© Copyright 2014 Kurmi Software S.A.S.

UCAAS MANAGEMENT PORTAL: BUILD OR BUY?

Abdel Kander, CEO Kurmi Software

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• You may be right in thinking that this is a rhetorical

exercise coming from Kurmi Software since we

make a living out of selling UCAAS Management

Portals therefore we should be deemed ill-placed to

make the case for the « Buy » option but we hope

you’ll detect at least some traces of intellectual

honesty!

Warning

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• Attraction

• Retention

• Upselling

The portal is the face of UCAAS

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• The basics are available

– Interfaces

– Web frameworks

– Developers

• Only needs to look good to customers

– “We’ll do the back office manually to start with”

• You probably have the functional expertise

– You know your stuff better than anyone else!

“Build”, a tangible possibility

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• Available R&D staff providers

– Good mix of on/off-shore

– Market is competitive enough to force bidding war

• Or maybe internal developers

– With 0 incremental cost

– Plus you gotta keep the guys busy, right?!

• Part of the project setup

– Then no ongoing cost

• Built to own specifications

– No customization costs

“Build”, the economics look good!?

ARE YOU SURE?!

« I DID SOMETHING FOR THE WORST POSSIBLE REASON -- JUST BECAUSE I COULD »

Bill Clinton on the Monica Lewinski affair, June 20, 2004, CBS 60 Minutes

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• UCAAS, unlike PAAS is a user-centric service

– Not an ICT play

– No matter how sophisticated is the Data Center, if the

phones don’t ring it’s bad!

• A good portal is the difference between making and

loosing money

– Delegation reduces costs and increases customer

satisfaction and retention

Some Fundamental factors

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• It’s a moving target…

– Customer/user expectations evolve

– New usage habits spawn new needs

• On shifting grounds

– Ecosystem vendors upgrade versions potentially

triggering new unscheduled developments for you

– Competitive landscape impose fast reaction

– “Nice to have” features become “Must have”

Some Fundamental factors

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• Four layers

– Connectivity

– Persistence

– Business Logic

– Rendering

What makes a robust architecture?

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• Ability to interact with underlying systems

– Query and modify every object and attribute

– While maintaining a coherent state at all time

– With roll-back capabilities

– Manage concurrent data access

– Throttling to avoid overload

• Handle many systems

– Different API technologies

– With orchestration capabilities (order of execution,

error handling…)

On Connectivity

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• You can’t do without it!

– If you have more than one underlying system

– Some tried and failed miserably!

• Intelligent data model

– To handle future evolutions

– With a business rather than an technical representation

– Enable own workflows

• Suspend a user

• Move users across systems

• Avoid collisions with ecosystem

– Manage multiple master data sources

– Graciously manage data conflicts

On Persistence

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• Capture Marketing requirements

– Service Packaging

– Customer interaction

• Translate functional scenarios into technical multi-step

multi-system workflows

– I.e. Downgrading from multi-line, premium device to a basic

package:

• Which line do you keep?

• Should you bother changing the device?

On Business Logic

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• Ergonomic design

• Adaptive and customizable

• Multi-language

On Rendering

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• Security

– Continued compliance with industry standards

– Network and database isolation

• Robustness

– Redundant platforms

– No SPOF

• Interaction with customer’s IS

– Active Directories

– Authentication systems

• Interaction with provider’s IS

– Ordering

– Billing

Other important considerations

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End-users

Customers Administrators

Internet

Load Balancer

Apache Cluster

Kurmi Cluster

SP SSO

DB Cluster

SP Information System

Unified Com. Platform For Company 1

Unified Com. Platform For Company 2

Unified Com. Platform For Company N

ARCHITECTURE & IS INTEGRATIONSP Administrators

billing

API

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• Proven compatibility with UCAAS model

– 2+ years of market experience

– Tier 1 and Tier 2 providers

– In many geographies

– Pay as you grow

• Many of our customers tried “Build” before

– And If they paid us that money, I would be driving a

Roll’s Royce!

The Economics of « Buy »