Comms Dealer

Telcos are missing out on SMB SaaS opportunities, according to research by BCSG.

Previous research conducted on behalf of BCSG suggests this market may potentially be worth $22bn to UK and US operators, yet many are failing to realise this opportunity because of the failure to implement a best practice model that considers SMBs needs.
 
While many telcos are struggling to generate new revenue when offering software as a service to the SMB market, other, mature SaaS vendors are experiencing significant customer growth.

Good examples include cloud-based accounting software firm Xero and retail ecommerce firm Shopify, who each added hundreds of thousands of paying users last year alone.

Spurred to investigate this dichotomy, BCSG's analysis has identified several key reasons why telecoms operators are falling short in their ambitions.

According to the study telcos are failing to properly understand the customer and their needs and develop effective customer journeys, among other factors.

"Multiple reports and research, including our own, shows there's huge, latent opportunity for telecoms operators to generate substantial new revenues from cloud services provision," said Alan Marsh, Product and Marketing Director at BCSG.

"While telcos have had some success selling to tech-savvy 'early adopters', SMBs in the mass market are less willing and able to find their own way.

"Our analysis shows that low sales among mass market customers comes from failing to build awareness and appreciation of value effectively in the early stages of customer engagement.

"Understanding and building engaging, multi-channel customer journeys that span the full customer lifecycle will be key to unlocking the potential from this sector."

Pebbletree marked its 10th anniversary by filling a retro phone box with balls of varying sizes and launching a competition to guess how many balls.

Contestants entered via Pebbletree's website and Pebbletree customer Richard Pierpoint scooped the 13 night luxury cruise prize following an inspired punt.

Pierpoint, Director of FlexiSail, a boat and yacht sharing business based in Lymington, stated: "I thought there might be around 4,000 balls, but seeing that there were balls of different sizes it was anyone's guess.

"Looking down at my keyboard, 4,321 came easily to my fingertips and just made sense! They say that your first hunch is often right!"

Pierpoint and his wife Sue will to sail from Southampton to Spain and the Canary Islands aboard Celebrity Cruises' Eclipse ship in October 2016, having beaten off 1,500 entrants.

Janni Thornton, MD and co-founder of Pebbletree, said:
"After pushing this competition to customers through our notification system we were over the moon to discover that it was a customer that had won the competition.

"We wanted to splash out for our 10th anniversary, and after all, without our customers, we wouldn't have made it this far, so a big prize such as the cruise just made sense to us."

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Zen Internet has appointed Jon Bauer as Technical Director with a remit to lead the firm's next generation network strategy.

He brings 15-plus years experience in the technology, media and telecommunications sector, and prior to joining Zen he was Director of Technology at TalkTalk, having held many other senior positions with the company.

Bauer will head up the Network & Infrastructure division at Zen as it kicks off a multi-million pound investment programme to build a new national network.

"I have joined Zen to advise and deliver on the evolution of its network from a reliable and efficient one to a carrier-grade telecommunications infrastructure that will deliver and support the next generation of connectivity, IT and telecommunications services," stated Bauer.

"When complete, the new Zen network will provide the company with a solid platform on which to further build its credentials as a wholesaler."

Darlington-based Fifteen Digital narrowly missed out on the 'Most Ingenious' gong at the Best of Darlington Awards, coming in as runner up.

The Best of Darlington Awards recognise the local businesses of the town and their achievements, and the Most Ingenious Award category honoured businesses who see opportunities and solve problems through creativity and inventiveness.

A new service launched by Genius Networks called Intelligent SIP enables service providers, SIs and comms providers to offer reduced infrastructure costs for multi-national communications deployments, according to James Arnold-Roberts, CEO of G3 Comms and Genius Networks.

"For businesses expanding globally, the cost of SIP trunking infrastructure, such as gateways and session border controls, multiplies with every country and carrier connected to the communications system.

"Genius Network's Intelligent SIP aggregates multi-carrier and multi-country SIP connections allowing delivery on a single trunk, reducing the cost of deployment significantly and simplifying integration with other communication systems."

