Enter White Horse Telecom Managing Director Paddy Coppinger, a former helicopter pilot and seller of Magic Trees who branched into telecoms and is aiming for a knighthood.
Although he would like to be remembered as 'sir Paddy Coppinger!', it is perhaps more likely that Paddy will be recorded in the annals of comms as a characterful and ambitious technology entrepreneur. Yet his destiny could have been very different. Having finished school, Coppinger curtailed his educational career early when he decided to drop the idea of gaining a university degree to train as a helicopter pilot. "But the post-Gulf War global economic downturn largely put paid to that," he commented. "As an unemployed pilot I found jobs where I could, undertaking a variety of roles from van driving to bar work and ultimately falling into a sales 'repping' position in the automotive aftermarket industry where I showed a talent for selling. I noted that a number of friends who had recently graduated were turning up at my place in increasingly flashy cars, bragging about how much money they were earning for the (seemingly little) work they were doing within the tech sector. Telecoms beckoned."
Coppinger then joined a small cable franchise in west London that after a number of acquisitions ultimately became Virgin Media. He then moved to Energis before taking on a Wholesale Account Manager's role at what was to become Verizon. "I spent five years there, dealing with a variety of resellers of all shapes and sizes before I decided to strike out on my own," stated Coppinger.
He founded White Horse Telecom in January 2006, printed up order forms and business cards and set off door knocking. "In the beginning we were very much about calls, lines and not much else," explained Coppinger. "The business has evolved dramatically from those humble beginnings to a major player in the converged voice and data space. White Horse Telecom is an early adopter and each new product enables a further significant leap in growth, be it broadband a few years ago or hosted telephony today."
The company has demonstrated steady yet significant growth year on year since its beginnings. "We are considered, primarily, as a trusted advisor by our customer base which is typically made up of UK-centric, multi-site organisations," commented Coppinger. "The majority of our customers are not desperately price sensitive but they do value first class service at all times. To that end we could be viewed as, what I regard to be, one of the first proper business-to-business telecoms boutiques in the UK."
During the past two years White Horse Telecom has expanded to a new office in Hungerford, broadened its product portfolio and increased sales. Coppinger sees future growth coming from a variety of areas. "These include strengthened relationships with existing suppliers, growing the team, consolidation - which may include acquisitions - as well as good old-fashioned organic growth," he added.
"My main priority is to grow the business. There was a time when we had to make strong and sometimes unrewarded efforts to make customers more sticky by introducing multiple products to them. Today, almost all of our customers take more than three products from our portfolio. Customers these days cannot help but be sticky. To that end, our role is far more consultative than it's ever been. And our role as a key supplier to these companies means that we have to deliver on our word and according to agreed time scales."
White Horse Telecom's main routes to market have been either through direct sales or through a dealer channel, and Coppinger has witnessed more and more end user customers embrace the propositions offered by smaller comms and IT providers. "I see a greater willingness from large companies to engage with smaller CPs," he added. "The trick going forward will be how resellers of all sizes maintain levels of customer satisfaction and introduce new products while still turning a profit. The move towards IP-based technology is also fascinating. Coupled with the imminent demise of ISDN, we see a clear direction towards cloud and hosted IP telephony products."
Coppinger rates setting up White Horse Telecom and getting it past that 'mythical five year bump' as his biggest career achievement to date. The company's culture is firmly founded on the watchwords 'treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself', and a 'work hard, play hard' approach towards business. "I don't think I'd do anything differently," noted Coppinger. "Everything I've done has contributed in some way, however small, to the success of White Horse Telecom. From selling Magic Trees to working for the world's largest carrier."•