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What happens when one of the longest-standing leaders in enterprise communications acquires another major player in the industry? Eric Hanson, CMO at Mitel, reveals the transformative journey following their acquisition of Unify, which has created what may be the largest install base in the unified communications industry—over 70 million users across more than 100 countries.

Hanson pulls back the curtain on Mitel's brand new website launch, describing how it reflects a fundamental shift in strategy. The redesigned digital experience serves both direct enterprise customers and Mitel's robust partner ecosystem, telling a more compelling story about how unified communications extends far beyond video conferencing. From telehealth applications to critical military communications to traditional desk phones, Mitel's solutions support the full spectrum of enterprise communication needs.

Most fascinating is Hansen's observation about what enterprise customers are actually prioritizing. Despite the industry's focus on pure cloud solutions, Mitel's vast customer base reveals a different reality: large organizations are increasingly adopting hybrid communications strategies that blend different deployment models. Even more surprising, there's growing demand for dedicated cloud instances rather than just multi-tenant configurations—a trend that aligns with findings from analyst firms like Frost & Sullivan. This perspective challenges the conventional narrative and explains Mitel's approach to product development.

With their financial restructuring proceeding ahead of schedule, successful launches of their Mitel CX product and Zoom joint venture, and a thoughtful approach to global localization, Mitel is positioning itself at the forefront of the unified communications evolution. Want to see how they're reimagining enterprise communications? Visit their new website to experience their customer-focused approach firsthand.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everyone Super excited for an update on the
market and business from EricHansen, CMO at Mitel.
Eric, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm doing great, Evan .
Great to see you.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, great to see you.
You've been on quite a journeywith the Mitel team this year
and I'm excited for an update.
First of all, for those who maynot be familiar with Mitel in
my audience I'm not sure howthat is, but maybe introduce the
company, the brand, the historyand yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, sure.
So.
Mitel is a leader in unifiedcommunications, been around for
close to or just over 50 yearsnow, really driving, I think,
innovation specific to unifiedcommunications, customer
experience and criticalcommunications.
And we really live at thatintersection of hardware and
software and really drivingenterprise, helping to drive the

(00:53):
business for enterpriseorganizations around the world.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Fantastic and your team has been hard at work with
many things.
We're going to walk throughthose, but first of all I
noticed you have a new website.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
We do.
It's been a big week for us.
What's the?

Speaker 1 (01:06):
big idea behind the new site.
What's the story you're lookingto tell and what's the
experience you're sharing on thenew site?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, sure, so yeah, no, really really big week for
the team.
We launched the new websitejust yesterday officially, and
what this really represents.
A little over a year ago, weacquired a company called Unify,
so a much bigger company.
Now, together, our two heritagecompanies coming together, we
represent probably the largestinstall base in the industry,

(01:39):
with over 70 million usersworldwide and over 100 countries
, and one of the things when youdo something like that is you
have to bring together these twobrands.
So over the course of the lastyear, we've been doing some
experimentation, really thinkingabout our key audiences,
bringing these two brandstogether, some of which we need

(02:00):
to address the needs of ourpartner community, which was
really where the Heritage Mitelwebsite was focused previously,
but we also have a lot of directcustomers that we wanted to
interface with, and the oldwebsite didn't really address
those needs.
So what this really representsis a couple of things.
It represents, number one,being much more customer focused

(02:20):
, where a customer needs tounderstand especially somebody
who's just entering theirjourney of discovery around
solving some specific problems,but also really making it easier
for customers that are lookingfor a partner how to get quickly
to the partner that's relevantand or in their location, or for

(02:41):
partners to be able to directtheir customers or existing
customers, you know specificallyto a part of our portfolio.
And so with this new websiteexperience, we really tried to
address both of those needs forthose key audiences again, which
was a big journey for us overthe last year, you know.
The other component to this isis it's a much more interactive

(03:02):
and rich experience that I thinkreally represents where we're
taking the brand in terms ofreflecting what's happening in
the market.
Right with this hero image,which you can see, we're telling
the story that every enterpriseorganization is a little bit
different of solutions, some ofwhich are developed by us, some

(03:23):
of through some of our partners,and bringing that right
combination of services andsolutions to address the needs
of the modern enterprise aroundthe world.
And you can see visually, ourCIO is the hero here, because
they have to support the needsof so many different
constituents from what we all.
What so many think of is whatunified communications has

(03:45):
become, which is really doingwhat we're doing right now,
having a video conference, butit's really so much more than
that.
As you know, evan, it's thosethat still rely on a desk phone,
those that are performingtelehealth with so many patients
in a given day, criticalcommunications in critical
scenarios, and transportationand logistics, or even in the

