to buy it? Does that leave with the options of doing (putting a lot of effort, time and money in) CCVP or CCIE-Voice. Because if there are no customers, then there will be no jobs either.

I will appreciate anyones response on this.

Thanks.

[rova]

I will try to make comparison between VoIP and cars:

Asterisk - Hand made tunning car
Samsung - Dacia Logan
Cisco - Mercedes

Which one you will prefer?
Keep in mind iconomical situation now.

[hitman79]

Hi rova,

I think this is a good comparision. This suggests that obviously companies in this economic situation will go for economical solutions. The thing I am worried about is, if Cisco is expensive than the other manufacturers then do you think we will reach to a stage where no one will buy Cisco equipment and will go for the cheaper options? and hence there will be no jobs around (or not many jobs around)?

Thanks.

[rova]

No I don't think that soon nobody will buy cisco voice equipment. Cisco is the leader in voice industry, it make standarts,for example they implement first new voice codes g722 and ilbc in his voice gateway.
Asterisk is implement for free from long time ago but Cisco sells his top products so.
If you know how to configure cisco with less efort you can implement samsung, asterisk and any other equimpment.

[hitman79]

yah, thats true. Considering that Cisco does spend time and money in research. I recently found this link which is quite interesting.

h**p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8056083.stm

[ArronG]

yah, thats true. Considering that Cisco does spend time and money in research. I recently found this link which is quite interesting.

h**p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8056083.stm

That's right. Cisco are in a minority group of top 500 worldwide companies who plough a
vast sum of money every year into research, development and making their products better.
(A good selling point).
I can't remember which manufacturer it was but Cisco invested more money in R&D than that company
turned over in VoIP product sales !
All good salespeople who sell Cisco kit should be officially trained, or at least as a SMB Account Manager.
That will give a good understanding of the lifecycle of Cisco, USP's and essentially the deal makers.
It is always a huge advantage to know your competitors products.
I've had to learn about Mitel, Nortel, Avaya, Alcatel, Samsung and a few others to build a good sales pitch and
basically play on the missing functionality of the competitors products.
It's no use selling blind, know the market and know the competition.

As far as engineering training goes for CCIE Voice and CCVP....
They're here to stay. There is a massive amount of existing CallMangers, CUCM and CME out there in everyday use.
These customers will upgrade to new versions and products and will always need support, maintenance and installation etc.
New sales may be difficult in the SMB arena during these seemingly struggling times but there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

ArronG

[hitman79]

Hi ArronG,

Thanks a lot for your reply. This will really help me keep going .

[hitman79]

Hi everyone,

After reducing the price of UC520, Cisco has reduced the price of BE as well by 60%. Intresting, because now it is cheaper than buying with NFR (50%).