According to Arnold-Roberts, Intelligent SIP will be particularly suited to businesses using unified comms and contact centres with high usage of voice communications across global sites

He added: "Intelligent SIP is aimed to help businesses that want to expand into overseas markets and require fully managed, cost-effective global communications with a focus on Quality of Experience."

Distributor Midwich has listed in AIM, placing 36,157,010 new and existing ordinary shares at 208 pence each by Investec Bank, which will equate to a market capitalisation of around £165.3m on admission.

The proceeds will go toward paying down the debt, repaying existing shareholder loans and fund the final cash consideration relating to the acquisition of Kern & Stelly, a German distributor, the company stated.

The company has operations in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australasia.

"This represents an important milestone in the group's history, and becoming a public company will enhance Midwich's competitive position as a specialist AV and document solutions distributor to the trade market," said Stephen Fenby, Managing Director of Midwich.

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: New business start-ups usually have a limited budget and an eagerness to grow the company with a strong focus on sales rather than setting the foundations for an identity and clear vision. It is understandable that there is so much emphasis on sales but unfortunately this often leads to yet another faceless addition to the industry with little differentiation.

Start-ups usually want a logo and a website to get started. While these are undoubtedly essential tools for any business, steaming ahead without answering some basic questions about what your business wants to deliver and represent may result in having to continually readdress this question with unnecessary marketing expense further down the line.

Addressing key strategy questions does not even have to dip into your budget. There are a few basic questions that you should spend some time thinking about as these will form the axis on which your new business will spin. How do you want to be known? What do you want to achieve? What do you bring that is different? What problems are you addressing for clients? What type of business do you want to grow? Where do you want to be in one, three and five years time?

Once you have identified the answers to these questions only then is it time to get started with your logo and website. Having this clear vision will make your brief to the marketing agency a lot clearer and therefore a quicker, more cost-effective exercise.

Anyone seeking a foretaste of how rural communities will be connected in the future need look no further than the activities and ambitions of pure fibre network builder Gigaclear, according to Chief Executive Matthew Hare.

Hare is on a mission to liberate rural areas from inefficient broadband. He started Gigaclear from scratch in December 2010 with a business model directed at building and operating ultrafast, pure Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) broadband networks in rural communities where the existing fixed network infrastructure under performs. "The aim is to give these communities faster and more reliable broadband than is available anywhere else in the UK," he said. "Living in a rural area doesn't mean you have to tolerate bad broadband. Using FTTP technology, properties in rural parts of the UK can experience speeds of up to 1Gbps, up to 33 times faster than the UK average. Once built, the future proof network can keep up with the increasing demand for better, faster broadband to meet the connection needs of a modern, digital society."

Prior to setting up Gigaclear, Hare was founder and CEO of Community Internet Group and ts.com, both privately owned providers of Internet and data services in the UK. He is a Director and Council Member of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) and has also been involved in numerous network, wireless, data and telephony businesses such as Vodafone, Millicom, Microtel (Orange UK) and Liberty Communications.

When working for the Kinnevik Group in the 1990s he persuaded the UK Government to allocate 168Mhz of spectrum for fixed wireless access for Liberty Communications, a triumph that Hare rates as one of his biggest achievements to date. Looking ahead, he expects Gigaclear to become the largest rural FTTP network operator in the UK.

"We'll get there by doing more of what we are already doing, but better, cheaper and faster," stated Hare. "From a commercial perspective, there are over one and a half million homes and businesses in Britain that could benefit from our services and we want to reach those people as quickly as possible. In 2016, Gigaclear plans to build its network to at least 40,000 additional properties, so there's plenty of opportunity for further growth."

In 2015, Gigaclear had a headcount of 63 and the firm's turnover was £1.4 million with a gross profit of £0.6m. The company successfully reached its target of delivering pure fibre broadband to 15,000 properties last year. Its network serves individual households, small and medium businesses (including schools, hotels, business parks, factories, farms and offices) and the occasional enterprise.

