John Nebergall is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Fax Services
at J2 Global Services. I had a chance to catch up with him a few weeks ago and
learn more about Consensus, and their overall momentum in the Enterprise Fax
market.
MM: This past March, J2 launched Consensus, your biggest step in
the enterprise market and healthcare. How does it work?
JN: Consensus is a system in which licensed health service
providers use the service to exchange patient information by faxing – both
standard faxing or using Direct Send, secure direct messaging via Direct Trust,
or from their own EMR applications. Working with our partner, Kno2, we
have a connection into Carequality, an interoperability service for sharing
patient information.
MM: What is Direct Send?
JN: Direct Send is a point to point feature of Consensus and eFax
too, and it is one way we differentiate ourselves. Faxes that are sent and
received between our products can be directly sent without a telco connection
over our HITRUST certified network. If we have both sides of the
transaction, we handle sending and receiving in-network, which gives advantages
in speed, resolution, and guaranteed delivery.
MM: Are J2’s services HITRUST certified?
JN: In the Cloud Fax business all of our enterprise grade
products: eFax Developer, eFax Enterprise, Sfax, and MyFax are HITRUST
certified.
MM: What about your other brands?
JN: We did not see it as necessary for the fax consumer
brands, our focus with that technology is on our enterprise products and
services.
MM: Did the current pandemic affect the timing of the Consensus
release?
JN: The Consensus marketing launch was centered upon the HIMSS
Global Health Conference, where we going to be part of the Interoperability
Showcase with demonstrations of the Consensus platform. We had to scramble our
launch plans at the last minute due to HIMSS cancelling their show because of
the pandemic and our sales and marketing teams really pivoted to build a
revised plan. What those teams did given the circumstances was nothing
short of phenomenal.
MM: Now that it is post-launch, and still right in the middle of
the COVID crisis, how is Consensus doing on the market?
JN: Our momentum has been great, we had beta customers and sales
right out of the gate. Growth has been very strong.
MM: How has COVID affected J2’s business overall?
JN: As was mentioned on the recent earnings call, the Cloud Fax business
has seen the biggest boost in subscriptions since I have been here. One of
the coolest things that we are most particular and proud about, is the
transition of our employees to a work from home model. Within two weeks we were
able to relocate our employees and continue working as a virtual company.
MM: The “Mr. Fax Goes to Washington” podcast series
highlights the efforts you made to change the thinking about fax in the minds
of policy makers at HHS/CMS[1]. Policy changes were being proposed with the potential to
negatively impact fax. What was accomplished when you went to Washington?
JN: CMS always talked about fax as something to be diminished, so
we went there to educate and advocate because digital cloud fax technology is
vital to interoperability. We have a presence there and we were able to get face to face
meetings with congressmen, and policymakers at HHS/CMS. The reception was
great; many were quite surprised to learn that the technology was so widely
used and so critical. What really impressed me was these leaders' openness
to learning about cloud fax and the subsequent way that they modified their
views because of these meetings.
MM: It is obvious you are making strides to further your growth
in the enterprise fax space. What are you doing differently besides Consensus?
JN: The Cloud Fax division has been evolving with a strong
commitment to organically growing the business, especially in the enterprise
space. Central to that is specifically to continue our growth as a key provider
in the Healthcare sector. We have an up-market plan and have forged
partnerships, recruited talent, enhanced our APIs, and restructured our support
business.
MM: Now that you are more focused on enterprise growth, how has
your support infrastructure adapted?
JN: We established a new Customer Success Organization in 2019,
specifically for our up-market enterprise plan. We have 24/7 support offices in
Canada, Ireland, and Los Angeles. Our Network Operations Center is constantly
monitoring all our systems around the globe to ensure smooth and uninterrupted
service. We have employed a best-practices approach to create a
competitive advantage in this area.
Mark D Malone,
Fax2020.com
Original interview
date: May 29, 2020
[1] HHS is the
Department of Health and Human Services. CMS is the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services
