Hybrid Communications That Actually Work

Hybrid communications is easy to praise and hard to pull off, especially when your reality includes on-prem systems, private cloud requirements, public cloud apps, and a growing buy-in committee that can hit dozens of stakeholders. We talk with Jonathan Buckle, VP of the Americas at Mitel, about what hybrid unified communications actually looks like when you refuse to force customers into a single model and instead design around how organizations really operate. 

We get concrete about the process: why discovery matters more than demos, how vertical expertise in healthcare, education, hospitality, retail, and the public sector speeds up decision-making, and why workflow integration is often the quickest route to real outcomes. Jonathan shares what he’s seeing in the market as vendors consolidate or exit categories and why that shift is pushing more organizations to rethink voice, UC, and the day-to-day systems their teams rely on. 

Frontline workers are a major focus, from nurses and operators to school staff and hotel teams. We dig into what changes when you sit next to the people doing the work, how simplicity beats feature creep, and why Mitel’s WX UC client is built to make training easier while surfacing workflow triggers directly in the user experience. 

If you’re modernizing business communications and you’re tired of “either cloud or on-prem” debates, this conversation will help you pressure-test your plan. Subscribe, share this with your IT team, and leave a review, then tell us: what would “no compromise” need to mean for your organization to believe it?

Transcript

Meet Mitel And The Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey everybody, really excited for this next guest from a global communications powerhouse known as Mitel. Jonathan, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I am good, Evan. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Doing well. Right in the midst of summer, uh second half of the year starting now. So really excited to catch up with my all things MITEL. Before that, maybe introduce yourself or your role. And how do you describe Mitel these days?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

So, Jonathan Buckle, I am VP of the Americas. Uh yeah, it's June already. Where does time go, Evan? Um, yeah, what's going on at Mitel? Well, quite a lot right now. Uh, and it's all good. So uh I've been here a couple of years. No bad days to report yet, Evan. So um, you know, as long as I can keep that record going, things are good.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Indeed. And you guys have been on a tear and innovation and announcements and partnerships globally. So lots going on. When you look at the communications landscape, um, how do you describe where MITEL fits on that landscape at the moment?

Why Hybrid Is Now The Default

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And um maybe describe the competitive uh uh perspective as well. It's a category that's been changing a lot the last few years, and you've been uh really doubling down on your positioning and leadership.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, well, I think in IT just generally, change is constant because ultimately that's what IT does enable. Um I I think really, you know, we're in the hybrid space, and uh some of those decisions were taken years ago uh from the from the organization. And uh I think now what we see in you know with our customers and in in the industry is this you know, hybrid is actually very top of mind for a lot of the, you know, all customers today, you know, whether they're small, medium, or or enterprise size. Um so you know, I think I think that's one of the critical things we see, you know, just right now. And I think that just generally the world has been either you know one or the other, your on-prem or your cloud in in you know, going back a few years, and now this hybrid category uh is is very real. Um but with a lot of you know, you could say our competitors, they're either one or the other, and they try to blend it, but there's always some compromises when you try and do that. But with myself, there's absolutely no compromises. I mean, we genuinely can uh do hybrid, you know, where people put our solutions. Uh we actually don't really care. It could be on-prem, it could be private cloud, it could be public cloud. What we do know is it works seamlessly in all those modes, um, and you can mix and match, which gives um gives myself a real clear lane uh with the customers that are looking to that type of solution.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Brilliant. Well, the the benefits of of such a broad solution are pretty obvious, but also given all those different deployment models, how do you help IT teams cut through the complexity and land on the right model, maybe the right answer for them without getting lost in so much choice, so many options?

