Comms Dealer

Global expansion is beckoning fast growing Cisilion and Sales Director Nick Paul has no qualms about answering the call.

The name Cisilion draws attention to the company's heritage as a Cisco house, but there was the rub - the market had expanded and Cisilion recognised the need to provide its clients with a wider vendor offering, enabling it to be an end-to-end systems integrator. Cisilion was established 16 years ago by Roger Paul to help businesses simplify their IT deployments. The firm provides solutions to a client base in 56 countries across five continents and has big plans for global expansion.

Long-term strategic relationships with technology partners including Cisco, Microsoft, Riverbed, Dell and Oracle were bolstered in December when Cisilion built on its hybrid enterprise offering following a link-up with EMC. "This agreement allows us to work more strategically with EMC to help our customers achieve cost reductions while strengthening our own storage propositions," commented Nick Paul. "EMC's expertise lies in leveraging performance versus capacity, automating the provision of data protection and delivering infrastructure control via simplified reporting."

Cisilion expects to boost its £36 million turnover to circa £50 million this year, focusing on enterprise and commercial companies with between 500-10,000 employees. It targets senior level decision makers from all lines of business but primarily IT. "We provide transformational IT solutions spanning infrastructure, collaboration, security and the cloud," said Paul. "Our target markets include global organisations within the financial services, legal, insurance and construction sectors. Over the next five years we aim to continue our global expansion and increase revenues significantly."

Opening in Hong Kong and New York cemented Cisilion's reputation as a global partner to its clients. Another important development was moving the front office to the City of London in close proximity to clients and prospects. "In this office we launched our state of the art Innovation Centre where customers can experience first hand the latest IT technologies and solutions," said Paul. "They rely on us to understand the market and key trends, both today and what's coming in the future. One of our biggest strengths is the partnerships we have with clients. This enables us to understand their needs and in turn tailor our business to support them. We work closely with key vendors to shape our propositions; and our flexibility and level of service is what differentiates us."

The rise of the cloud continues to climb steeply and shifts towards the subscription model are well advanced. "Revenues are shifting from tin and boxes to virtualised systems and services," added Paul. "Businesses no longer want three or five-year big refreshes, therefore VARs and SIs need to adapt their offerings to deliver a much lighter, often hybrid IT infrastructure, which is less dominated by hardware choices with more focus on service and support."
This trend is redefining the role of many systems integrators and resellers who in the past have been focused on the plumbing of the network, often rooted in the provision of hardware infrastructure and licenses. "While this won't go away any time soon, in order to remain competitive SIs need to spend time building service propositions, consultancy services and user adoption practices to help their customers make the transition to cloud," added Paul.

Cisilion scooped Comms Dealer's Best Enterprise UC Solution 2015 at the Comms National Awards held last October at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London. The award recognised the merits of a large Microsoft Lync deployment at LeSoCo College where the company transformed its education system. Cisilion was also runner up for Best Enterprise Vertical Market Solution for its impressive work in the insurance sector. Rob Quickenden, Chief Strategy Officer at Cisilion, said: "Collaboration solutions are one of our strongest capabilities, and this recognition showcases the hard work we put into training our employees."

With an army of highly trained and motivated workers Cisilion is now stepping up the pace of its global growth ambitions. "To achieve our goals it's important to attract and retain the best talent in the market," added Paul. "It's the quality of our people, along with offering the most up-to-date technical solutions that will ensure we keep out-performing the market." •

The role of technology as a driver for business transformation is well understood. Not so well known is how ICT can help put lives that have gone off the rails back on track, according to Eddie Bird and Adam Esposito, joint Managing Directors of Unify Business Solutions, who illustrate how rehabilitation within prisons can be greatly enhanced by communications technology.

An early contract win soon after Chesterfield-based Unify Business Solutions was established in 2003 set the company on the path to becoming a global player in the prison sector. It all changed when the joint MDs signed up HMP Doncaster, which is still a customer. "That initial link with the custodial sector led us to work with a number of prisons in the UK, Channel Islands and New Zealand," commented Bird. "We have developed our own in-cell technology that aids the shift in focus to rehabilitation within the prison environment. Being able to contact friends and family in a safe and secure way can help support the reduction of reoffending."

Unify Business Solutions' technology also provides high level speech analysis which can quickly and easily identify calls of interest and provide intelligence to prison service staff. The company recently deployed such in-cell technology for the newly built Auckland South Correctional Facility. "As we'd successfully provided technology for prisons in the UK and the Channel Islands it didn't seem like too much of a challenge to do it on the other side of the world," added Esposito. "We carry out some of the work remotely and have good contacts which ensures everything runs smoothly. We also have the support of a local company called Baycom."

Unify claims two prison sector firsts: Providing the first in-cell phones in the UK and again in the southern hemisphere. "We could have focused on just doing telecoms and IT for business, but we had the foresight to employ our own software development team and develop our own products," added Bird. "We're looking at other areas globally where we can work with the prison sector and have increased the number of people in our development team to support the needs of each prison."

Unify has developed its own bespoke phone system which reduces violence and cuts reoffending within the prison system. Bespoke PIN systems offer the facility to dial predefined numbers, along with call monitoring and recording, system lockdown and the ability to place time restrictions on calls. It is targeted at prisons, detainment centres, immigration centres, nursing homes, hospitals and anywhere where a secure telephone system is required.

