Startups

Need cloud-based communications? Newark’s Greg Plum wants to be your guy

Industry veteran Greg Plum struck out on his own with Plum Unified Communications last year. “I’d like to be the go-to person for conferencing in the tri-state area,” he said.

Teleconferencing is Greg Plum's bread and butter. (Photo by Flickr user Alan Clark, used under a Creative Commons license)

With a degree in geophysics from the University of Delaware, Greg Plum could have spent his career studying the physical properties of planet Earth.
But after getting into the MBNA (acquired by Bank of America in 2006) management development program after graduation in 1990, Plum found he enjoyed the fast-paced, high-pressure environment.
Now, 25 years later, his line of work revolves around “the cloud” — but not the kind you read about in your sixth-grade physical science textbooks. The cloud is what he depends on to market his unified communications services.

Greg Plum

Greg Plum. (Courtesy photo)


After working for a small audio-conferencing company in Newark for 11 years, Plum said he felt he could offer better communications solutions to companies and partners he works with, rather than just one solution, based on the company he was working for.
So in July 2014, he launched Plum Unified Communications, a company, he says, that blends the IT and telecom industries, providing video, email, instant messaging and phone calls from a single interface. His office is in Newark.
“If I offer one company one solution, I’m not offering a true solution,” he said. “I can now bring multiple solutions to the customer and can offer them different solutions.”
Many of Plum’s clients, he said, are contacts and partners he’s built relationships with and developed over the past two decades in the industry. Many are spread across the country, but Plum says he’s hoping to change that.
“Even though there’s a global reach, I’m trying bring it back to the community. Delaware does have activity that could benefit from my services,” Plum said. “From an end-user standpoint, all companies can benefit. A conference call is a part of everyday life. The real sweet spot [in this region] is the legal community. We have a robust legal community in Wilmington and Dover.”
Plum works with partners, who market and sell his unified communications services primarily to medium and small IT and telephone companies.
In addition to running his company, Plum also teaches two courses at CompTIA — on social media marketing and business transformation strategies.
Moving forward, Plum said he’d like to continue traveling and speaking about what he loves, while also growing his local customer base.
“I’m hoping, over the next five years, the evangelical effort turns monetized and into a business,” Plum said. “I’m focusing here on growing my base of agents and I want to continue to dig deeper. I’d like to be the go-to person for conferencing in the tri-state area.”

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