Discovery First Before The Tech

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah. Um easy to say, hard to do in practice, but what we try and do is put, you know, get thinking about you know the customer scenario and putting ourselves in, you know, the customers' shoes to a certain extent. Um we spend uh a lot of effort in our discovery with our clients and customers and through our partners as well. Um, you know, there is a tendency to rush to a solution. Uh, you know, it's this box, it's this widget, that's just IT in general. Um, and we, you know, we generally love tech. I think you love tech, I love tech. Um, but I think one of the significant advantages we have is that we've always been a vertical focused business. So we know a lot, not everything, but when we go and engage with any type of customer, we have a lot of knowledge about the vertical they operate in, you know, whether that be healthcare or government, you name it. We'll probably talk about that in this uh in this session, Evan. But um we know a lot, but we don't know everything. So you have to, you know, understand that organization and as best we can. We try and you know, fit ourselves in and you know, go broad um with the stakeholders that we engage with, because there's many people who have a say in these decisions these days. Numbers of you know, people on you know buy-in committees is growing and growing. I had an example just yesterday of nearly 60 people from a customer being invited to a discovery kickoff. That's a lot of lot of meetings to get through. But honestly, we will invest 60 meetings and 60 hours because then we'll be able to help the customer actually go on the right path and the and the right journey. So we have a best practice, you know, we like to identify specific use cases and you know, take the agile approach as we deploy them. Uh, and I think where we see the biggest impact for our customers are in that sort of workflows and integration space, because that's where you get um very quick wins and you often solve some of the biggest challenges that our customers have.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Love that.

Fixing Frontline Communication Gaps

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Another area you're particularly focused on investing in are frontline workers. So notoriously sort of underserved uh from many companies and with regard to technology, undersupported, sadly, whether it's you know nurses or hotel staff or production lord uh floor teams, they're all central now to your strategy. Uh what's your perspective there? Are are you uh in terms of updating and refreshing their communications? Uh how's that process going? And are are you seeing traction in upgrading frontline worker communications?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Uh yeah, I mean, I think um generally underserved as a community, right? And most of our customers are in this um public community service business. Uh some of them are businesses like hospitality, clearly. Um, but I I think the view from organized, you know, between different organizations varies. Sometimes, you know, they're part of you know, an you know, a project or an engagement for improvement, and other times they're not. Um sometimes it's budgeted, sometimes it's not. Um I think as I've talked about how many people are involved, sometimes it's difficult to get consensus between groups when there's so many stakeholders. So you know, be careful what you wish for when you know frontline workers are engaged, but genuinely, like to understand how those people operate, you have to go and sit next to them and do it. I mean, I just need a laptop on a headset, and I am good. Uh but we spent um uh a few weeks recently with one of our customers where we sat with the operators in a healthcare organization, they play a very specific functional role. Now we know this specific customer would like to improve that that workflow and that process, but also the experience not only for the their patients, but also the internal members of the team. And until you sit there and observe it from we were there for an entire day, or my team was there for an entire day, you don't really understand what you're trying to achieve and the outcome. So, you know, a lot of the time with the customers where we're not engaged with the sort of you know, the line of business or the front line, um, a lot of the times we're educating the IT teams about, you know, the art of the possible and and some of the things we see from other customers. And we quite often refer, you know, a local customer in a similar vertical where we might have done something along similar lines, you know, just just so they can hear it from you know someone in the industry rather than you know my tell and the and the sales team here.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Brilliant.

Making No Compromise Feel Real

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Um looking at your website, your positioning is sort of uh communications without compromise, which it sounds great. Sounds like a bit of marketing speak, though. Uh when you're in the room with a skeptical IT director. Uh that sounds like marketing, but what version of that story really cuts through and what how is it grounded in reality?