The venture kicked off in earnest in May 2011 when Gigaclear bought Rutland Telecom and built its first fibre network in Hambleton, a small village with a population of 140 people, opening for service in October of that year. "Once we had demonstrated what was possible Gigaclear was ready for take-off," stated Hare.

To date, Gigaclear has built 60 rural fibre networks and has a strong pipeline with a further 25 in construction. Over 20,000 properties in rural parts of Oxfordshire, Essex, Northamptonshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire are live as a result, with 10,000 more already in construction.

Gigaclear has secured significant investment to build its network. Initially this was via 102 private individuals through the Government's Enterprise Investment Scheme, but in 2014 Woodford Investment Management became Gigaclear's first major institutional investor, followed by Prudential Infracapital last year. In January this year, Gigaclear secured an £18 million debt facility from the European Investment Bank (IEB). The loan is the largest one of its kind awarded to a UK company. "We're a capital intensive business so this loan was an important next step in our expansion strategy," commented Hare.

"Moving from a company that has private investors to one with funding from institutional investors has made a big difference to the business. It has accelerated our rate of growth. The strong financial support of our shareholders lets us get on with the job of delivering future-proof broadband without delay. Furthermore, securing BDUK contracts expands our growth opportunities."

Last month Gigaclear announced a £24 million new equity investment that will accelerate the build of its FTTP network. Building on these commercial investments, in 2015 Gigaclear secured contracts to deliver superfast broadband to customers as part of the Government subsidised BDUK programme to bring broadband of at least 24Mbps to 95 per cent of the UK. Gigaclear has won three substantial BDUK contracts in Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Essex.

The company is also developing its wholesale channel with service providers selling through the Fluidata aggregation platform and through direct connections at Telehouse East and Equinix LD4. "The majority of our customers are currently contracted directly with Gigaclear for service," said Hare. "Over the next few years we expect a substantial shift to our wholesale partners."

A recent consultation from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, National Broadband Scheme: Market Engagement on Procurement Approach, opens up a range of different potential models that can be used to deliver better broadband in the UK, Hare believes. "We are interested in seeing the impact of the plan to give priority to ISPs offering open access networks," he commented. "Combined with breaking down procurement into smaller lots, we expect to see a significant increase in the number of companies bidding for projects to serve the 'final 10 per cent'."

Hare's priority is to 'build, build, build!', and he rates the steady increase in demand for reliable, high quality bandwidth as Gigaclear's biggest opportunity. But his greatest challenge is acceleration. "To build more ultrafast FTTP networks we need to greatly expand our range of sub-contractors while maintaining the quality of built infrastructure," he said.

Hare has worked in the communications industry since 1984 and still exudes a passion for the transformative power of technology. "Telecoms in particular is an enabler for change and innovation," he enthused. "And Gigaclear is transforming how rural communities connect with the world. We want these communities to be better connected forever, so we are delivering a reliable ultrafast broadband network of the future, designed for the modern digital society. We are trustworthy, secure and here for the long run."•

The capabilities of billing systems will only be curbed by a lack of imagination and investment - such is their potential as a true platform for integration and innovation.

Demand for cloud-based systems has emerged as a major trend, not just in the billing space, but across the whole industry. So much so that Inform Billing provides its Eclipse software via the cloud as a matter of course, unless a customer requests otherwise. "Continued investment in cloud-based solutions that will simplify deployment as well as improve resilience will remain a key factor in our development," explained Shaun Bodsworth (pictured), Managing Director. "Using more up-to-date cloud-based technology will allow us to significantly advance our integration strategy and market share."

Inform Billing's proposition is two-fold. The first is geared towards new entrants in the comms market. "With this segment we base our proposition on simplicity of set-up, ease of use and we take care of hosting, servers, back-ups and licensing for our customers," added Bodsworth. "Our bureau service is priced as an entry-level option to help those starting out to get off on the right foot. Our second proposition is directed towards the established reseller looking to enhance their billing capability. This offering focuses on scalability of the software, reliability and the capacity for bespoke development alongside the existing complex feature set."

