Rethinking “Voice First”: Switch Connect on Migration, AI, and Making IT a Profit Center, Podcast

Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

At the Crexendo UGM, Manny Christophidis (Carrier Sales Manager) and Rohan Milne (CEO) of Switch Connect joined Technology Reseller News Publisher Doug Green to explore how customer communications are shifting from “phone-number centric” to outcome-driven collaboration. The team described a market where many businesses now operate across Teams, chat, apps, and social channels—sometimes needing a phone number only for regulatory or edge cases—pushing providers to evolve beyond DID/minutes into higher-value digital transformation. Switch Connect recounted its own pivot: after a legacy UCaaS platform exited Australia, the company rapidly migrated to the NetSapiens stack and now helps carriers move from TDM to IP and launch modern offers across Asia and beyond. COVID accelerated the mindset shift from voice to collaboration and hybrid work; meetings, screen share, and asynchronous channels increasingly ride OTT rather than PSTN. “We’ve moved from the age of voice to the age of collaboration—success now starts with the workflow, not the dial tone,” said Christophidis. That evolution opens both risk and opportunity for partners. The duo emphasized consultative selling, measuring success the way customers do, and weaving AI, cloud services, and integrations into business processes—rather than leading with a single product. “We’re not just a technology company—we’re a digital-transformation partner, using AI and cloud to help clients do more with what they already have,” noted Milne. They also highlighted practical realities: shifting budget authority (often toward marketing), managing shadow IT, and even running internal hackathons to turn IT from a cost center into a profit center. For providers wondering where to begin, Switch Connect’s advice is straightforward: deepen discovery around the customer’s revenue model, align collaboration and AI to those outcomes, and accept that UCaaS is now a component—not the whole story. Learn more at https://www.switchconnect.com.au/.