In today’s breakneck business technology landscape, where companies are racing to adopt new solutions and augment them with an ever-evolving repertoire of AI features, the choices companies have to make when it comes to choosing their solutions are mounting.
Thus, even something like selecting your UC platform represents a critical strategic decision for enterprises.
With options ranging from cloud-based solutions to hybrid deployments, organizations must carefully evaluate vendors against increasingly complex requirements spanning technical capabilities, integration potential, compliance standards, and future-ready innovations.
Such a decision-making process involves multiple stakeholders across departments, and even external consultancies, on what to implement.
But what exactly weighed heaviest on the decision-making process? To find out more, we spoke with Courtenay Mills, Head of Voice & Data at EfficiencyIT, about how they guided and worked with Motus Commercials, who, after weighing up the information, settled on their UC solution.
Navigating the Issues at Hand
Motus Commercials is one of the largest independent commercial vehicle dealer groups in the UK and the largest DAF trucks dealer globally.
They operate in excess of 30 locations across the UK. With so many sites came a problem, however. Motus Commercials had eight disparate communication systems running across its 30-plus sites.
Motus Commerical at a Glance
- The company has annual revenues of around £600 million and employs almost 1350 people across its operations
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It operates 13 ATF (Authorised Testing Facility) sites for DVSA MOT tests and has two specialist commercial vehicle body shops
- Motus Commercials is part of the wider Motus Group, a multinational automotive mobility provider with a significant presence in South Africa, the UK, and Australia
This resulted in data silos, difficulty communicating between sites, and an inability to get an overview of the analytics as a whole.
Understanding this problem was holding them back from their growth ambitions, they brought in the help of EfficiencyIT, a specialist consultancy and service provider that, among other things, offers UCaaS solutions. EfficiencyIT worked with Motus Commercial to translate their needs into the tech stack they required.
Consulting Key Decision Makers
As you would expect, these large decisions may include a number of people behind the decision. From EfficiencyIT’s side however, it was a lot more streamlined.
“Internally at EfficiencyIT, the decision regarding the UC platform direction was made exclusively by myself as Head of Voice and Data. I had total autonomy over this decision,”
Courtenay Mills, Head of Voice & Data, EfficiencyIT, told UC Today.
“At Motus Commercials, however, finance stakeholders, including Regional Directors, Commercial Directors, and Financial Directors, had significant influence, with final approval required from the UK MD, Group CEO, and CFO.”
Factors that influenced the decision for Motus Commercial included compliance, which Mills said was “heavily involved,” given the critical nature of data security and regulatory adherence.
Yet interestingly, the people you as an outsider would expect to be involved in the process were largely absent.
“Motus’s IT department was not directly involved, as the focus was primarily strategic and operational rather than purely technical,” Mills explained.
“Priorities across these stakeholders aligned around financial prudence, compliance, and operational efficiency, ensuring a unified strategic consensus.”
Perhaps because Motus Commercial was working with an IT consultancy, they felt more assured that the systems they were being integrated with would work.
However, it is interesting to see that IT was neither the driving force nor the leader of the transition.
Coming to a Decision
When embarking on the journey to select a unified communications platform, organizations often find themselves overwhelmed by feature comparisons and technical specifications.
For EfficiencyIT, however, the process began with a holistic view of potential partners rather than simply comparing product capabilities.
“The key non-vendor source influencing our UC vendor shortlist was Gartner’s Magic Quadrant,”
Mills explained.
“It provided a comprehensive and impartial evaluation of vendors from both UCaaS and CCaaS perspectives, allowing us to identify leaders based on market performance and technological capabilities.”
How Resellers and Service Providers Can Score Some Wins
This approach highlights the value of trusted third-party analysis when navigating complex technology ecosystems.
By leveraging analyst perspectives, EfficiencyIT gained critical insights into not only current vendor capabilities but also their market trajectory and innovation potential.
Mills and his team took their evaluation further by prioritizing vendors who owned their entire technology stack.
This strategic decision aimed to ensure “a single unified platform capable of seamless scalability and integration across all business units.”
This was a crucial consideration for Motus Commercial due to its geographically distributed operations.
Attractive Offerings
When weighing technical capabilities against vendor stability, Mills emphasized the importance of balance.