"The ability for residents or prisoners to be able to call predetermined numbers for family, friends or support groups creates the incentive to not reoffend and reduces the lack of privacy," stated Bird. "When placed in the cell it removes queues for wing phones and therefore the flashpoints that can cause bullying and violence."

Unify's Call Control System (UCCS) is a secure platform that polices all calls made to the outside world. Calls can be monitored and controlled, and recorded calls can be played back on demand. The UCCS includes an integrated reporting system as well as adjustable call rates so that prisoners can be billed different tariffs. Furthermore, Unify offers its own mobile detection system which solves the problem of unauthorised mobile phones in secure environments. "The Unify Mobile Detection System (UMDS) is completely covert and because it detects rather than blocks it means that it does not present any legal considerations," added Esposito.

Unify Business Solutions is pressing ahead with opportunities in Asia Pacific and plans are under way to start work in Western Australia. Business partner Serco currently runs two prisons in the region including Acacia Prison, a medium security facility accommodating approximately 1,500 male prisoners. Unify is working with Serco to provide business plans to Acacia Prison which will highlight the benefits of in-cell telephony and 'make a difference on the inside'.

Bird's first links to 'down under' were forged at the age of 21 when he went to Australia and by chance got a job selling mobile phones. Returning to the UK he secured a position with a Cellnet mobile dealer and Siemens partner, where he first met future business partner Esposito who was working for a datacoms company that supplied the mobile dealer. "We went for a Little Chef together and our friendship was cemented over an Olympic Breakfast," stated Bird.

"The idea of forming our own company came about after we both faced redundancy. Initially, the business started out with just the two of us but now we have a team of engineers, a software development team as well as sales, marketing and finance. Our expansion is reflected in the company turnover which was £270k in the first year and is now over £4 million. We're looking at getting to £10 million over the next three years."

Deals of importance won by Unify also include supplying comms and IT systems for London Cycle Hire, Rosebys and Ronseal. They are all likely to be long-term clients. "The businesses we work with, no matter how big or small, tend to stick with us for the long-term which is a testament to our support team," said Esposito. "We'll continue to grow the business and prison services sides of the company. We employ a hard working team who have a wide range of product knowledge and provide excellent customer service. It's not all serious. There's plenty of banter and lively discussions to keep everyone entertained."•

The question is, which leadership values and qualities will come to the fore this year. Here, seasoned channel leaders address today's leadership priorities, challenges, pitfalls and opportunities, and discuss leadership models that will successfully address the pressing issues.

There was a time when leadership was about leading from the front and pulling the rest of the business along with you, but that's no longer the case, according to Martin St. Quinton (pictured), Non-Executive Chairman, Annodata. "You can't be an expert at everything and it's a big mistake to assume that you have all the right answers and fail to get input from the other stakeholders in your business, not least sales people on the front line speaking to clients day-in day-out," he commented. "If anyone is going to have a feel for the market and the 'mood music' it's them. Successful business leaders recognise that. They are good listeners and communicators, which ultimately helps them to make informed and considered decisions."

Every reseller comes from a different place and will have their own challenges to overcome. But something that no business leader in the channel can ignore is cloud computing, believes St. Quinton. "You need to work out what the opportunities and challenges that cloud presents are and how you are going to respond to them," he added. "Few, if any, resellers are going to be untouched by the cloud revolution. You either embrace it, no matter how taxing a process that may be, or have the rug pulled out from under you by a competitor that has beaten you to it and siphoned off your client base."

In such an environment it's doubly important to have a clear vision of where you want the company to go and to communicate that clearly and effectively throughout the entire business. "It's the only way to get results and get everyone moving towards the same goal," said St. Quinton. "Give all your key staff a stake in your business."

Good leadership skills take years to develop and what it means to be a good leader can change. "Anyone can make decisions, but it's ultimately about good judgement," said St. Quinton. "To have good judgement you've got to develop the skills and experience to understand what you're dealing with. Leadership is as much about knowing when to take risks and drive change as much as it is about knowing when to sit back and maintain the status quo."

A key priority for business leaders in the channel is maintaining focus, pointed out Elsa Chen, CEO, Entanet. "In the technology sector the greatest challenge for any leader is to not be distracted by noises about the 'next big thing'," she said. "The best leaders know when and how to maintain focus."

Another challenge is the balance between leading change and developing employees. It's a typical trait of business leaders to lead change, but this poses the challenge of bringing people on board and developing their capabilities to make the change happen. "The third key challenge is cash and investment," added Chen. "Investment needs to be made continually to address the ever-changing conditions in our industry. This can be for new technology, new systems, new skills or simply more staff.

"The market is fiercely competitive, margins are tight and growth is challenging, so it is easy to become a numbers driven leader and forget that what actually makes a great business is its people. Numbers are of course important, but never forget that people are an asset. Listen to your staff, value and invest in them."

The most important goal a reseller business leader needs to accomplish this year is to create a three year plan, according to Chen. "The market is getting tougher and many businesses are already under pressure to make significant investments to keep themselves in the game," she said. "If you haven't engaged in long-term strategic thinking and financial modelling, do so now. This will help to maintain the focus and prevent unnecessary distractions."

The most important qualities of an impeccable leader are integrity, communication and commitment, believes Chen. "Often you need people to just trust your instinct, your decisions and you as a person," she commented. "People will only over deliver if they respect you. That respect needs to be built on the high moral standards that you practice in both your professional and personal life. Demonstrate how important the end goal is by showing your commitment even more at challenging times. If you don't believe in yourself, who will?"