Inform Billing has doubled in size over the past two years. The company has developed close relationships with its customers and is able to respond swiftly to their development requests. "We strongly believe in the value of competition and have worked hard to position ourselves as a credible alternative for the larger reseller," added Bodsworth. "As an independent UK billing provider and a specialist in our field, we continue to promote the importance of independent billing options for resellers, rather than network or aggregator provided options.

"While we have always supported resellers to become self-sufficient with their billing and increase control and visibility over their customer base, we are finding that more and more resellers are happier to take advice and guidance from us and use our bureau billing team as an extension of their own. In the future we see the gap widening between those who want to buy 'Billing as a Service' and those who simply require a software solution."

The trend for outsourced services will continue to grow with a greater requirement for solutions that provide 'Billing as a Service', in addition to the traditional market for buying or renting a billing platform, believes Bodsworth. "Years ago a billing system was a large investment costing £20k-plus upfront," he stated.

"This is no longer the case, and the change in model has created an opportunity to nurture relationships, continue investment and essentially become more profitable as our customers succeed. The current trend, especially for fledgling companies, is to extend that link further by outsourcing all elements of billing to a specialist, freeing up precious time to go out selling and to grow the business."

According to Bodsworth there's a host of opportunities in non-core markets and Inform Billing has to be selective when choosing which opportunities to pursue. Any diversion into a new business stream requires significant development to take a product to market that is 'off the shelf' but still meets a variable set of complex demands. "With the move to more subscription-based revenues comes opportunities outside of the traditional telecoms and IT arena," added Bodsworth. "This includes, but is not limited to, the growth in IoT and M2M markets. Our biggest challenge is to develop systems flexible enough to cope with these emerging opportunities, yet to still maintain the core functionality required by the masses."

In the midst of such a dynamic market it should come as no surprise that Inform Billing has an ongoing development cycle and reinvests around 40 per cent of revenue into development. "This year is turning out to be a year of development launches for Inform Billing," he said. "We will see continued improvements with a major relaunch of our Eclipse billing software before the end of the year, reaffirming our commitment to cloud-based solutions, but retaining the flexibility for those who want to manage their own hosting and hardware. We will also be releasing enhancements to our accompanying Enlighten customer facing web billing portal, and increasing our capacity to integrate with third party systems."

According to Stephen Redman, Head of Customer Services at Aurora, the traditional telecoms reseller will cease to exist and the broader portfolio that resellers are now offering requires a solution that can cope with the complex billing demands of different product types. "The paradox, however, is that as the underlying complexity grows, solutions need to become simpler, easier to use, and integrate with businesses and complementary systems," commented Redman. "We have already added a number of features to the Affinity solution."

He agrees that trends in the cloud and 'as a service' are reshaping the billing landscape. "Flexible billing solutions that can support a range of hosting options while maintaining high standards of service are a key aspect of Aurora's solution delivery," stated Redman. "The industry is in a constant state of change, bringing both challenges and opportunity. Against this backdrop all resellers are seeking to differentiate their solution and for Aurora this challenge is an opportunity to tailor our solutions, from the modular aspect of the Affinity software that needs to integrate with other reseller systems, to defining the appropriate hosting and service solution."

As the world moves to a more connected environment with end users possessing multiple devices that are all talking to each other, the implications will extend to billing, pointed out Redman. "The need not only to hold and store data, but to understand and be able to act on it will play a greater role," said Redman. "For billing, this means that systems need to provide stakeholders with the means to analyse data quickly. It's no longer about waiting for a bill to arrive. Analysis needs to be as close to real-time as possible."

Aurora has relaunched its roadmap and this year will see through an evolution of the Affinity solution. Some of these developments are enhancements to the software suite. Others, noted Redman, will be 'revolutionary' changes that will help Aurora's customers to gain a competitive advantage.