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Um yeah, um you know, we've had this huge traction in, you know, the frontline, as I said, the the verticals where frontline workers are. So healthcare, education, retail more recently, hospitality for years and years. Um, obviously all the public sector. And um, yeah, these are the areas where sort of the flexibility of our solution is sort of that advantage that we that we have. And I um, you know, there are skeptical people out there, um, and we all hate being sold to. We all absolutely hate it. And our approach generally is to um really come up with good solutions that customers will buy. Uh, and that is probably more marked in speak again. Um, but it's true in our own lives and in the world of business, you know, quite often, you know, there's a lot of research done before anyone would engage the vendor or the partner or anybody involved in the sale, right? And so um, you know, we're not that type of organization that is, you know, we're obviously driven by revenue and things like that, but honestly, you know, customers will buy if you can solve problems or improve their their you know their business outcomes. And that's the way we approach it. And really what we've seen, particularly in the past 18 months, is this, and I mentioned it before, the integrations and workflow piece. Um, we have a huge, hugely compelling story there, but typically that's always been in the CC space, but we can deliver it in the UC space, which is where it has this big impact on the front line that perhaps um they've been omitted from you know getting some of those benefits in the past.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Brilliant. Well, you guys have always been known to have a very practical approach, uh, so definitely uh can see that working out well. You've gotten to know a lot of your customers. Probably there are too many customers to get to know personally, but without getting uh picking uh a favorite child, can you tell a customer story that really stood out to you and the team that kind of captures what you guys can do that uh perhaps others can't?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Um yeah, well, I think culture in our organization uh um is very good and genuinely, and we are very proud of what we've achieved over the many years we've been in business. And I've not been here too long, uh not like many of our team members, but um some you know, we finish a project and quite often we can take a step back and see an impact in, you know, quite often a community that some of us reside in, right? And and I'll give you one example from recently, and there's lots of examples. Uh so I suppose that's a good problem to have. Um and I can't name the customer, but you know, we do a lot in education. And I remember a principal like of a of a school, a larger school, he wrote us this letter and he said the new phone system, I think he used the word transformational. And like to a lot of us in this industry, it's a phone system. How can that be transformational? Like, but it is in the workflows if they've been on something that's you know 10 years old or 15 years old, right? It it creates a big impact for the you know, not only the admin staff, but the teachers and school security and everything like that. So that was great. And that was one score within this larger project. And then the project wrapped up, and we had um an email from the IT team, the project team that delivered it. And um, they basically said that our ability to adapt on all these challenges on the project, they used the word remarkable. So I remember two words transformational and remarkable. And that's testament to, you know, I think the passion, the commitment, you know, the care that our teams and our partners actually put into these projects because you know, we've all sent kids to school, we stay in hotels, you know, we need the government. We try and avoid hospitals, but you know, the healthcare, you know, we have to, you know, sometimes we have to go. So um I would say that, you know, we are in a good position with our references, uh, the customers that are part of our MITOL user group. Um, and quite often I would say that you know, this voice technology gets pushed down the priority list, but it is transformational, it is remarkable, um, and it is the critical workflow that a lot of organizations, you know, still still rely on. So um, you know, uh good good from my perspective.

A Sales Process Built On Trust

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Well done. Uh so on the sales side, let's talk about your sales approach. Uh it's amazing this industry uh has such a variety of sales approaches from going to a website and clicking and buying a communication service and never talking to a human being to going to a one-person bar around the corner that's uh sold telephony for 30 years and really uh almost a dinosaur. Uh but you guys have reinvented your sales approach over the last number of years. How would you describe it? And what are you guys doing that maybe others aren't in this market in the Americas?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Yeah, yeah. Uh well, uh yes, we have put a lot of effort into um re-engineering, you could say, our sales workflow. Um, to put it in the context of this conversation, Evan. Uh I would say honestly, we don't take anything for granted. Um, and you use the word brilliant a lot, and I love brilliant because I'm English British, right? Um and we say brilliant a lot. Um and I and I see it as three things, right? Very, very simply, in a buy-in decision from a customer, there's three things that I think are the most important, right? Does the solution fit the requirements of their business? And I and I'm alluded to the fact that we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we fully understand, you'll never get everything, but as much as we can about the impact of the solution and what we're trying to achieve. So, you know, that's number one. Does the does the product fit? Does it work? And you know, 99% of the time, you know, if you've got a customer looking for what my tell does, which is hybrid communications critical, then we're in we're in good shape. The second piece of that, um, is it affordable? Like, is the um time to deliver it, you know, does that meet the criteria of the customer? Because again, some of these things are complex. Can you actually execute on the project? Because we know many projects about. So the second thing is like, you know, commercially is it viable? And you know, we're in um, we have a strong position in that and we understand the markets we operate in. We do operate in very price-sensitive markets, right? We still offer perpetual licenses because I've sat in front of customers who say, if you try and charge me OpEx, I can't buy your solution. So we listen to our customers and make sure that we can, you know, not only deliver the products, but we have commercial solutions for them, because you know, again, certain businesses get funded in different ways. And then I think the third thing we focus on is the customer experience, right? Because even if you have the first two things right and the best product in the world, if you're all, you know, your customer relationship or the experience is not strong or not world-class, as I would say, brilliant, we could say, then the customer will pick something else. And I think far too often the service levels across you know the world, not just in IT sales, but in my personal life, are not good enough. And then you always try and seek out the you know, the businesses and the companies that do deliver that customer excellence, and that's what we strive for every day.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Brilliant.