The biggest leadership blunder is not recognising and rewarding high performers, while turning a blind eye to under-performers, observed Lee Shorten, a leadership consultant and executive coach. "Managers are too often created because they have been employed the longest or they are technically the smartest, rather than being strong leaders," he said. "This creates the exact opposite of an environment that breeds great leaders, who in turn build great companies."

As well as constructing a strong managerial framework, building equity value while keeping the focus on day-to-day operational activities is also a priority for most businesses, especially in the consolidating ICT market. "The focus should also be on moving away from product specialists towards customer ownership," said Shorten. "Customers expect more from their suppliers. They want partners as they transition their businesses."

Shorten believes people can become great leaders if they have the right attitude and the right environment. His three most important facets of leadership are rhythm, balance and discipline. Shorten advises leaders to establish predictable rhythms within their organisations, so people know what is expected of them weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually. "Talk to your teams to ensure they are on track. Listen to them, they often know what they're doing," he said.

In terms of balance, Shorten pointed out the required balance between short-term revenue, mid-term pipeline and long-term value. "There is a balance between expecting hard work from staff and supporting them, between servicing customers and delivering efficiency, between having enough resource and delivering enough profit," he added. "There should be a continual review of these balances."

Commenting on his third imperative, discipline, Shorten said: "Business owners and managers often know what needs to be fixed, what is working well and who is not. Having the discipline to execute on these is almost always the difference between successful businesses and unsuccessful ones."

Good leadership is often about guiding, encouraging and nurturing from behind, not just leading from the front, according to Gamma's CEO Bob Falconer. "But the most important task a reseller business leader needs to do this year is to find their place in a world where customers increasingly want to buy all of their comms, often including the IT, from one supplier who can deliver well and integrate it together," he said.

The biggest failure point of business leadership in today's market is believing in yourself too much, says Falconer. "Self-confidence is important, but the problem can be closed ears, not challenging yourself constantly and adjusting your strategy continuously. An ability to see the bigger picture and how the parts interact is important, along with having a clear differentiating strategy that can, with confidence and back-up data, lead to sustainable growth."

Finding, motivating, developing and keeping high quality people, particularly in the technical area, and developing a culture of innovation is a tall order for business leaders. Darren Hilton, Director of Partner Services at Timico, and who spent seven years in the military where leadership skills and teamwork are paramount, said: "To enjoy the luxury of a high performing team you have the challenge of recruiting and keeping skilled staff who will follow the direction that the leader wants to take the business in," he said.

"Failure as a leader is when people are not prepared to follow you. Finding people who are not prepared to accept the ordinary and who want to innovate and make a difference is a challenge. Striving to make your business stand out among its competitors is key, and by focusing on the creativity of your staff, encouraging them to feed ideas into the business and ploughing cash back into the company for R&D is key to the culture of innovation."

New generations are entering the workplace and their expectations are higher, their communication styles are different and social media is their primary means of communication, noted Hilton. "Their desire for progression is higher and faster," he added. "You have to adjust your pace to accommodate them and engage them in the right way to achieve the purpose you've set as a leader. Strong leaders have the ability to encourage people to follow them. They are clear about their purpose and where they want to go."

According to Hilton, a top priority for resellers this year is taking advantage of the current growth period in the market. "Sell more, adopt some of the newer technologies like hosted UC, look at the future and assess how ready you are for the competitive landscape of the next few years," he commented. "There will be more demand for customised products and tailoring to meet the needs of customers. Business leaders need breadth of experience, knowledge and capability so they can accommodate the variety of challenges ahead.

"Have a clear purpose for your organisation. Develop a specific direction for the business so that all the people know their part to play in delivering the service. That, combined with hiring great people, should equate to a high performing team. And be flexible and adaptable. Regardless of how good your strategy is, no plan survives first contact with the customer. Be prepared to bend and flex to the customer's requirements.•

Not for nothing was Horsham-based Global 4 Communications crowned NEC's Best Reseller in EMEA for 2015. Here, Managing Director Nigel Barnett reveals the firm's winning growth strategy.

It didn't take long for Barnett to get his foot in the door and feel comfortably at home in the comms industry having secured a number of early estate agency contracts. The first deal snowballed and proved to be a turning point for Global 4, which was established in 1998. "We secured an order for five telephone systems at an estate agent in Kent," explained Barnett. "The agent was then purchased by a large group with 150 offices. The group wanted to repeat the model we had rolled out so we supplied it with systems. Within 12 months it bought another group of companies with 350 sites. Within six months of that acquisition we had rolled out NEC telephony to the entire group including lines and calls."

Global 4's influence on the High Street has grown significantly. "We have many High Street chains as customers, with roughly eight locations in every High Street taking our services," stated Barnett. "As well as reviewing their monthly expenditure we offer IP services using our recently launched NEC 3C solution. IP is an interesting subject, but what a steep learning curve. The investment is now showing a terrific return. We are also 'playing' in the mobile arena and this will be driven forward in 2016."

Fishing for tiddlers has never floated Barnett's boat, but landing an order from the Unipart Group for 268 telephone systems while sitting at home negotiating the contract is right up his street, and showed that his business ethics were paying dividends in the early days. Now 62, Barnett started selling when he was 18. "I had several different businesses, predominantly selling photocopiers like many of us in those days," he recalled. "I was fortunate and able to secure the sale of two businesses that allowed me to take a few years off."

