Being first has its advantages – but blazing a new trail comes with a lot of risk (and effort). Kalaam Telecom had already long established itself as a provider of enterprise telephony in two Gulf-state markets – Bahrain and Kuwait – when it secured a rare opportunity to begin offering voice services within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). But meeting the potential in this new territory would be far from easy. Not only did KSA have a strict and sometimes complex regulatory environment, its business community also had little familiarity with Kalaam’s flagship product: cloud PBX.
But thanks to a long and successful partnership with PortaOne, Kalaam knew they had what they needed to adapt to these unfamiliar policy and market conditions. PortaSwitch would be ready to prove to KSA enterprises that there is a better way to do business.
Navigating a new terrain: Challenges and opportunities in Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia tightly controls data and telecom services, which means few CSPs from outside the country are allowed in. While securing a license to operate in this largely untapped market was a significant win that offered a chance at rapid expansion, Kalaam Telecom knew it would have to navigate formidable regulations before it could begin providing services in KSA – the most challenging being that any servers used for KSA-based communications would have to be located within the country’s borders.
Being the first CSP to offer cloud PBX in the nation was also a double-edged sword: the market may have been wide open, but Kalaam’s sales teams had a lot of work to do to sell the KSA business community on the benefits of moving to a new way of communicating. “Now, the main challenge was convincing traditional customers to switch into IP and cloud,” says Ahmed Ghieth, a senior manager at Kalaam Telecom. Despite Kalaam’s extensive experience in providing advanced enterprise communications solutions in the Gulf region, they had never before come up against a market that was so accustomed to an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach.
But they knew their UCaaS offering would bring more than enough to the table: cost savings, access to the pay-as-you-go model, and the ability to leverage the technical expertise of the Kalaam team to overcome the limitations of their complex legacy systems and enjoy peace of mind in the cloud. Add to that the power of low-code technology and the Add-on Mart marketplace of value-added services, and Kalaam knew they would be able to convince their new market. With a few trial runs and some customization demos, cloud PBX could sell itself.
Tailored innovation: Customizing PortaSwitch for the unique demands of KSA
That level of trust was built on experience: Kalaam Telecom has been using PortaSwitch to deliver enterprise communications services since 2015. They knew the PortaOne team had the vision and experience to help them expand into a brand-new and unfamiliar market – even one as complex as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“PortaSwitch has been the heart of our Kalaam voice product lines for a decade,” says Kamlesh Mishra, senior solution architect at Kalaam Telecom. “With the pace of technology, it is important to carry innovative solutions. Cloud PBX has transformed into unified communication, mobility, and collaboration, and today our offerings range from cloud PBX to UCaaS all the way to digital workspace solutions that are fully integrated with tools like MS Teams and Zoom. Customers can subscribe to as little as one-user basic cloud telephony and scale up to a unified solution for multiple users with advanced functionalities like softphone, single number reach, and more, as well as those advanced integrations.”
With the ability to offer a feature-rich, cost-efficient service – and to customize and expand that service on demand for each individual customer – the Kalaam team could enter the new Saudi marketplace with the confidence that cloud PBX would prove its value. But what about those governmental regulations that required the company’s technology to be sited solely within the KSA? For that hurdle, the adaptability of PortaOne platforms – and, in this case, PortaOne licensing – came to the rescue again.
“We opted to have a local cloud within KSA so that we can offer compliant solutions to clients adhering to local laws,” explains Srinivasan Arumugam, group senior director of commercials at Kalaam Telecom. By purchasing a separate PortaSwitch license for a set of servers inside the borders of KSA, Kalaam was able to satisfy the Saudi authorities – and to connect with that wealth of new business customers.
“Saudi Arabia is a massive market and has a huge potential,” says Arumugam. “With this expansion into the KSA, Kalaam Telecom will become the first ISP in the Gulf region with licensed operations of fixed voice in three countries.”
The adage is true: Change is the only constant
Kalaam Telecom’s experience in entering the KSA market is a standout example of the need to be as adaptable as possible in telecom, no matter how long you have been in business: even with their extensive experience with providing enterprise telephony in the Gulf region, the Kalaam team still had to rethink and adjust their methods and their technologies to expand into this neighboring territory.
And sometimes, you don’t even need to be considering a regional expansion to be hit with an unexpected disruption. As PortaOne CEO Andriy Zhylenko recently noted to AfricaTechNews: “You can be running your business, and then suddenly a new regulation will appear with little to no warning, and you have to react quickly. PortaOne has made sure that our customers are always prepared to face this challenge using our short, agile development cycle of just seven weeks and through having the ability to quickly do integrations inside and around our system to adjust its functionality or connect to government services as needed, say, for things like identity verification.”
Redefining communication: The road ahead for Kalaam Telecom and PortaOne
Kalaam Telecom’s depth of market knowledge in the Gulf states combined with the robust capabilities of PortaSwitch has the potential to redefine what is possible with cloud-based enterprise communication solutions for businesses in this region.
“Enterprise voice and collaboration services are a highly growing demand in the Bahrain, KSA, Kuwait, and UAE markets,” says Kamlesh Mishra. “This is being driven by Microsoft, Zoom, Amazon, and other collaboration services.”
At the same time, countries like KSA are realizing that their business communities need to have access to cutting-edge capabilities if they want to be able to compete in the global market. Thanks to Kalaam Telecom, companies within KSA will now be able to benefit from the full power of cloud PBX: from higher levels of customer service to increased agility to more cost-efficiency.
If you’re looking to expand into new markets but have concerns about uncertain or complex regulations and business conditions, PortaOne is here to help. Our expert team and agile 7-week update schedule will give you the power to adapt to any changing regulations or market shift – whether you’re on home turf or forging ahead into new territories.
