Comms Dealer

Kent-based telecoms company Active Digital has scooped two industry awards from O2 (the Digital Excellence and Customer Excellence gongs), repeating last year's double award win.

Jason Phillips, Head of Partner Sales at O2, commented: "These awards represent a significant shift in the way we work as we become more focused on customer support, digital knowledge and expertise."

Active Digital's Jo Wimble-Groves added: "As an organisation, we have always embraced the digital shifts in technology. We want to be the 'go-to' organisation our enterprise customers think of when they want to make their business more mobile and digitally ready. We understand the challenges IT Directors are facing when focusing on mobile strategy and we are working hard to deliver results for our customers and O2.

"These O2 awards are a seal of approval for our commitment to this digital journey and the customer experience."

Pictured left to right: Darren Buttrick, O2 SMB Sales Director, Jo Wimble-Groves, Active Digital and Jason Phillips, O2 Head of Partners Sales.

Customers of Six Degrees Group (6DG) are to play a central role in the future direction of the business, following the launch of a Customer Community Programme.

The initiative is part of 6DG's multi-million pound 'Invest For Growth' strategy, inviting customers to provide regular, ongoing input into the strategic development of the company.

The programme will integrate customer experience, expertise and feedback into 6DG's service and solutions strategy. The objective is to ensure 6DG understands and anticipates customer requirements across its full range of cloud and managed services - including application delivery, platform management, hosting and network solutions.

Led by Customer Experience Director, Nicky Bramley, the programme will measure customer satisfaction, and create communication channels including initiatives to increase senior level engagement and widen networking and learning opportunities.

"6DG has built its success on the quality of its customer relationships, and we see additional potential for customers to actively shape the future direction of the business," explained Campbell Williams, Group Strategy and Marketing Director.

"This programme is an important element of our ongoing 'Invest for Growth' strategy, which has already seen important additions to our sales and marketing teams, alongside plans to continue our highly successful M&A strategy."

telent Technology Services has achieved Advanced Service Provider Architecture Specialisation from Cisco in the UK.

As a Cisco Advanced Service Provider Architecture specialised partner, telent has invested in the training required to deliver differentiated business value through the foundation of the service provider architecture.

Cisco Advanced Service Provider Architecture specialised partners create architecture solutions to meet their customers' strategic goals, helping transform business processes, boost organisational efficiency and accelerate revenue growth.

"telent invests in the right people and technology to meet the current and future business needs of our customers. This means we are able to provide tailored designs and deliver solutions that give our customers a competitive edge," stated Mark Plato, Chief Executive, telent.

8x8 has opened a new office in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, as it continues its global expansion.
 
The office, which will be integral to 8x8's research and innovation, is the company's first operations and development centre in Eastern Europe.

More than 200 existing and prospective employees attended the opening on 31st March, as well as the former Prime Minister of Romania and current Mayor of Cluj-Napoca.
 
This is the latest move in 8x8's ambitious growth plans, following the opening of a third UK office in Manchester in December and the acquisition of UK-based technology firm, DXI in August.

The Romanian office will be integral to this growth and plans to double its current 45 employees by the end of 2016. Key members of 8x8's leadership team led the discussions on the company's strategy and growth plans, including CEO Vik Verma and CTO and Chairman, Bryan Martin.
 
Bryan Martin, Chairman and CTO of 8x8, said: "8x8's Romanian Dev Centre is a hotbed of innovation and research for the company and has become highly integral to our most recent contact centre advancements. 

"Without a doubt, the technical team we are building in Cluj will help 8x8 advance our contact centre and customer experience offerings, and continue to drive our reputation as a global cloud communications innovator."

KCOM has become the latest Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to join the Cloud Industry Forum.

KCOM's Cloud services deliver business critical collaboration tools tailored to organisations in public and private sector industries including retail, finance, health and professional services.

KCOM is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner and holds AWS Managed Service Provider competency status. KCOM is also an official Microsoft CSP.

By joining CIF, KCOM will ensure that its customers receive up-to-date information about the changing Cloud market and help to guide the focus and direction of the industry body.

Stephen Long, MD at KCOM, said: "Our cloud portfolio has grown considerably in recent years, and, as cloud is a key focus for the business, it's important that we can stay at the forefront of industry developments.

"Aligning ourselves with the Cloud Industry Forum gives us access to technical insight and the latest developments in the UK Cloud market, which in turn allows us to improve the service we provide our customers."

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) has appointed Jack Chen as company CEO, replacing acting CEO Jeff Ma who will continue as a board member of ALE Holdings.

Chen comes to ALE with more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining ALE, he was the head of the APAC and China Wireless business in Alcatel-Lucent.