He wanted to move away from previous business models that relied on many sales people and telesales selling on savings. So after a period of careful consideration he established Global 4 with Rob Whyte-Venables (Service Director) and Jenny Fright (Administration Director) now retired. "Our philosophy was based on selling one system to a company that had many other opportunities," he stated. "Setting our sights on tough targets and high quality customers meant we weren't able to hit the ground running. Lots of the bigger customers don't really want to deal with people who work out of their bedroom, even if it was rather large.

"Now, with a payroll of around 100 people, systems and procedures are a never ending daily challenge. We have always outsourced our billing but as we evolve we have new requirements in reporting and discipline that now involve internal developers and marketing people. This brings a whole new cast to the stage."

Growth in the telecoms market has always been difficult, particularly as the cost of calls keeps dropping. Yet despite the challenges Global 4 continues to grow year-on-year. Three years ago the company branched out of B2B and entered the residential market for broadband and calls with Home Telecom. "Our turnover for 2015/16 will be around £16 million and we are looking for substantial growth next year," added Barnett.

"We have around 1,300 customers and more than 10,000 sites which all have telephony installed. Over the last three years we have complemented our range by adding data and MPLS circuits. These have countered the reduction in call costs and helped increase the business steadily with more than 2,000 circuits in place. We wanted a client base with future opportunities, so the choice was: Do we have 350 individual customers ringing us, or one person responsible for 350 branches? With the second option it's all about service and when someone rings, sort it."

That is exactly what Global 4 did when it threw a lifeline to a prominent estate agency group after its telephony supplier went out of business, terminating their contract with just six weeks notice and little support. Global 4 installed 100 lines, 400 extensions and broadband to seven brands in 45 locations, with three days to spare. "This shows what can be done with design, planning and implementation from a great team of people," said Barnett.

Global 4 also set up the latest NEC 3C IP solution in two exclusive London data centres with support from Gamma and Voiceflex. Meanwhile, the introduction of IP gives the firm circa 80,000 extensions to upgrade. Barnett is currently rolling out projects for 10,000 IP extensions with over 2,000 already installed and a completion of the balance planned for the end of 2016. "Up to a couple of years ago Global 4 was a lifestyle business and I am fortunate to have brought up five children, four of them work for the company," added Barnett. "It would be any father's dream to see their family on a daily basis, but when they can actually sell and create business opportunities you sit back and say, 'we haven't done that bad'."•

The result of Tollring's astute partnering strategy is that Managing Director Tony Martino has gathered ever more cards to his pack and become a player on a wider stage.

Martino arrived in the UK from Australia in 1994 after completing a computer systems engineering degree. He spotted an advert in the Evening Standard for a technical service's role with the fledgling Tollring and got the job. Its CEO and founder, Chris Mennie, had a big influence on Martino. "Tollring was founded on technical knowhow and we gelled from the outset," he said. "My technical perspective was a great fit with Chris' sales expertise. Working at Tollring has been the best job I've had. In fact, it's the only job I've had."

Mennie left the company in 2002 when Martino led a management buyout and took over as Managing Director. "My Italian origins mean that I'm passionate and family is very important," said Martino. "This includes my Tollring family. Everyone has a part to play wherever they sit in the company. As the business grows this will become more challenging but I'll do my best to ensure we don't lose the family ethos."

Tollring is a well-established software developer specialising in telecoms management, billing and call recording solutions, delivered on-premise or via the cloud. The firm's product suites are all developed in-house and Martino prioritises high levels of re-investment into product development and infrastructure.

Headquartered in Uxbridge and with offices in the USA, Australia and India, Tollring has 35 staff and year-on-year profits driven by incremental organic growth since 2010. Partnerships with Samsung, Mitel and BroadSoft extend Tollring's global reach. And its solutions are delivered through 850-plus channel partners including ICT resellers, SIs, SPs, BPOs and phone manufacturers. Almost 6,000 companies across the UK, Europe, USA and Australia depend on Tollring's solutions that report on an estimated 470,000 business phone lines and telecoms devices. "Investment in staff, product development and marketing is on the increase," said Martino. "We are currently experiencing incredible growth and we expect this to continue over the next two to three years."

Managing growth involves meticulous professional judgment. It must balance the requirement for seamless efficiency against uninterrupted service levels for new and existing partners across the world. "We will take what we've learnt in the UK and replicate it in global markets, but managing this growth is currently our main challenge," added Martino. "It is far more challenging than we first thought. As our brand gains better recognition we need to be efficient as we expand into new partnerships around the world. The big question is how best to service our new partners. Our solution is to recruit good people while ensuring our products and services are designed to be easy to support. This means empowering our partners to become true experts and helping them to take our products to market."

Tollring's products revolve around what the firm is good at - telecoms analytics. The potency of analytics lies not just in the bulk gathering of data but in how that data is used. "This is a broad area and we are constantly looking at how we can evolve our proposition and build on our current product set," said Martino. "The focus is always on data collection and bringing valuable insights for our clients."

Other areas of development are Tollring's call recording technology and bringing fraud management solutions to market. "Our partners have fed us their requirements," he explained. "Fraud continues to be a real problem, particularly around the adoption of SIP and the cloud. We are developing some advanced fraud monitoring capabilities along with the ability for resellers to quickly provision our services to their customers. Our overall approach is to develop and market products that are aligned to a specific technology and then white label them. This in-skin approach has proved hugely successful with Samsung and we are now mirroring that with Mitel and its channel to take our products global."

