STAR2STAR’S CLOUD-NATIVE SOLUTIONS IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Star2Star
DIGITAL REPORT 2021
02
COMMUNICATIONS AND COLLABORATION FOR THE ENTERPRISE
w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
03
S TA R 2 S TA R
04
President and Chief Revenue Officer Michelle Accardi discusses Star2Star’s cloud-native offering and its necessity amid COVID-19
S
tar2Star is a unified communications company that offers collaboration, voice, video and text chat integra-
tion capabilities, as well as contact centre and desktop-as-a-service offerings. Michelle Accardi is President and Chief Revenue Officer at the company, responsible for the entire sales and goto-market strategy of the organisation. “We offer a way to take companies into the cloud and great mobile applications to keep people connected, whether they’re in a work from home environment because of the pandemic or because that’s just part of the way the world is working these days.” Star2Star’s huge experience as a communications company has stood it in good stead for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and re-emphasised the benefits of strong communication. “We’ve really taken a very agile approach to making sure that we’re doing daily calls, helping people understand where they need to be focused, overcoming whatever obstacles and giving them the focus for the next day. And then we use our great tools and
w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
05
Hear from Citrix and Star2Star on the latest productivity integrations to help you do your best work as well as the latest trends in digital transformation. Learn more
“ We build solutions that enable companies to not just get through the pandemic, but to actually thrive” so we can remove those obstacles,” — Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer, Star2Star
says Accardi. “It’s certainly why we’ve won workplace awards, because we foster that kind of open but hard working culture.”
everything from our own video meet-
Its approach is why it is favoured by
ings to our own mobile applications to
its customers as a solution provider,
help us all stay connected.” That use
with the highest customer retention
of technology is informed by a culture
rate in the industry at 99.4%. “We
of transparency at the organisation.
are one of the only vendors I know
“I really try to facilitate people bringing
of that focuses so much on customer
forward any challenges they’re having
retention, with our retention rate
The Future Is Here: Connect & Collaborate From Anywhere With Star2Star CLICK TO WATCH
|
3:37
w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
07
S TA R 2 S TA R
08 being due to putting the customer at
months, deferments, anything to help
the centre of everything that we do,”
our customers.” The holistic nature
says Accardi. “During the pandemic,
of its solution is another key part of
for instance, we’ve rolled out many
its appeal. “There are a lot of single-
different types of programmes – free
threaded vendors out there who can
2006
Year founded
only do one thing. The fact that we can do so much is very unique to us. I don’t know of any other solution provider like Star2Star that has things like employee alerts as packaged applica-
300
Number of employees
tions that can be built into workflows, for example.” Among its raft of solutions is a mobile softphone app. “It’s about being able to get a call to your business phone
E X E C U T I V E P R O FILE :
Michelle Accardi Title: President and Chief Revenue Officer Industry: Telecommunications Location: Florida, USA As President and Chief Revenue Officer, Michelle’s mission is to inspire and maintain growth for the company and its partners, ensuring that customers get significant value from Star2Star’s products and services. Michelle works with the executive leadership team of Star2Star to define long-term vision and operational strategy to assure that growth and market potential are achieved. In pursuit of this goal, Michelle sees engaging and listening to employees, partners, and customers as a primary function of her role in order to keep Star2Star on the optimal strategic path. In this way, customer success is assured as employees and partners are inspired to deliver an excellent product and experience with every interaction. In her previous position as the company’s Chief Operating Officer, Michelle used these same methods to develop new processes and systems to streamline business interactions. She grew departmental leadership and expanded Star2Star’s support capabilities to better serve customer and partner needs. Michelle is also regarded as a technical thought leader in next-generation marketing and communications strategies. Her book, Agile Marketing, chronicles her experiences applying agile methodology to the marketing process for better results and faster time to value. She brought her substantial executive-level and tech industry experience with her to Star2Star, having driven innovative, agile, revenue-producing field and channel marketing programs for one of the world’s most relied upon technology companies, Computer Associates. Michelle holds an MBA from American Intercontinental University and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida. w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
09
S TA R 2 S TA R
“ The fact that we can do so much is very unique to us” 10
— Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer, Star2Star
11
w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
S TA R 2 S TA R
12
number versus your personal phone
to do things like mass marketing, or
number, right on the mobile app, while
getting information out to people like
also being able to do text messaging,
appointment reminders or curbside
or even fax via a mobile application,”
checkout, which we can help with.”
says Accardi. “You’d be surprised how
A strong enabler of the work
often different industries, whether it’s
Star2Star does is its partnership
healthcare or real estate, need that
with Citrix, with the company being
kind of thing. Those text messaging
the only UCaaS provider certified as
applications, both on mobile and on
Citrix-ready. “They have great tech-
desktop, are really game-changing in
nology that allows companies to put
the pandemic. Businesses are trying
their applications that were previously
“ How people work and where people work is changing” are literally millions of companies and users who depend on Citrix, so
— Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer, Star2Star
we can either provide desktop-as-a-
housed on-premise in the cloud, so
put our communications on top of the
that workers can now work from
Citrix environments they have in place.”
service from Citrix if customers don’t have that capability, or we can simply
everywhere,” says Accardi. “And it
The pandemic has accelerated
can do that in a secure manner. There
changes in the work environment,
13
w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
S TA R 2 S TA R
14
with Star2Star serving as a model for how businesses may look going forwards. “Thankfully we’ve always been a cloud-based company and we’ve always had a remote workforce,” says Accardi. “So for us, having everyone go remote just as those people who aren’t in our headquarters means we can understand
“ We are one of the only vendors I know of that focuses so much on customer retention” — Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer, Star2Star
or they prefer to have a mobile app that can communicate via voice, text, or fax.” As the world bends to precisely the mode of working that Star2Star can facilitate, Accardi is clear that the company’s future is bright. “We see a future where it is going to be a mix of remote and working from home. Once vaccines come about, there will be a return of some workers to the office. But they’re going to want the flexibility to have mobile applications that enable them to work from home when they want to.” Star2Star is perfectly positioned to allow companies to straddle that gap. “I often like to say: it’s with irritation that you make the pearl. For Star2Star, we build solutions that enable companies to not just get and give all of our customers the
through the pandemic, but to actu-
capability to go remote as well.”
ally thrive as they digitally transform
Accardi sees that as a permanent
because of it.”
change, even once the pandemic has abated. “How people work and where people work is changing. And we have a broad spectrum of solutions that can help them, whether they prefer to have a desk phone, w w w.st a r2 st a r. com
15
STAR2STAR 600 TALLEVAST RD. STE.202 SAR ASOTA FL 3424 3 USA T +941 234 0001
www.star2star.com
P0WERED BY