WX Client Built For Simplicity

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Uh, on the product side, you've had uh more announcements and releases, new products in the portfolio than I can uh name on on one hand or two hands. So I won't try to list them all, but is there one in particular that you're seeing a lot of traction with and maybe solving a problem in the market that no one else is addressing?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, um, there's definitely one, and there's that we do have a lot of products, I must admit. I came across one the other day that I'd never even heard of. So, but it's like embedded in things. So I'm like, all right, now I know. Anyway, so it has got a name, I just didn't know it as that name. Um, I suppose the one innovation I'm most excited about is the WX, and that's uh uh a lot of RD teams working very hard on that. I give them a hard time, they need to work faster. Um, but um I would say that most UC clients out there, and WX is our next generation UC client. I might have got that wrong with my marketing team, but that's how I see it. And uh most of them have been built, you know, since well, you know, since the pandemic for the knowledge workers, and they're getting to the point now, and I use them, don't get me wrong, but they're over, they're sort of complex, they're over-engineered, and you've got this feature creep amongst many different applications on the desktop, and you know, a lot of end users push back on them. Um, and our WX solution is really gonna flip the script on that because it is designed for people using it every day, like whether that be frontline workers or knowledge workers. But I like the simplicity and the intuitive nature of the interface, because you know, if you you've got to think about training when you're rolling things out, and what I'm used to is to what a you know, a nurse or a teacher is used to is very different, and the use case is very different. So, simplicity, I think, is a good thing when everyone's trying to have complexity and add features. What we're really adding to it is work is basically the ability to trigger workflows from the client, right? So that integration and workflow piece, you know, can get surfaced for the use thing user in the WX client. And um, I think for the you know, a lot of customers on the front, you know, particularly where they have a lot of frontline workers, that's been a frustration over recent years. And and that's the gap we're really fixing with our WX solution that's um um due very shortly, because I know we're trying it right now um with a number of customers and internally.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Fantastic.

Owning Hybrid Over The Next Years

SPEAKER_00 19:04

So taking a look at the broader communications landscape you've acquired and and uh and built a lot of additional market share. Uh categories are being redrawn, legacy vendors are exiting the market. Where do you see my tell the next one, two, five, five years, even? Uh where do you hope to be?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Um I gotta pick up on this. Hope is not a strategy. That's what uh a book I read once. So um, yeah, where do I see SLs in five years? If we get everything right, there's an if um and a but in that. But um, I'd say we own the hybrid and vertical categories we operate in. Um I think there's gonna carry on being consolidation, you know, perhaps in the cloud space and things like that. There are so many vendors. Um, you know, but you know, we would own the spaces that you know we want to own because we're you know basically de facto, and we'll never take that for granted. But you know, if you're looking for our type of solution, then that's uh that's where I see because um honestly the true our true competitors that can do hybrid are deciding they don't want to do that anymore, you know. And so we've seen, you know, we've seen exits from the market, we've seen strategy changes with some of our competitors. And so, you know, some of those customers in these verticals, particularly that we operate in, are um not say the you know, we uh we've had such a surge. Like one of my biggest challenges as we go into the second half of this year is just keeping up. Like it really is keeping up with um many, many customers that want to engage with either MyTel and or MyTel and our partners just you know to solve some of the problems they face.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Well, exciting times. Congratulations on all the success and onwards and upwards.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Thank you, Evan. Thanks, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Thanks, Jonathan. Thanks everyone for listening and watching. Also, be sure to check out our TV show, techimpact.tv on Bloomberg Television and Fox Business. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Jonathan. Thank you.