Martino's white label strategy enables Tollring to develop long-standing partnerships, and the 10 year relationship with Samsung is a testament to Tollring's ability to keep its products relevant to the market. "The latest ICS Online solution enables us to repeat this approach in a simpler way and offer our white label solution to all of our resellers," stated Martino. "In turn, they can offer our services under their own brand. They can differentiate their offer by avoiding me-too products and ultimately have more engaged conversations with customers that don't revolve around price."

Tollring has been having such conversations from the outset. In the early 90s, with three staff working in Piccadilly, Tollring delivered telecoms billing solutions to its London-based clients. While these were not sophisticated by today's standards they were cutting edge at the time. "For the old techies like me, our applications were written in DOS and connected to a PBX system with a RS 232 serial cable," recalled Martino. "On the back of this we provided some innovative telephony billing applications. This was during the rise of serviced offices and we successfully delivered billing and communications management tools for these new office facilities."

The extent of Tollring's commitment to lasting relationships is revealed in the values that have guided its partnering policy for over 22 years. Tollring was selected as a software applications partner for Samsung Business Communications in September 2004, providing a white labelled version of the iCall Suite. This was a significant milestone for Tollring and a turning point for the business. "Samsung has remained a long-standing partner," added Martino. "The success of our Samsung relationship helped to define our strategy on how we take our products to market and we have since mirrored this relationship with other partners."

The OEM partnership with Samsung expanded to Europe in 2005 and in 2011 to Australia. Two years later Tollring formed an OEM partnership with Samsung Telecommunications America. In 2011, a partnership was formed with the sole UK distributor for Ericsson-LG, Pragma Distribution, to provide integrated call management, contact centre and call recording solutions for the iPECS PBX range.

In another significant move Tollring linked up with BroadSoft in September 2014 and joined the BroadSoft Xtended Developer Programme to introduce iCS insight to the BroadSoft Marketplace. The OEM agreement with Mitel followed in April 2015 under which Tollring delivers cloud analytics on the MiCloud hosted telephony platform. "Mitel has recognised how important Business Intelligence (BI) is for its customers so will provide iCS Online to its channel partners as a white labelled solution," commented Martino.

Modern technology is eroding business models once seen as pillars of the comms industry, prompting companies such as Tollring to shift tactics and adapt to survive. The chemistry of comms is in constant flux, and the adoption of SIP and the move to the cloud has had a major impact on Tollring. "We've been able to capitalise on these developments, for example, with our cloud-based call recording IP that is fully owned by Tollring," explained Martino. "The evolution of BI also had an influence on how we have developed. One of our core skills is the management and presentation of data in real-time to our clients. So the fact that BI is a key driver for businesses is a big factor in our growth and success."

According to Gartner a CIO's top three priorities are BI and analytics, followed by the cloud and mobile. "We are aligned with these priorities as we work to ensure our analytics are available on any device at any time," said Martino. "The key is not just telecoms but unified communications. We are looking to offer some new cloud and UC services such as Skype for Business analytics that will have a strong partner focus."

End users are also investing heavily in sophisticated CRM systems and a priority for Martino is to ensure Tollring's analytics can be accessed by them. "We will be enhancing our APIs and making them more accessible and available," he added. "We will evolve our products so that customers can extract and consume our analytics as easily as possible but not necessarily via our own systems."

Also in the pipeline is a new version of ICS Online and Desktop planned to launch in March. "We've made significant enhancements around the user experience and updated the portal so partners can better utilise our services," said Martino. "The new products will help partners to understand their customers better and will give them greater insight into how customers are consuming their services. In June we will also introduce the fourth iteration of the IC360 telecoms and expense management solution within the reseller space. This has a strong end customer proposition so resellers can look at all telecoms expenses within an estate and see how customers are using their services.

"And while there are excellent billing providers in the market, we are also looking to partner with these providers to enhance the offering that partners can take to their customers. The key focus is consolidated billing and utilisation of services to ensure our partners and their customers have a full understanding of their entire telecoms infrastructure."

Tollring's analytics and BI services help resellers to stay relevant by enabling customers to measure efficiencies from their transformational projects. "We urge partners to understand our product portfolio," noted Martino. "I'd like those in the channel who have known us for many years to see our products with fresh eyes and fully consider the huge range of opportunities that are now available to them. We have secured access to new markets, now we need to ensure that our audiences are informed and understand what we have to offer."•

Large numbers of ICT resellers are turning to third party support companies for reasons that are all too evident. Here, we explore why outsourcing is the focus of growing attention among resellers wanting an ingrained partnership that is also an extension of their business.

The big customer support handover has begun and the chemistry between outsource providers and their partners is more potent than ever, based on the evolving comms market and its knock-on effects on many ICT resellers. In line with these trends Comms-care has taken steps over the past 12 months to respond to big changes in the technology industry, which saw its channel partners require access to a broader range of professional and managed services to sell on to their customers.

"Developments in the technology industry have created a shortage of skills, especially in the area of higher end professional services, so we have made acquisitions such as Platform Consultancy and increased our efforts to attract apprentices who can be trained in key competencies and add value to our clients," said Rob Darby, Sales Director.

