Pas Ruggiero, Managing Director of Integra ICT, is an old hand at telephony but his strategy to keep up with the times ensures that he always plays a new game.
Integra ICT was formerly known as Anglia Telecoms, a company Ruggiero took over and incorporated in 1998. Ten years later he rebranded to Integra ICT, a facelift that better reflected the firm's broader ICT portfolio and national reach. "We'd describe ourselves as a mid-sized reseller employing around 40 full time staff," he explained. "We've been trading for a long time so have an extensive client base with low attrition. Our year-on-year growth has been strong, growing 20 per cent last year despite challenging conditions in the market."
Ruggiero's mantra is that 'customer service is an attitude, not a department', and this ethos, he says, ensures client retention is high. Also attractive to end users is the company's proposition which is based on a staunch commitment to deliver four benefits to clients: Improving organisational productivity; improving customer service; delivering meaningful return on investment; and reducing cost of ownership. "Our principal objective is to communicate these propositions in the context of our portfolio to our clients," said Ruggiero.
A key strategic milestone that continues to influence the evolution of Integra ICT is the acquisition of an IT reseller just over a year ago. "We have made good progress in integrating the IT portfolio within our support infrastructure and selling these services to our clients," added Ruggiero. "We are now seeing an increase in new sales opportunities from both existing voice customers requiring our IT services and the IT client base needing assistance with their telephony requirements."
Integra ICT's telephony suppliers include Mitel and Siemens and, according to Ruggiero, they keep him busy with product development. "In particular, Siemens' new Openscape Business is a game changer for our client base and we'll be actively promoting this," he added. "Mitel's virtualisation strategy is also proving to be a door opener for us. And from a broader ICT perspective we've recently achieved Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Gold partner status. This is opening up real opportunities for us in the provision of complete integrated solutions. Finally, we expanded our offering on mobiles and have recently taken on Gamma's MVNO proposition.
"A close working relationship with our suppliers is key to our success. As well as working primarily with Mitel and Siemens on telephony we have relationships with Lancom and HP for data networks and Wi-Fi. Network services come from Nine Wholesale, Gamma and Virtual 1, and we work with Microsoft among others for IT. We're also doing some detailed work on the market for satellite broadband services. I see this as an area for potential growth."
Ruggiero has witnessed significant growth in demand for telephony and he's also seeing substantial growth in the integrated IT portfolio. "This is partly enabled by our expertise in Next Generation Access products/MPLS services from suppliers like Virtual 1," he added. "Additionally, Wi-Fi in certain vertical markets such as education, health and hospitality is an area of focus."
Ruggiero has always believed that personal development is key to retaining staff and keeping morale high. "This ensures we do the best job possible for our clients," he said. "Many of Integra's staff have access to job related and generic training and over 80 per cent of the team have taken the opportunity to build their skills with the company's support." •