For Nick Jarret, Group Billing Manager at Nine Group, the biggest industry change has been the adoption of cloud-based alternatives to previously deployed on-site solutions. "As software companies continue to move their products to the cloud and open their doors to APIs, integration between these systems is becoming more common and the flexibility, time and cost-savings of having a hosted solution is starting to be realised," he said.

"One of the most exciting developments is the changing profile of our customers. As the telecoms landscape continues to merge with other technologies, such as IT, we're supporting new customers who are branching out into telecoms from other backgrounds. Telecoms billing can be a complicated process, but it's something we've perfected over the 20 years that we've been providing bureau billing services to help resellers."

Nine has over 150 resellers using its Cascade WEB Billing system, giving the company a pool of feedback and suggestions that help to shape its development roadmap. "Our biggest challenge is deciding which of the many ideas to implement first," commented Jarret. "We've spent a long time developing the framework of Cascade WEB to be scalable, secure and resilient; and we're in a favourable position to build on our successes and integrate further ordering options and third party software, while accommodating new products and improving customer visibility, management and control for our resellers."

Integration to third party systems and automating from the point of order through to cash collection are also hot topics, noted Jarret. "Our customers are our drivers, so we can see first-hand the areas where we can add the most value," he said. "If you're able to integrate your ordering with your supplier and your billing information with your CRM, there's no reason you can't build on this to automatically recommend relevant products to the customer, demonstrate potential cost savings and allow them to place the order without you having to lift a finger.

"Billing systems will continue to evolve as new technologies emerge, but I envisage the ongoing movement being towards complementing third party software packages to offer resellers complete business solutions. I expect the future of billing systems to be in gateway solutions."•

Having completed a number of Gigabit City projects the message to the industry from CityFibre is that whatever the connectivity challenge where viable, 'we aim to build', and Aberdeen was no exception.

CityFibre's Gigabit City project is well advanced, bringing pure fibre infrastructures to entire communities. Its intention is to show that anything is possible, again and again, by leveraging its 'well-planned city approach' to building modern networks and overcoming all challenges that cross its path. The sheer agility of what CityFibre has done in Aberdeen is one example of how it has shifted the planning process to a new level. Moreover, CityFibre's work with cloud and application hosting firm Brightsolid is emblematic of its slick city-by-city approach to becoming a credible national infrastructure network alternative.

Brightsolid is the technology arm of DC Thomson & Company and has served the energy sector for 20 years. The firm is based in Dundee Technology Park and operates purpose built tier III data centre facilities in Dundee, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. The Aberdeen site, located west of the city, was primarily designed to serve the oil and gas industry, one of the most data intensive industries and a sector that is under financial pressure given falling oil prices. The facility helps to reduce the cost and risk of end user IT requirements by bringing offshore operations onshore wherever possible.

"After our first data centre was built in Dundee we saw significant adoption across energy, financial services and public sector organisations with the main concern being security," said Richard Higgs, CEO at Brightsolid. "With a capacity of 200 racks Dundee soon started to hit capacity. Many of our Aberdeen-based oil and gas customers at that time were served by the Dundee site, and after listening to more than 70 energy organisations we identified a requirement for a carrier neutral facility in Aberdeen. With the help of our parent company we decided to make a £5 million investment to transform the connectivity experience for the area. We also wanted to offer a rich choice of connectivity provider, including satellite provision."

The Aberdeen facility holds over 400 racks and is designed with the latest cooling technology called Ecofris, a system that enables Brightsolid to pass power savings on to customers. Furthermore, the company was the first Microsoft cloud OS partner in Scotland certified for Azure Hybrid Cloud, and one of a handful in Europe. Not surprisingly, CityFibre's Aberdeen project did not go unnoticed. "When we saw that CityFibre was bringing a modern fibre network to Aberdeen to create a Gigabit City it made sense to bring that connectivity into the Brightsolid data centre," added Higgs.