Comms-care's reseller partners want the firm to become more ingrained in their businesses, so rather than just ask Comms-care for a quote they want the company to be involved in the whole end-to-end sales process. This new dynamic is reflected in the split between its services. Maintenance services account for 50 per cent, managed services 10 per cent, and professional services 40 per cent, with the bias in favour of managed and professional services happening over the last year.

"We are not just about break/fix maintenance - a business that we are still proud of - but can offer a much broader set of professional and managed services to our clients' customers as part of their own propositions," added Darby. "Our ambitions are still very much focused on growth, whether that's organically or through further acquisitions, concentrating on delivering our channel-only business strategy.

"But the skills shortage is the biggest challenge facing any company operating within the technology industry. As skills become more rare, they become more expensive and employers have to fight to attract them. Unless we find ways to nurture new people through apprenticeships or other channels, this problem will only get worse."

The speed of change in the market was also underlined by Paul Benson, Managing Director at National Telecoms Installations (NTI), who during the past 12 months has witnessed a big increase in requests from dealers for installations of hosted systems across a number of different platforms. Just 12 months ago these installs amounted to one per month, NTI now installs two or three sites per week for its dealer customer base.

"While hosted is still not right for every end user client, the format is certainly a trend we are adapting to serve," stated Benson. "The increase in hosted telephony installations has also driven demand for our cat5e and cat6 cabling services as dealers look to remove older PBXs on traditional CW1308 cabling and replace them with hosted telephony on a proven certified LAN."

Benson has not, to date, seen a drop in demand for NTI's PBX installation and maintenance services. On the contrary, the move of existing systems from ISDN and analogue to SIP is on the increase, and sites with larger more complex needs often don't suit the hosted model, he pointed out. "We find the most successful resellers have expanded their portfolio to ensure they are selling a solution handpicked from a toolbox of products which includes traditional PBX, hosted, PSTN and SIP technologies, rather than focusing on one or the other," added Benson.

Agilitas' main area of expertise is in Inventory-as-a-Service. "By extending our wholesale Inventory-as-a-Service portfolio to provide inventory support, training, repairs, hardware sales and technical support, we've developed our offering and grown turnover by 30 per cent in the last year as a result," said Shaun Lynn (pictured above), CEO of Agilitas.

The growth of the cloud and mobile workforce has changed the demand for spares, focusing on delivery in data centres with less on-premise hardware. "We've seen dependence on IT rise fast," added Lynn. "Having the right parts available when required is becoming ever more important to businesses. At the same time, we see the wider industry facing a number of challenges. The continual squeeze on margins is making organisations look at new ways to maximise revenue, and post and pre-sales services are now an integral part of all profitable product sales and processes."

The company has grown its partner base by approximately 18 per cent and found Inventory-as-a-Service to be in most demand. "However, this service is being increasingly adopted in conjunction with technical support or training," added Lynn. "This enhances the service offering and introduces elements of differentiation to partners. We're also expecting to see a significant increase in cloud-based data storage and the criticality of uptime in onsite and offsite infrastructure."

Agilitas has developed two key opportunities for growth - identifying new partners and extending its capability into additional product sets and markets. "We constantly need to adapt in order to be ahead of the curve, and continuously improve service levels to meet expectations while investing in skills and development to maintain current product experience," said Lynn.

Investing in the future has also been a priority for Maintel which created a new partner services team following its merger with Proximity. It supplies two main types of service - Professional Services (including engineering, installation and consultancy) and Managed Services (including maintenance and support). Over the last year Maintel has increased its number of partners by around 10 per cent.

The key requirements in demand are taking on the support of legacy systems, specialist skills complementing its channels' own resources, and providing a single point for consolidating all unified communications, contact centre, workforce optimisation and data networking needs. "Tactically, the requests have been for our skills, expertise, geographic coverage, availability and breadth of portfolio," said Chris Bain, Director of Partner Services, Maintel.

"There will be a natural progression for systems integrators and outsourcers to want to address a bigger market. For telcos, they will need to focus their energy and effort on current systems, not legacy devices, so will need partners to do that. Channels need a partner who will allow them to keep what they have now and move to the future. Resellers need to show value beyond the traditional sales model. They will need to assist the customer at the beginning and end of investment cycles.

"Partner services enable resellers, outsourcers, systems integrators and telcos to do this without major investment in personnel. Our partners look for a company to not only provide the services they don't have, but also to be an integral part of their customer engagement and growth plans."

Juniper Bridge is an outsource provider to the industry supplying customer support software, 24x7 support services and device logistics solutions to more than 80 telecoms and IT businesses. The firm has also witnessed a growing requirement to create flexible support models, and for the delivery of enhanced customer support technologies where cost of ownership is too high for a service provider.

Resellers wanting to get to grips with new technology approach Juniper Bridge for discussions that are becoming increasingly collaborative and partnership focused. "Clients approach us for a diverse set of reasons," said Simon Johnson, Commercial Director. "Scalability and flexibility are of course key considerations, but they are also looking for tangible value adds for their own propositions. As a result, we spend a lot of time developing our systems to deliver solutions that, ironically for us at least, seek to reduce the customer support cycle. The trick is about creating a continuously improving relationship with a client and to openly look at process and system integration."

Historically, Juniper Bridge's revenues have mostly been driven by outsourced technical support contracts which are still growing, but resellers' support requirements are changing as they move to converged technologies. "There is more demand for cloud-based products (particularly hosted PBX and Wi-Fi), IT desktop (Microsoft 365) and support for network monitoring systems (for example, proactive fibre circuit and leased line monitoring)," noted Johnson.

