Comms Dealer

Utilize scooped Best Marketing Campaign at the European Business Excellence Awards, and were also finalists in the Best Company Culture and CEO of the Year categories.

Warren Davies, founder and MD of Utilize, collected the award at a black tie event at Celtic Manor organised by business coaching firm ActionCOACH.

"Winning Best Marketing Campaign is a testament to how all of our team represent the company," said Davies.

"We have always maintained that our biggest assets are our staff and our company ethos which is centred on working with the common goal of improving our customers' technology.

"Our DNA for Success has been written by our people and sets out, in our words, the reasons we want to grow, how we can achieve this growth, our vision, our values and our culture.

"The continued support of our team helps us to promote the open, honest and transparent environment we are so proud of and continue to build.

"This ensures that Utilize can continue to deliver great customer service and endorse an innovative and intuitive attitude, where everything is achievable."

Lonap Chairman Trefor Davies (pictured) will use M2M technology to raise awareness of Cancer Research during a charity walk from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay.

A tracking device supplied by Pangea will inform Davies' followers about his location and the environmental conditions.

"I wanted to make the journey a highly interactive multimedia experience by allowing followers to track my progress in real-time," said Davies.

"It's great to work with a company that is willing to get involved and use their technology to raise awareness for causes like this."

Pangea MD Dan Cunliffe added: "In an increasingly connected world, Pangea believes that IoT and M2M can do more than just connect devices, appliances or vehicles.

"For Pangea, #ConnectingTrefor is about connecting people with a great cause. This is the first of our many corporate social responsibility initiatives."

Davies will be walking from 1st May to 12th May in memory of his mother and his wife's father, and welcomes anyone who wants to join him along the way.

The 2016 Managed Services and Hosting Summit to be held in London on 21st September will examine the rapid changes taking place currently in the industry and among IT customers.

The way companies are buying IT is changing, creating threats and opportunities for existing MSPs and new market entrants alike, just as IT models themselves are undergoing fundamental change.

The Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2016, now in its sixth year, will focus on how the market is changing and what it will take for MSPs to succeed in this brave new digital world.

A positive customer experience is critical to a company's brand and, ultimately, its bottom line.

With the proliferation of technology and devices, the customer has become smarter and more powerful.

Customers now decide when and how they want to interact with brands and this has had a direct impact on the way companies sell to their customers. While macro trends such as social, mobile, cloud, big data and IoT are forging a new era of engagement, customers are ultimately becoming far more disruptive than the technology itself.

In the first keynote, 'The Age of the Customer', Tiffani Bova, Salesforce's Global, Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist (and former Gartner VP, Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow) will address how companies of all sizes can create new business practices that leverage technology to strengthen customer relationships and accelerate sales and growth.

Attendees will hear actionable takeaways on how to create a customer-centric business and long-lasting brand loyalty.

The UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2016 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales.

www.mshsummit.com

The industry's most prestigious sales awards event staged at the The Park Lane Hotel, London, on May 5th (and sponsored by KCOM), has recognised and rewarded the best sales and marketing teams in the comms channel.

Hosted by TV presenter Dan Walker, best known for presenting the BBC's Football Focus and BBC Breakfast, the awards luncheon celebrated the top revenue generating teams from the distribution, vendor and reseller sectors of the channel.

Stand-out winners were Entanet, Provu and Focus Group, all scooping a brace of awards with Focus collecting the coveted Comms Dealer Sales Team of the Year accolade (pictured).

Comms Dealer Editorial Director Nigel Sergent said: "Channel teams that truly understand the needs of customers and shown innovation in their approach to sales impressed our judges most.

"Real success is only achieved through teamwork, and having seen every entry that was passed onto our esteemed panel of judges, I am fully aware of the work put into these awards and the quality of the submissions has been amazing.

"All of our finalists are to be congratulated on their achievements and deserve wide recognition for their hard work."

For more information on this year's Sales Awards please visit www.cdsalesawards.com

COMMS DEALER SALES AWARDS 2015 WINNERS

Reseller Sales Team of the Year up to £2.5m - Loop Voice & Data

Reseller Sales Team of the Year £2.5m-£5m - NSN

Reseller Sales Team of the Year £5m-£7.5m - Berry Telecom

Reseller Sales Team of the Year £7.5m - Focus Group

Reseller Best Marketing Campaign - Lily Comms

Service Provider Channel Account Team of the Year - plan.com

Service Provider Channel Marketing Team of the Year - Channel Telecom

Service Provider Channel Marketing Campaign of the Year - Fidelity Group

Distributor Channel Account Team of the Year - ProVu

Distributor Channel Marketing Team of the Year - ProVu

Distributor Channel Marketing Campaign of the Year - Pragma

Vendor Channel Account Team of the Year - Entanet

Vendor Channel Marketing Team of the Year - Entanet

Vendor Channel Marketing Campaign of the Year - BT Wholesale

Channel Marketing/PR Agency of the Year - Blabbermouth

Comms Dealer Sales Team of the Year - Focus Group

Managed Services Provider GCI has finalised its leadership team with the appointment of Mike Ayres as CCO and Phil Smith as COO.

GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill stated: "I have worked with both Mike and Phil for many years at Colt and Easynet and we achieved some great things together.

"They are talented, consistent and have the backbone to always push for better and see beyond 'same old, same old'.

"Importantly, I also always remember our time together as good days, fun borne of success. I am delighted therefore that we have reformed a winning team."

Ayres, previously MD Business Markets (UK) at Easynet and then Senior Vice President Strategic Channel at Interoute, commented: "Across the organisation we have a very good team at GCI.

"I look forward to doing everything possible to provide strong support to my team and a great service to our customers.

