Business communication vendors and customers often jump on the latest buzzwords and market trends. Remember when we were all going to meet in the metaverse wearing clunky headsets? But Mitel takes a different approach –highlighting flexibility, choice, quality, and security to prioritize customer needs over marketing hype.

Throughout the years, Mitel has stayed true to its core focus areas:

• Flexibility and choice by providing unified communication (UC) deployment and architecture options
• Vertical market focus
• Continually evolving to support its global customer base
• Customer-first strategy

Let’s break down the four core focus areas to explore further.

1. Customer Flexibility and Choice

While most UC vendors jumped on the cloud-first, UCaaS/public cloud bandwagon, Mitel stayed true to its strategy of listening to its customers to find out what they wanted. Rather than getting caught up in the public cloud buzz, Mitel recognized that a one-size-fits-all cloud approach doesn’t work. Some companies may be public cloud-ready, others require the security and control of on-premises solutions, and others prefer a private cloud deployment. Mitel is uniquely positioned to be one of the few companies providing a hybrid cloud choice, whether on-prem, private cloud, public cloud, or a combination of the three. Many vendors have exited the premises-based voice and UC market, with NEC as the most recent, leaving Mitel among the few that still offer a choice of deployment models.

Public cloud solutions don't provide the privacy and security required for businesses in regulated industries or various verticals, and a hybrid cloud approach is the most practical. Hybrid deployments are expected to represent the largest portion of the global UC market for the foreseeable future. Frost & Sullivan projected that nearly 80% of UC deployments will be hybrid-based by 2026. Mitel is one of the few vendors offering a hybrid cloud model to meet the evolving needs of these businesses by supporting the reliability, security, data privacy, and regulatory compliance of on-premises and private cloud models, combined with public cloud accessibility.

2. Industry Verticals

Another core and long-term strategy that hasn’t changed over the years is focusing on various vertical industries. Mitel’s deep vertical integrations address the specific challenges and workflows of industries like healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, government, finance, etc. Walk into any hotel or cruise ship, and you’ll likely find a Mitel phone or a Mitel phone system behind the scenes running the whole communications ecosystem at the backend.

Vertical solutions need to be more than simply integrating into third-party applications, and Mitel offers a range of specific vertical solutions, including:

• Virtual Care Collaboration Services (VCCS)
• OpenScape Health Station / HiMed
• OpenScape Xpert (Command & Control)
• Critical Event Management (CEM)
• OpenScape Alarm Response (OScAR)
• Mitel Revolution
• Mitel SIP-DECT Mobility
• Mitel Property Management System (PMS) integration
• Mitel Voice Assist & Workflow Studio (Intelligent Attendant

Going deeper, Mitel’s VCCS provides eConsultation for improved patient experiences. For example, it assists AI in checking a patient’s visuals and being more predictive, integrating with medical devices and DECT devices in hospitals for nurse alarms. Other capabilities include:

• 3D visualization and simulation of medical procedures and results
• Monitoring and Alarming for individuals or groups
• Assisted remote triage and surgery
• Electronic consent and patient-submitted results

3. Continually Evolving Solutions

AI is on everyone’s minds, and Mitel is considering offering AI capabilities for UC/CC and vertical use cases that augment and improve customer experience and productivity. For example, AI options like Small Language Models will be considered for deployment at the edge with the protection of sensitive customer data and knowledge base used to train the AI algorithms. Mitel will also work with leading AI vendors and technology partners to develop comprehensive solutions across various business segments and customer industries.

Mitel also continues to evolve through acquisitions. The Unify acquisition expands scale with the reach and offering to the large enterprise segment, product portfolio breadth, and geographic reach.

4. Customer-First Approach

As mentioned, Mitel’s strategy starts and ends with listening to customers. Building long-term relationships through a customer lifecycle management (CLM) strategy helps to understand each customer's journey and provide ongoing support.

And that’s one reason Mitel’s customers have stayed with the company throughout the years. According to Synergy Research, Mitel’s retention pace was around 1.4x the industry’s overall rate over the last four quarters. Mitel customers vary from 30 days to 30+ years.

For Mitel’s customers, it’s all about flexibility, reliability, and innovation:

Thomas Gustafsson, Director, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB)

“I have been using Mitel products for many years and am impressed by their robustness and reliability.”

Marco Heijmen, Director, Royal Rotra Group in the Netherlands

“Mitel differentiates itself through its unified communication and collaboration solutions, flexibility in deployment options, global presence, customer-centric approach, and a commitment to ongoing innovation in the field of communications technology.”

Zachery Jones, Binghamton University 

“Mitel provides me with the versatility and flexibility I need to ensure that our phone service is reliable and of the highest quality.”

Cas Rangel, Building Products Inc. 

“Mitel has brought BPI into the modern age of telephony with all the advanced features available in the Contact Center module. The chat feature saves us money by using a one-stop tool instead of having additional add-ons for our e-commerce and helpdesk. Even though we still have a live operator, the tool that Mitel provides gives us speed, ease of answering calls, and visibility of who is on the phone or out of the office. This is a game-changer for us! We found this functionality obsolete with many telecommunication companies we considered during our due diligence. The AI that Mitel is investing in will allow us to use different channels where a live operator is not needed. Our trucking reservations, appointment setting, and the integration into our CRM will save lots of time and allow our staff to focus more on the customer experience.” 

Mitel Delivers Flexible and Customer-Centric UC Solutions

Mitel stands out by sticking to its core values in an industry often distracted by the latest cloud craze. Its focus on understanding customer needs, providing tailored vertical solutions, and offering deployment flexibility to match diverse business requirements has made – and continues to make – Mitel a trusted partner for unified communications.