In this position, he was able to double the wireless business in three years. Prior to this, he was an executive vice president in Alcatel Shanghai Bell (ASB), the flagship company of Alcatel-Lucent in China, where he played a critical role in implementing the shift plan.

Before Alcatel-Lucent, he held various positions, such as the global COO of the Alcatel Mobile Radio Business in France and the president of Shanghai Bell Alcatel Mobile Co.

Lee Perkins has joined Manchester-based network operator and ISP Metronet (UK) as Chief Executive Officer.

He brings 20 years experience working in senior commercial roles including stints at Tech Data UK, Computacenter and IQ-Sys. He was most recently EVP and Managing Director of Sage UK & Ireland.

Perkins is actively involved with topics surrounding the Northern Powerhouse and Digital Skills of the North and is a frequently noted commentator. In addition, he is a member of the Tech North Advisory Board and a leadership committee member for the Princes Trust.

Andy Lockwood, Chairman of Metronet (UK), said: "With our ambition to become the UK's leading alternative technology network operator and ISP, securing a CEO of Lee's pedigree to drive the next phase of our growth and development is a reflection both of the scale of our opportunity and of our ambition."

A new ordering portal launched to dealers by Jola Cloud Solutions allows partners to build co-branded, online sales proposals for multiple products in one portal, and send them directly to end users to accept, triggering off the order provisioning process.

Andrew Dickinson, MD, commented: "We have been working hard on automating the quoting and ordering tools for our growing partner base. Jola dealers can now build an online quote for connectivity, hosted voice and mobile SIMs in minutes, which is co-branded and emailed directly to their end users. The customer only needs to click on a link in the email to place their order.

"The new portal adds value for our dealer partners who can take advantage of the quick, professional proposals automatically generated with full product descriptions included."

Jola is running webinars to demonstrate its new portal.

Managed services provider GCI has added more scale and skills to the business following the acquisition of Essex-based Fusion Media Networks for an undisclosed sum. GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill revealed that the firm's gaze had fallen on Fusion at least two years ago.

"We have been keeping a quiet eye on its progress," he stated. "As part of the GCI family Fusion's customers will now benefit from our scale, managed services portfolio and our multi-million investment in technologies and monitoring and management systems."

Wayne Martin, GCI's founder and Chairman, added: "As I look back on GCI's journey, it's nice to reflect on the many fine organisations that are now woven into our DNA.

"They build scale, add new and contemporary services, bring a depth of technical experience and, piece-by-piece, they are transforming GCI into something special.

"Our aim, through rolling acquisition and continual up-skilling, is to keep ahead of the curve. It's as simple as that."

Thirkill noted that GCI's acquisition activity is just one strand of its growth plan.

"In the last four months alone we have assembled a seasoned and proven leadership team with decades of experience in what 'good' looks like.

"There is now a palpable energy building across GCI and a common objective.

"Our growth will not just come from acquisitions, but from the joined-up effort of empowered staff, good management and clear direction.

"These are early days in the next stage of GCI's journey, but I feel the company is tracking nicely as we continue our push through the MSP premiership. But there is more to do and more to come - watch this space."

Lee Norvall, CEO at Essex-based Fusion Media, added: "Building Fusion has been my passion and total focus over the last few years.

"The fact that it is now part of the GCI Group feels right.
"GCI's grasp of the fast changing technology landscape and its consultative approach is exactly right."

Over 150 customers and prospects attended Alternative's FusionLIVE 2016 event at the end of last month.

Held at Victoria House in London the show was intended to provide a deep insight into the service provider's proposition set, which is built around workspace, collaboration, infrastructure, and visibility and control.

Alternative's creative team used the sprawling whitewashed basement of the neoclassical building as a canvass to create a series of sets, tech bars, theatres and workspaces, to reinforce Alternative's consolidated 'device to data centre' propositions.

The busy tech bars enabled delegates to talk and test products openly with experts from Alternative and vendor partners, while a packed keynote theatre provided a series of business IT focused presentations from Microsoft, Avaya, Citrix, Wandera and Netapp.

Alternative has had a hectic 18 months following the acquisitions of InterceptIT and ControlCircle, and the opening of its new group headquarters and concept lab at 240 Blackfriars Road in London.

The company's products and services include cloud computing, virtualisation, managed hosting, fixed line voice, mobile, systems, IP networks and complex billing software solutions.

Nick Burrows, Proposition Director at Alternative, commented: "FusionLIVE gives our customers access to a range of resources they need in order to make the right choices for optimising, augmenting and developing their IT infrastructures and deliver tangible business outcomes.

"By bringing everything together under one roof, customers have the opportunity to see how things work both individually and as a whole, hence the name Fusion."

Pictured are Alternative's Fusion Live creators Aidan Jackson (Communications Director), Nick Burrows (Proposition Director) and Suzanne Langton (Marketing Manager).