"And, through the discipline of collaboration and partnership - and the traditional values of decency, honesty and integrity - I hope to earn the trust and respect of both our people and our customers."

Smith previously with Colt, CGI and Capgemini, noted: "Our many years working together have built empathy and confidence in each other's ability, but it was fun too and I feel the GCI alchemy will be just as good, if not better.

"I believe the team at GCI is primed and ready to take things to the next level. I also believe that in an progressively commoditised sector, GCI will serve our customers better by developing an increasingly proactive and consultative approach."

Thirkill added: "We now have a full exec team from CEO to CMO and it's a capable blend of experienced new joiners and proven GCI seniors.

"Collectively, the leadership team shares the single vision of realising GCI's full potential and supporting our people, customers, partners and alliances to the absolute best of our ability.

"More simply, we now have the right people on the bus and we'll now pull together to keep GCI not only pointing in the right direction. Our announcement only last week regarding our acquisition of Fusion Media Networks is just one early indicator of that."

Ayres and Smith join weeks after Mike Constantine joined GCI as CTO.

Will Kennedy has joined Solar Communications as Sales Director, moving from Intercity Telecom where he was Sales and Marketing Director, and formerly Sales Director at Daisy.

He brings more than 17 years experience in the telecommunications and managed services sector to Solar.

Solar CEO John Whitty commented: "Will's significant experience and strong vendor relationships means that he is the ideal person to support our ambitious plans as we take our customers on this exciting journey."

Kennedy added: "The market opportunity is huge and Solar is well primed for growth, with a proven track record in business communications delivery and established relationships with leading vendors.

"I share John's vision and ambitions for the company and I look forward to leading our sales team in the delivery of new and improved technology solutions to new and existing clients.

"Investments already made by Solar have equipped us with the technology to incrementally improve the daily operations and business performance of our clients' business through the adoption of new technology."

Maintel has completed the acquisition of Azzurri Communications following an 'overwhelming' vote of approval from its shareholders.

The acquisition positions the combined company as one of the largest integrators in the communications sector, with revenues for the last financial year of over £140m.

Eddie Buxton, CEO at Maintel, said: "The overwhelming approval by shareholders has further confirmed to us that this acquisition will prove beneficial for employees, customers and partners of both companies, providing enhanced scale and visibility of the combined group."

Chris Jagusz, CEO of Azzurri Communications, added: "The combined group will be able to offer its customers a broader range of services in hosted cloud and data solutions."

Six Degrees Group (6DG) has acquired application hosting provider Insite, a specialist provider of Microsoft Dynamics AX hosting and managed services in the cloud.
 
Established in 1994, Insite owns and operates its own tier 3 aligned data centre where it hosts private cloud infrastructure, dedicated to each client, upon which it builds tailored platforms to operate ERP and CRM platforms, predominantly but not exclusively for Microsoft applications.
 
Insite is a Microsoft Gold Partner for Server and Data platforms, plus Hosting, bringing Microsoft Azure public cloud knowledge to 6DG.
 
Insite goes to market directly and through partnerships with major ISVs.

These partners handle the application development and rollout with Insite providing the PaaS elements.

Insite includes application performance monitoring, highly pro-active support and security controls within its service wrapper. End users include Greenwich Leisure, Tarmac Building Products, Crew Clothing, Joules and Countrywide Farmers.
 
Alastair Mills, CEO of 6DG, commented: "This announcement is a continuation of our stated strategic goal to enhance our capabilities in mission critical application hosting, with a secure and compliant wrap, for business and government customers.

"It also provides Microsoft Azure expertise in the public cloud for both IaaS and PaaS, as well as a strong ISV partner channel."
 
James Barden, MD of Insite, added: "The technical capabilities of both businesses are highly complementary and our approach to the way we work with customers is a close fit.

"We are looking forward to introducing new capabilities from Six Degrees in addition to the expertise in mission-critical hosting we have been delivering to our customers for many years."

Arrow Electronics has announced its participation in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme.

Arrow will leverage its global base of value added resellers and managed service providers to sell Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Enterprise Mobility Suite and Dynamics CRM Online subscriptions in the United States and Europe.

Arrow will grow its sales of Microsoft cloud through value added services delivered globally to the channel, including cross-vendor solutions, go-to-market playbooks and cloud assessment-migration toolkits, in addition to billing and support services.

Steve Robinson, Vice President of Arrow's global cloud business, said: "As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme partner, Arrow is well positioned to provide and enable a range of Microsoft cloud solutions through our channel partner community."

Phones were ringing off their hooks at Leicester City FC when it secured the Premier League crown with two games to go after Spurs drew 2-2 with Chelsea on Monday night, with the club's comms solution, supplied by SpliceCom, not dropping any balls during the influx.

Leicester held Manchester United 1-1 at Old Trafford, despite finishing the match with ten men, the day before, requiring their North London rivals to win all three remaining games to stay in contention for the Premiership race.

The Fantastic Foxes, as they're affectionately known, had already qualified for the European Champions League next season.

Leicester City has been using an on-premise cloud-ready SpliceCom voice solution, including Vision Business Management application, to handle their evolving unified communication needs, since 2010.

The SpliceCom solution utilises some 200 IP and analogue handsets around Leicester City's King Power Stadium, training ground and other key locations, running as a single unified system.

Paulo Sousa, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Nigel Pearson and now Claudio Ranieri have all utilised the phone tagged 'Manager' on the SpliceCom system over this period.

According to Martine Morgan, Leicester City's Purchasing Manager, the greatest advantage of the SpliceCom solution is its flexibility. "Leicester City now receives a tailored level of service that reflects the clubs changing needs throughout the season.

"What doesn't change are the benefits that this great solution provides to us, our partners and most importantly, our fantastic supporters."