(04:06):
military.
We support all of thosedifferent scenarios and that
really is the definition of whatunified communications is.
It's much broader than I thinksome people think about and when
we think about where Mitel isgoing, it's so much more than
your grandfather's PBX, right,but it's also a lot more than
legacy UCAS or CCAS, and I thinkthat's really the point that

(04:28):
we're trying to illustrate withthe new kind of this new
re-imagined version of our brandand where we're taking the
website.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
That's fantastic and I can't wait to dive in.
I had my first look just now,actually, so I look forward to
diving into all the greatcontent there.
Talk about your futureambitions at Mitel, how it's
about to go with the new site,and about your market leadership
, which has kind of been a bitoverlooked with all the noise

(04:57):
out there overlooked with allthe noise out there?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, sure, so I think one of the things of
having such a large install basethe way that we do, you think
about the coverage by a lot ofinfluencers and analyst firms
that are out there, and a lot ofthe reports are based on
somewhat limited sample size,and that's not to discount the
work and the research that theydo, because I really rely on
them as one of the inputs that Ithink about in terms of what's
happening in the market.
But we have this uniqueopportunity at Mitel, drawing

(05:24):
upon those more than 70 millionseats in over 100 countries and
dealing in some of the mostdemanding industries and
geographies around the world, toreflect sort of what the market
is saying, and it actuallyaligns quite nicely with what a
lot of the analyst firms likeFrost, sullivan or TechAisle are
finding, which is thatcompanies, especially large

(05:46):
companies, are reallyprioritizing hybrid
communications as their strategyin terms of supporting the full
workforce, right.
So when you think about ourstory over the last year, the
bets that we've been making interms of the portfolio, how
we're realizing that through thewebsite, it's really to help
reflect what we're seeing in themarket and, in addition to that

(06:07):
what we're finding with thosecustomers that we speak to, and
some of the information thatcomes out of that great research
from the analyst firms as well,is that it's not just about
hybrid communications whereyou're interfacing, you know
sort of different blends andcombinations of deployment
models and technologies, butit's also, even when you're
thinking about cloud, that it'snot just one flavor of cloud,

(06:30):
it's not just multi-tenant cloud.
The way that we think about SaaSso often it's actually
dedicated instances becoming andthere's increasing demand
around that too.
So within that hybrid strategy,a multi-cloud approach is the
other component that we'rereally seeing.
And again, we're really tryingto reflect that story so that
when somebody comes to ourwebsite or talks to one of our
salespeople or one of oursolution architects, they feel

(06:53):
like we're reflecting what theyfeel in terms of the problems
they're trying to solve.
Right, they're not beinglimited by a one-size-fits-all
approach.
They can get a little bit morecreative with what their options
might be and where they need togo to solve the key problems,
both for their business overallor for a specific line of
business or geography, if thatmakes sense.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Interesting and I love the perspective there.
How do you think the siteserves new customers or existing
customers better compared tothe old one?
I mean, customers these daysare looking to do a lot of their
own research, look for insightsand inputs on their own.
What sort of content are youmaking available to them?

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
Are you making available tothem?
Yeah, no, it's a great question.
So what we tried to do specificfor customer audiences, where
it's either somebody that's newto the Mitel brand they might
have heard of Mitel becauseobviously the brand's been
around for a long time, or thatmight be an existing customer
that thinks of us the way wewere 10, 15 years ago, not where
we are today.
What we really tried to do is toincorporate some of the overall

(07:59):
narrative and again reflectwhat's happening in the market
so that, as they're thinkingabout gee, what are those
problems that I'm trying tosolve, and is Mitel a company
that can really help me addressthat?
We want to try and give themmore of a use case, more of an
understanding of the businessoutcomes, more of an
understanding of, hey, these arethe potential negative

(08:20):
consequences of your currentstate and, you know, here are
some possibilities in terms ofwhere you may be able to take
that right.
And I think that that's reallywhat we tried to achieve with
the website is to create thattype of journey so that a
customer could really understand, in plain English, use cases
and problem statements and takemore of that style of approach

(08:41):
versus too much speed and feedRight.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
And.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I think the old website was really architected
around being more partnercentric and so for a partner of
ours, it was very much orientedaround.
Well, I know I need thisspecific product from Mitel, so
I just want that presented frontand center.
But for a customer that's new tothe brand maybe somebody that's
transitioning from anothertechnology we really wanted to

(09:03):
be able to tell more of a fullstory that allowed them to
explore and identify oh, this isreally interesting.
I want to know more about thatNow.
At the same time, we didn'twant to lose that simplicity for
a partner.
So when you go to the nav andunder products and services, you
can see that there's quickaccess.
For a partner that alreadyknows exactly what they're

