Was it a journey, or a predestined workflow?

Like many scale-up companies, we can look back on our journey thus far with a mixture of fondness and awe that the cards fell as they did, and we were able to capitalise on opportunities.

Was it skill or luck, or a blend of the two?

Our first big break was winning the Home Office as a client which is when we realised that we had something unique in the video conferencing space.

We recognised that our workflows (which were not defined as such back then), could have multiple applications across a raft of different industries. We understood that we needed to create a central architecture from which we could spin up new iterations without detracting from the core.

However, this presented us with a commercial challenge as we began building solutions for multiple industries but, with the limited resources of a growing SaaS business, how can you sell into all of them? I think a landmark moment for us was the decision to sell through a channel, rather than build our own sales teams. So, we began to buddy up with people who already had an established route to market and where we could add value to their portfolio with our own solution. This has taken us into markets that would simply have been prohibitive for us, such as the US and Canada, where our partners have large teams who represent us.

This is a tough decision when it’s your baby, but it is all comes down to one decision – do you want to scale? Then comes the compromise as partners have a vast choice and so we needed to ensure that the right commercial incentives were in place. Sometimes this is hard for a software founder when confronted by giving up 30, 40 or even 50% of his baby.

But there is an old adage that 100% of nothing is still nothing.

Taking the strategic decision to work through a channel is not always easy or obvious, but for us it enabled us to gain traction, to work smart, and to focus our energies more effectively.

We have a special place in the industry, with our modular architecture. We are flexible and can customise; swapping modules in and out, so that our partners can focus on different industries. This capability is unique when your customers are large enterprise businesses. We empower our partners to build a custom solution (but with all the right credentials and references) in a matter of weeks, not months, for their enterprise customers. However, we could not do this without channel partners who are specialists in their fields. A truly advantageous partnership.

Anyone looking at video conferencing can’t help but reference Covid, which has brought into sharp focus working practices and how video conferencing enabled work to continue. That situation is not going away as this has introduced whole new swathes of business efficiencies and we need to help our customers capitalise upon that, while accommodating their unique vertical requirements.

We understand that one of our unique qualities is the workflow tooling and flexibility we provide to increase business efficiency in different verticals. Although others will catch up over time, right now, there is nothing that offers a framework of automation and business process management that wraps around video conferencing and can be moulded for multiple industry purposes.

That’s exciting for us as the combination of a channel approach and our core platform architecture enables us to expand and grow. Now we are faced with another conundrum; do we staff up and seek external funding. Do we set up small subsidiaries, or do we continue to work through channel with a network of professional outsourced departments to support us?

I believe there is a new commercial landscape that doesn’t require FTE’s (full time employees) doing 9 – 5 working hours. There is a new structure in the workplace that mirrors that of the channel; you can buddy up to take advantage of market opportunities. We have professional consultants dedicated to us, providing their experience and skills. We outsource our digital marketing, information security, customer service desk, clinical safety, channel consulting. And we believe we have the best of the best.

For instance, the requirements to be approved by the NHS DFOCVC was a tough task but one championed by our contract Clinical Safety Officer and we came out with flying colours. This means that NHS medical practices can buy in comfort, knowing we have all the relevant accreditations.

If you work “in true partnership” people are just as committed to you, if not more so.

Colin Rhodes – Flabba