"Revenue has doubled in the last 12 months following growth in sales of our technical support software which has been complemented by a number of large CPE logistics wins. We have invested in R&D and in our CloudKeeper technology. The software provides a full technical back office solution that unifies with multiple technologies, carriers and technical support models, including our own. Our CloudKeeper portal has developed beyond recognition over the last two years and we are constantly bringing on new enhancements."

Link Connect is a network and IT hosting company based in Hampshire. It uses outsourcing to bring flexibility to its customer support model. Operations Manager James Smith said: "We use an outsourced provider for our front of house which gives us a true lights-on first line support capability with readily available agents to answer our calls. They follow our processes, ensuring the customer receives a consistent high standard of service."

This enables Link Connect's tier 2 technical team to focus on serious incidents and put customers' change requests, security matters and managed services before line issues and other time consuming tasks that 'just need doing'. "Offering legacy ISP services with our managed services means we have volume calls and faults that require carrier management," added Smith. "Our outsource partner takes this pain away, looking after our products like leased lines, VoIP, Wi-Fi, DSL and email.

"This is not without some risk to the customer support model, and shows why outsourcing must be viewed as a partnership. Choosing a partner with the right support tools and flexibility to their approach is key."•

Rampant claims to market differentiation are often ballooned out of all proportion according to TeleWare's CEO Steve Haworth who punctures the 'trusted advisor' bubble and points to the substantial stand-out factors that really matter in today's fast-evolving marketplace.

Every industry spawns its hype and comms is no exception. The trick is to create substance, and resellers can only do this by sharpening their focus on what they do best and then strive to do better, according to Haworth. "Stop wasting time worrying about what everyone else is doing and make sure you execute well," he stated. "Create a specialism or halo proposition that helps you to stand out. Too many ICT suppliers claim to be one-stop-shops and 'trusted advisors'. These labels are no longer differentiators."

Haworth aims to help resellers step closer to their goals with a boost fuelled by the benefits of analytics. "Right now we are adding multi-mode, multi-media and analytics to all of our products to help drive greater insights across the business and bring more revenue opportunities to our partners," he explained. "The intersection of mobile, cloud and Big Data to enhance the customer experience, governance and compliance are important drivers. We have invested heavily in gaining new data capture and analytics capabilities to take advantage of this area as we see it exploding over the next few years."

While highlighting the lack of market differentiation, Haworth does not lack the ambition to elevate TeleWare's partners above the crowd. "Part of our proposition is to help partners stand out and differentiate themselves," he stated. "We have to challenge ourselves to do the same. We live in a world of over-supply in so many areas. How and why you do things is just as important as what you do."

In more detail, TeleWare routes, records and analyses communications to improve customer service, governance and compliance. The company focuses on markets that require the agility to cope with flexible customer demand, where a high proportion of employees are mobile or distributed, or have specific regulatory requirements. Retail, leisure, finance, healthcare and utilities are particularly strong markets for TeleWare.

The firm finished last year with over £10 million in revenues and has a headcount of circa 80 staff. "We set out a growth plan to double revenue over a three year period and we hit our profit target within the first six months of this year," commented Haworth. "We have invested more in our new products and services as well as partner recruitment, and have some exciting products coming to market this year."

Haworth wants to build a dozen 'great partnerships' over the next two years, to jointly focus on creative propositions that differentiate partners and drive their value. "We want to find partners who share our values and vision and believe in the power of communications to drive business performance," he commented. "Our partners are likely to come from different areas so that they can work together. Some might be the more traditional communications players while others more Microsoft and IT, although these are merging fast. New areas for TeleWare are the creative digital agency or data analytics driven partners who can drive additional value from the data that communications provide."

That said, Haworth still sees a place for the more commoditised products and services delivered easily and with APIs for partners to create 'great solutions'. But he believes that these solutions have more value when integrated with other technologies and made easy to buy, sell and service. "This is where we see real value in a distribution partner," Haworth said. "Our current priorities are recruiting partners who will get the most benefit from our new products and services. We see Microsoft as a key partner in this space and helping other partners to leverage these technologies, complement them and integrate with other platforms is where we are spending much of our time."

Adaptation is the most potent of survival methods, but managing change is never easy. "The shift to the cloud was a particular challenge," added Haworth. "We have always focused on great software but the cloud requires a different mind-set and business model. So we have expanded our services to make it easier for partners, while remaining focused on the areas that have made us a great company. We have also witnessed massive growth in mobile and communication recording and see these areas as huge opportunities for partners.

"Finding partners who have a strong knowledge in specific markets, and helping them to develop more differentiated offerings that drive greater value is where we see our future. We leverage and build upon the great work of others to help partners hit their own goals. For example, by adding value to their cloud strategy and integrating third party cloud services where required, or building secure private services for industry verticals such as health and finance."

Transforming the TeleWare business into a Software as a Service operation is perhaps Haworth's crowning glory. "This is my biggest career achievement to date because I underestimated the challenge and didn't expect the undertaking to involve every aspect of the business, from people to technology to finance. Many of our partners are doing similar transitions in their business models. I still come across people who see this as a small change in product portfolio rather than a business transformation."

Despite Haworth's years of industry experience, business transformation does not get handed over on a plate. He began his career selling ERP software to large enterprises. "We used TeleWare to provide flexible input via phones in offices and mobile phones for engineers," explained Haworth. "I then set up a company selling mobile gateways to corporate customers. They were spending 20p per minute to a mobile and 80 per cent of their bill was from calls to mobile phones. The recurring revenue model got me hooked, so when the opportunity came to work for TeleWare I jumped at the chance."