“Vendor stability and transparency were vital priorities during our selection process. Understanding the vendor’s financial health and clear technology roadmap provided confidence in their capability to support us long-term,” he noted.
Simultaneously, technical requirements like open API platforms remained critical for ensuring smooth integration with existing systems.
“Specifically, an open API platform was critical to ensure smooth integration with existing systems, including ERP and PowerBI,” Mills said.
As mentioned earlier, compliance was very important for the senior leadership team at Motus Commercial.
Thus, that featured heavily in which vendors were shortlisted.
“The extensive UK operations required assured regulatory compliance and seamless scalability,” Mills said.
Equally, because Motus Commercial deals with inbound customers as well as internal communication, cross-platform integration across UC and CC environments was crucial.
Additionally, since such an undertaking with a new UC vendor would be significant, having AI integration on the vendor’s roadmap was essential.
“Working with a vendor actively investing in their development stack provided reassurance of ongoing innovation and future readiness,” Mills explained.
“Additionally, web presence and pre- and post-sales support quality were important criteria, reflecting vendor reliability and their commitment to customer satisfaction.”
Vendor Selected and Results
After all the discussions were sorted, all the features tallied, and all the external and internal validations were done, Mills stated that the balance of technological robustness with stable, transparent vendor management was “pivotal in confidently selecting” the UC provider.
That UC provider was 8×8. Explaining why, Mills said, “8×8’s integrated data stack offered extensive interoperability, guaranteeing robust, streamlined workflows across multiple business applications.”
Equally, something intangible about 8×8—their transparency—featured hugely alongside its offering to help Motus Commercial and EfficiencyIT make their selection.
“Every license from 8×8 was clearly listed, and their commitment to fixed pricing terms without subsequent increases was highly valuable and reassuring,”
Mills explained.
“Additionally, 8×8’s consistent quality of service and robust support were a major advantage, reinforcing our confidence in their platform and commitment. Although contractual flexibility remained a minor improvement, the clarity of pricing, reliability through the SLA, and superior customer support were decisive factors in selecting 8×8 as our vendor partner.”
By selecting 8×8’s UCaaS and CCaaS platforms, Motus Commercial managed to unify its systems across all its sites.
Motus Commercial’s Main Takeaways
“We now have automation through AI-driven tools and omnichannel capabilities that have enhanced operational efficiency, while unified communication improved collaboration across our workforce and elevated the customer experience.”
Jake Blowers, Head of Projects and Innovation at Motus Commercials
This transformation, they report, reduced call abandonment by 69 percent, cut operational costs, and introduced omnichannel capabilities such as WhatsApp, text, and AI-powered self-service.
This significantly enhanced customer engagement and employee collaboration while creating a future-proof communications framework.
Future Considerations and Lessons Learned
As with any significant technology decision, EfficiencyIT’s UC selection process yielded valuable insights and lessons for future evaluations.
When considering how their criteria might change if reevaluating today, Mills points to the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
“If we were reassessing a UC platform today, AI capabilities would feature prominently,”
he stated.
“The evolution of AI since our initial vendor selection means we would critically evaluate vendors against the latest industry-leading AI functionalities, focusing on automation, customer service enhancements, and internal operational improvements.”
This forward-looking perspective demonstrates how quickly evaluation criteria can evolve in today’s technology landscape.
Mills also notes that they would now perform “a deeper analysis of available integrations, prioritizing platforms that require significantly less effort from professional services to integrate with existing ecosystems.”
Reflecting on assumptions made during the buying process, Mills acknowledges that contractual flexibility didn’t meet initial expectations.
“One notable assumption during the buying process that differed from our expectations was the rigidity of contract terms, specifically concerning user licenses,”
he revealed.
“Initially, we expected greater contractual flexibility, allowing us to scale user numbers dynamically according to our operational needs.”
Despite this limitation, Mills emphasizes that “the overall benefits provided by the solution outweighed this unexpected rigidity,” though he maintains that contractual flexibility remains an important consideration for future evaluations.
While specific requirements vary across organizations, the emphasis on vendor transparency, long-term partnership potential, and strategic alignment with business objectives proved, in this instance, to be the winning ticket, and will likely retain their relevance even in today’s evolving UC ecosphere.
This post originally appeared on Service Management - Enterprise - Channel News - UC Today.