(09:24):
looking for, like Mitel CX, theycan very quickly go straight
there right.
Or for a partner that's new toMitel, if they want to go
straight to understand how do Iget authorized for Mitel, you
can see in the upper rightthere's a quick access to the
partner program.
For a customer that wants toget in touch with a sales rep or

(09:45):
find a partner in theirlocation, they can click the
contact sales button and itimmediately gives them the
ability to engage with asalesperson or find a partner
that's relevant for them.
So we really tried to thinkabout this in terms of what's
the audience that we really wantto engage with and how do we
best support them in terms ofthe process that they're going
through.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Does that make sense?
No, it totally does.
And you're also a globalorganization as active and
engaged outside of North Americaas in North America.
Maybe speak to that globalaudience as well with the new
messaging strategy and new site100%.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
You know, one of the things that we did is we really
rethought what it means to havea global website.
That we did is we reallyrethought what it means to have
a global website.
And so, rather than make itfeel like we're a US or North
American based company that'sjust doing a couple of key pages
that are translated, we try tocreate more of a rich experience
for some of our largergeographies in language and so

(10:46):
for you know, the site isavailable in German and French.
And then, you know, for some ofthe countries where we have
maybe a slightly smallerpresence in terms of headcount
or a number of customers, westill created a very rich
experience in a broader set oflanguages, you know, with fewer
pages.

(11:06):
So it's still a rich experienceand more than just a homepage.
But obviously, you know, you canvery quickly create a death
matrix of content if you try toboil the ocean there.
So we've tried to be verythoughtful in terms of where our
concentrations of customers andwhere our concentrations of
opportunities and really triedto optimize for that in terms of
how we localize the site, butreally trying to be thoughtful

(11:29):
about what it means to localizeand look, we're just getting
started.
So you know, one of the goalsis to further personalize, if
you will, by region, so thatsome of the imagery that we
ultimately will use as wecontinue to evolve the site will
feel more and more localized tothe key regions around the
world that we do business in.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Well, it's a great step forward and there's been a
lot of other momentum at Mitel.
Maybe you can update us on thefinancial restructuring that's
proceeding as planned.
Some of the other launches thathave gone GA.
What else is top of mind?
You're wearing many hats, asthey say.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Indeed, and I just got back home from the East
Coast, so I've been on the roada lot as well.
Yeah, so you know, obviouslywe've continued the drumbeat in
terms of product momentum overthe last year and right up until
just a few weeks ago.
You know, obviously we've been,you know, focused on getting
through the financialrestructuring process, which is,

(12:25):
you know, I would say, ahead ofschedule, which is, you know, I
would say, ahead of schedule.
A couple of our friends in theindustry have highlighted that.
You know, not only did we saywhat we were going to do, but we
did what we said in terms of itbeing a fast process.
And we just got the courtconfirmation, which is, you know
, really that precursor toemergence from the process,
which is really exciting for us.
And look, I think, as evidencedby youced, by the website and

(12:50):
the portfolio news and someother news we'll be sharing in
probably the next month as weget closer and closer to
emergence, I think that justreally shows the momentum of the
business, that this was ahealthy business, that this was
the right thing to restructurethe capital and accelerate our
ability really to execute thebusiness strategy we started a

(13:11):
little over a year ago.
So you know that piece has beengreat.
We went, we announced generalavailability of our Mitel CX
product, you know, which wasvery exciting.
You know we had announced thatwas coming in the fall and we
got it to market and thefeedback at Enterprise Connect
in the US, but as well as CCW inBerlin, was really really great

(13:34):
around the product and what amodern experience it is.
In fact, some of the analyststhat we demonstrated it for
thought it was because you know,ccas and UCAS have been this
proxy for modern for so long.
They looked at it and thoughtit was a CCaaS or UCaaS product
and then they said you know,it'd be really great, it'd be

(13:54):
really great if you could deploythis in a dedicated instance,
given all of the concernsgeopolitically right now around
data privacy, and it's like gosh, what a great idea.
We can do that, by the way.
So you know that dynamic modernexperience with AI and
everything else is beingincredibly well received and
we're seeing some really greatresults from a sales perspective

(14:14):
.
On the heels of that as well,we announced the general
availability of our Zoom jointventure around a hybrid client,
which has also been very wellreceived in the marketplace.
So it's been a very excitingtime for us, this first half of
2025, and really looking forwardto the back half as well.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Fantastic.
Well, congratulations on allthe momentum and initiative and
staying ahead of the curve, andI appreciate the update, eric,
thanks.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Evan, always great to see you.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Always great to see you and dive into Mitelcom,
check out the new experience andall the great content that
lives there.
Thanks for joining everyone.

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