"The CityFibre links in and around Aberdeen are a vital contribution to our core network which gets our customers anywhere in the UK in under 20 milliseconds. The 100 per cent resilient path from CityFibre is also a selling point. Connectivity is the backbone of what we provide and it's vital that our core network surpasses the expectations of our customers."

The Brightsolid data centre would have been at some point within close reach of the CityFibre network, but the network itself was not built when conversations with Brightsolid began. As with any network build there comes a time when the talking stops and something must happen, the quicker the better. After CityFibre planners visited the site to assess the connectivity requirements the decision to invest in a two month programme of work to connect the site was made within one hour. Three months later just over three kilometres of network had been built and connected, including a tricky crossing of the A96 and close collaboration with Scottish Gas Networks.

It goes without saying that Brightsolid's reputation for being flexible sometimes depends on its partners acting quickly, and CityFibre's no-nonsense approach dovetailed with Brightsolid's modus operandi. "As a technology company we must be agile, and CityFibre shares the same 'if it makes sense, let's just get it done' attitude," added Higgs. "We value this approach immensely. CityFibre's decision to invest in a programme of work to connect the site was made quickly. From start to finish it took 12 weeks to get us connected to a brand new network."

The obstacle confronting many technological projects is an inability on the part of stakeholders to work together effectively, often made worse by a stubborn dismissal of new ways of doing things that can release whole regions from a past blighted by poor connectivity. According to CityFibre, it's all about great planning and forming partnerships such as its link-up with Scottish ISP IFB, CityFibre's anchor partner in Aberdeen.

"Our 'well-planned city approach' is the building block of every Gigabit City build," commented Rob Hamlin (pictured above), Commercial Director at CityFibre. "We start the process by looking at the location of business and retail areas, local authority sites, data centres, exchange buildings and mobile sites etc to ensure the built network passes as close as possible to areas of anticipated future demand. We also run early demand aggregation campaigns to establish exactly where other demand clusters are."

This approach often exposes clusters of businesses that are not adequately served, or in some cases frustrated, by the quality of existing connectivity options or service delivery. "A planned build is sometimes split into a number of phases in order to achieve the optimum reach or to prioritise an anchor tenant," added Hamlin. "Even if an area is not included as part of the early phases there is always an opportunity for future expansion."

Once a city-wide deployment begins, the physical installation of the cables and connection of a city's key sites proceeds rapidly. If network is already in place due to an acquisition for example, CityFibre will carry out full checks and undertake any improvement work to ensure it is robust enough to pin its reputation on and offer guaranteed SLAs.

As with all of its cities, CityFibre also considers ongoing expansion opportunities and plans ahead accordingly. "Ultimately, a well planned network can function as a backbone for deployment of fibre to individual homes as well as businesses, providing residential access to true choice and ever-richer forms of digital services and entertainment," commented Hamlin.

CityFibre has evolved what amounts to a technical edge on the ground during the assessment process, where obstacles are looked at and weighed up from a different perspective - not as found. "Although Brightsolid's particular network build was relatively simple with just a few hurdles to overcome, including the need to cross the A96 and time spent working in the trenches with the Scottish Gas Networks team, it's not always so easy," stated Hamlin. "When we hit challenges during a network build we look for solutions and make the most of our agility. That's what we did for Brightsolid, using an entirely different route into the building from all other providers, and getting it installed before it was open for business."

South of the Scottish border, CityFibre also opened a new digital front in the connected future of Leeds and Bradford last month, both now Gigabit Cities with ultra-fast Internet services available through CityFibre's launch partners Exa Networks and Diva Telecom. Other initiatives aren't far behind. After all, why should past forces in the market be allowed to determine what we may experience of the future? This question is best answered through agile partnerships, believes Hamlin.

"The way in which a provider works is vital in our industry, whether that's at the infrastructure, data centre or pure connectivity provisioning level," he said. "As well as ticking all of the boxes in terms of technical, product and solutions prowess, it is crucial to be innovative, easy to do business with and be flexible enough to meet the customers' modern day connectivity requirements."•