Fast growing SIPHON Networks' cloud UC mission could come to dominate, according to Steve Harris, co-founder and Managing Director, who says the company's reseller engagement strategy strikes a harmonious chord with an expanding posse of channel partners.
There is no doubt that Harris's biggest career achievement is co-founding SIPHON in 2009, but how he managed this remarkable feat is still a head-scratching question. "I look back on how we did it with a £50,000 investment in the middle of a global financial crisis," recalled Harris. "Initially, we were lucky to partner with smaller companies such as BNS Telecom that were acquired and grew into larger entities. As a consequence our revenue increased alongside theirs and we could offer the same value but with additional scale. We then used our growth to fund the acquisition of VCOMM. The timing coincided with a strong upturn in cloud adoption and we could offer our cloud UC service providers a true end-to-end solution and technology enablement proposition."
Much time and effort was spent on integrating VCOMM and establishing the distribution side of the business, which is a fundamentally different operation compared to SIPHON's initial modus operandi. "The value that the acquisition created for our customers was clear, so we needed to significantly change the way we operated in terms of our internal systems and processes," added Harris. "Our customers are mainly cloud UC providers but we are working with a growing number of IT resellers who recognise that they need additional support to maximise their success when offering voice and UC services such as Skype for Business Enterprise Voice."
SIPHON has no dependency on legacy revenues or vendors therefore its focus is on two primary and disruptive cloud UC market offerings, BroadSoft and Microsoft Skype for Business (SfB). "We use an indirect channel model and will continue to work through our channel partners, enabling them to bring these disruptive technologies to their end users," stated Harris.
Having established its Microsoft Technology Practice over a year ago, SIPHON has been eyeing the SfB domain for some time now. In a significant development SIPHON recently achieved formal status as a Microsoft Gold Partner and is also leveraging Gold Communication Competency capabilities in its work with partners.
Last year SIPHON extended its BroadSoft partnership to include BroadCloud. This enables partners to consume and offer the BroadWorks solution on an opex basis rather than buying their own platform with the associated capital investment. "We are also looking at other cloud offerings to complement this proposition, so the channel should expect the launch of new services in this area during 2016," said Harris.
"We are committed to these BroadSoft and Microsoft SfB solutions and also have strong vendor partnerships with other suppliers including Oracle (Acme Packet), Polycom and AudioCodes. Ultimately, we sit between our vendor suppliers and channel partners, so these relationships shape the type of products and services that we can provide."
Another important development got under way around 18 months ago when SIPHON set about evolving its internal structure and systems to scale and support its growth ambitions. "We completed our ISO27001 certification and have invested in the automation of our internal systems, whereby we now expect to process, provision and fulfil over 70 per cent of orders automatically," added Harris. "This investment in systems and processes is key as the volume of orders we processed last year increased 125 per cent against 2014 figures."
The revenue at SIPHON has grown by 644 per cent over the last four years, earning the company 23rd place in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 awards 2015. This year SIPHON will increase its headcount to 50 full-time staff and is targeting in excess of £20 million turnover by 2017. "Our main priority is to execute on the business plan we set out when we took our strategic investment last year from Finance Wales (Private Equity investor)," said Harris.
"We were above our forecasted plan last year and expect to do the same again in 2016, although we think our growth in percentage terms will be more modest. We will achieve our business goals by continuing to ensure that our offering is genuinely relevant to our partner customers as well as our continued investment in innovation."
The statistic that most interests Harris is the percentage of companies yet to adopt a cloud UC solution. "The SME and mid-market segments have seen massive growth in this area during 2015, but fewer than 10 per cent of UK SMEs have a cloud UC service," he noted. "That speaks volumes about the opportunity that exists. It's not surprising that there's considerable investment and alignment happening in this space."
Harris has a knack for putting his finger on an opportunity, and his magic touch played a big hand in the formation of SIPHON which he founded with Technical Director Rob Smith. "We saw the emergence of cloud UC, and also saw that it would be the smaller and more dynamic service providers that would quickly find success in this space," explained Harris. "But the ambitions of these companies were hampered by a lack of technical skills and integration experience, so we recognised that the circumstances were favourable to build a company that would help them to be disruptive with us working as their technology and integration partner."
SIPHON does this by adopting the same approach to all channel partners, regardless of who they are or the services they are trying to provide. "It's a strategy that works for us and is consistent across our cloud, distribution and Microsoft practices," explained Harris. "Ultimately, the partner will have some skills and ideas on what they'd like to offer, so they come to us with various requests. Our job is to plug the gaps in their skills and knowledge and add further value to their offering. Our value to them will increase if there are more gaps to fill or more sophisticated ways that they want to utilise our portfolio of products and services, whether this is to differentiate themselves from rivals or simply to provide a more comprehensive offering."
Cloud UC and its adoption will continue to be the primary driving force behind SIPHON's growth, and Harris plans to take his approach to new geographical markets, tailoring solutions to each partner depending on their requirements. The most effective partnerships involve investments in joint sales and marketing initiatives that ultimately drive success for both parties.
Harris has the astute ability to ensure that SIPHON remains ahead of the curve. This strategic foresight and clear vision could be strongly attributed to his previous work experience in comms. He joined Nortel as a work placement student while at university and took a full-time role after finishing his degree. "I spent eight years at Nortel across various roles in logistics, project management, marketing, business development and sales, which gave me a good grounding in the industry and business in general," he said. "I have my Nortel stock and options certificate on the wall in my home office. It's a stark reminder that things can change very quickly. The demise of Nortel is well documented, but it was a great place to start a career in telecoms."•