Geoff Haworth formed TeleWare with a business partner in 1991. The company began as an R&D project looking into the art of the possible following the release of Digital Cards that connected computers and telephones. "Our first real customer was British Gas via Siemens to help extend the capacity of a phone system and support flexible working," said Haworth. "They bought into the ideas and capability more than a deliverable, but we had to deliver something convincing to win the business. TeleWare grew through a great relationship with Siemens in the 1990s."

TeleWare's biggest challenges and opportunities have always been around technology developments and partnering. "The step from being totally reliant on Siemens and signing partnerships with BT and others created an interesting challenge as we had to learn to manage multiple partners," added Haworth. "As most partners were larger than ourselves they tended to require a level of up-front resource. This was an exciting challenge. In terms of technology, we have seen the migration to the Internet, mobile and the cloud as huge shifts, but the latter was perhaps the greatest challenge as it required a change in business model."

There is now a copious literature on the whys and wherefores of changing business model and it is the knowledge gleaned from the experience of pioneers such as Haworth that will make the process more bearable for those who follow in his footsteps. "Focus and timing is critical," he stated. "When we first moved into the cloud we wanted to do everything. We were driven to move fast but, at times, ahead of the market. We spent much time, effort and money educating the market rather than being laser focused on the biggest issues that we could address, and accepting that fast growth in revenue during the initial phases of launch is not the best KPI. Setting out the next most important goals and doing everything you can to get there is something I learned later rather than sooner. It really does make a significant difference."•

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: The IoT provides 'a way of boosting productivity, of keeping us healthier, making transport more efficient, reducing energy needs and making our homes more comfortable', according to a report by The Government Office for Science.

This is certainly a belief that we share and have supported by working with a number of local authorities, offering advice around how to deliver effective services through digital expertise. The IoT is now beginning to make a real impact at local Government level, as more councils begin to adopt the technology and apply it to real life challenges.

One recipient of O2's expertise and advice is Newcastle City Council, which launched its SelfTrav app. The app uses tracking technology to help young people with learning disabilities to travel safely on public transport. The idea was to support the young people involved who want to be able to travel normally, without being conspicuous.

The app empowers them to travel safely and independently, without standing out from the crowd as most young people carry smartphones. The development of the app revolutionises how the council is able to deliver special educational needs and disabilities transport.

The applications for m2m technology in local Government are enormously diverse and can touch on anything from smart lighting and parking to measuring passenger journeys on public transport, traffic flow systems and energy management. There are councils that have struggled to understand how the IoT can be put to work to their advantage, but as more councils adopt the technology and knowledge is shared, the benefits will be widely felt.

(anton.lesaux@telefonica.com - partnersdigital.telefonica.com)

By Andy Grant, Managing Director, Bowan Arrow: Marketing planning is often discussed by partners and vendors but sometimes the process is not taken that seriously or documented.

Many vendors have MDF budgets available for partners to create a credible marketing plan. Partners and vendors already have an agreed business plan with revenue targets and objectives, so why not extend that to a joint marketing strategy? Vendors usually supply a simple template.

A major element of the partnership is the marketing plan. This should concentrate on creating awareness, consideration and action for target contacts in key markets. The marketing plan should include timelines and costs for the major activities that have been discussed and need to be executed.

Partners and vendors should not try to boil the ocean. I always advise them to include no more than four joint activities for a calendar year. Both parties need to be realistic and the activities need to be achievable to create real results.

The partner should insist that the vendor makes their PR team available, and their corporate reach for the initial and ongoing communications, but the actual integrated campaigns should be led by the partner with the vendor's support.

Partners should plan integrated campaigns that have more than one element. Sending a simple direct mail letter and hoping for hundreds of responses will not create leads. If you plan an activity with a number of touchpoints you will have taken the correct steps towards channel marketing success.

Zayo Group Holdings has closed its 98.8 million euro acquisition of Viatel 's infrastructure and non-Irish carrier and high bandwidth business from the Digiweb Group, a full service telecommunications and managed services operator, based in Dublin, Ireland.

The acquisition adds an 8,400 kilometre fibre network across eight countries to Zayo's European footprint, including 12 new metro networks, seven data centres and connectivity to 81 on-net buildings. The Viatel businesses to be acquired are highly aligned with Zayo's existing product and customer set, including a higher proportion of dark fibre revenue.

The new capability significantly expands Zayo's global capabilities, providing Pan-European infrastructure and connectivity to key subsea cable systems, delivering traffic to and from North America, Asia and Africa.

The expanded network and infrastructure solutions are available immediately to Zayo and Viatel customers through their account representatives or via Tranzact, Zayo's innovative platform for purchasing and managing infrastructure at zayo.com/tranzact.

The suite of services available includes Dark Fibre, Wavelengths, Ethernet, IP, Data Centre and Cloud, across more than 92,000 miles, nearly 150,000 kilometres, of Zayo's high-performance network.

"The acquisition of Viatel's European network business strengthens our strategic position in Europe and provides customers with access to our fibre network and expanded connectivity to key international markets," said Dan Caruso, Zayo chairman and CEO. "Because of the complementary nature of the acquisition, we will begin cross-selling our full suite of services to both Zayo and Viatel customers immediately."