Comms Dealer

The Phone Co-op's CEO Vivian Woodell is on a mission to create an alternative economy built on the values advanced by social enterprises.

His efforts to date have been rewarded with a national award that recognises the organisation's role in a major social enterprise investment.

The Phone Co-op, based in Chipping Norton and Manchester, scooped the Best Consumer Facing award at the UK Social Enterprise Awards.

The Phone Co-op set up its Co-operative and Social Economy Development Fund to support the growth and development of other co-ops and social enterprises.

For example, it loaned HCT, the social enterprise bus operator, £500K as part of its recently raised £10m funding.

This funding, from a variety of social lenders, is a new record for a social enterprise investment in the UK.

The Phone Co-op is a strong supporter of public transport with over 91% of its business miles undertaken by public transport.

"We are happy to be using surplus capital to support another social enterprise that is providing public transport, something we actively try to use, and with an organisation that shares our values," stated Woodell.

"We see social enterprises co-supporting each other in this way as an example of the type of alternative economy we'd like to encourage and grow."

Peter Holbrook CBE, Social Enterprise UK's Chief Executive, said: "Social enterprises are needed more than ever to tackle the social and environmental problems facing Britain."

The UK now has more than 70,000 social enterprises that contribute more than £24bn to the economy each year.

Skyscape Cloud Services has been named the winner of the Communications category in Deloitte Global's 2015 Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme which ranks the fastest growing public and private technology companies annually.

Skyscape took sixth place overall and came second in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 UK shortlist of the country's most innovative and fastest growing technology firms.

"We're thrilled to have topped the Communications sector in the Technology Fast 500 EMEA shortlist in recognition of our rapid growth," said Simon Hansford, CEO of Skyscape Cloud Services. "It's a great honour to have achieved sixth position overall and to be named the runner up in the Fast 50 UK rankings."

"Making the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA ranking shows Skyscape Cloud Services' commitment to innovation and pushing the industry forward," said David Cobb, Deloitte UK and partner in charge of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme. "With its 13,391% growth rate over four years, Skyscape has proven that its leadership has the vision and determination to grow in a highly competitive market."

Skyscape was crowned a Cloudex 20:20 winner and named 'One to Watch' in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100. The form was also announced as the winner of the Community & Environmental Action Award at this year's British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) Management Team Awards.

Hansford added: "We attribute our success to date to two things - disruption and innovation. Our core business objective is to deliver assured, agile and cost-effective services to the public sector, ultimately delivering better value for money for UK citizens and tax payers."

Skyscape has won a number of high-profile public sector contracts with HMRC, DVLA and the MoD to name a few, and it has rapidly grown to more than 100 employees in just three years, with expectations to almost double that figure in 2016.

Its channel partner programme has also gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2013, with 190 organisations now able to market their services to the public sector by hosting on Skyscape's accredited platform.

Software provider Advanced Computer Software Group has secured two new offices close to Heathrow Airport and in Birmingham as part of a recruitment drive that will boost headcount by a third.

The premises at Ditton Park and the refurbished Mailbox in Birmingham city centre will house the new recruits.

Advanced has grown significantly since it was founded six years ago and plans to take on more than 1,000 members of staff in the next 18 months. 

Advanced hopes to attract new talent to its Ditton Park location by providing a 'premium working environment' for staff, offering a restaurant, coffee shop, gym, tennis courts, sports pitches and a kids centre.

Advanced will launch its midlands regional Birmingham city HQ in March 2016.

The Group will lease the entire third floor, a 45,000 sq ft space, said to be Birmingham's largest commercial accommodation on a single floorplate.

Gordon Wilson (pictured), CEO, Advanced Computer Software Group, stated: "Our investment in these new cutting edge facilities is part of a major recruitment drive, which will see the business grow by a third.

"It is also part of our wider strategy to foster more collaborative working, while further driving expansion.

"These are exciting times for the business and our employees are energised by all the opportunities that are on the horizon."

Advanced employs more than 2,000 members of staff and provides healthcare, business and learning management software and services to 20,000 customers.

The Group was recognised for sales growth recently, after securing a ranking on The Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250 league table for the first time. 

The Group has grown its revenue to more than £200m in six years and was acquired by private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners for an enterprise value of £750 million in March 2015.

Advanced is recruiting for a number of positions including sales, professional services, software development and customer services.

Polycom's voice desktop and conferencing portfolios will be the first to support and interoperate with the Microsoft Office 365 Cloud PBX services.

The Polycom VVX business media phones are the first Open-SIP interoperability phones to support Office 365 Cloud PBX services, giving customers additional features including a touchscreen interface, intercom, group paging and a shared line experience.
 
The recently unveiled Polycom RealPresence Trio, a smart hub for group collaboration that transforms the iconic three-point conference phone into a voice, content sharing and video system, will provide a conference room experience for businesses of any size.
 
Giovanni Mezgec, General Manager of Applications and Services Marketing at Microsoft, said: "Polycom solutions, like the Polycom VVX business media phones and the Polycom RealPresence Trio, already interoperate with Skype for Business and will provide enhanced desktop and conference room applications that will offer a superior user experience for our Office 365 Cloud PBX customers."
 
Polycom's portfolio includes more than 40 existing voice, content collaboration and video solutions that integrate with Skype for Business/Microsoft Lync and are qualified by Microsoft.

Currently, seven Polycom VVX media phone models come pre-configured with Skype for Business and the RealPresence Trio smart hub will be the first to offer integration across multiple UC platforms including Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync that will allow for conference features.

Ashan Willy, Senior Vice President, Product Management & Worldwide Systems Engineering at Polycom, said: "The new cloud-based communications services from Microsoft are game changing and Polycom is proud to participate in this journey."

SIPHON Networks has secured 148th place in the Deloitte 2015 Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over the last four years; and during this period SIPHON grew by 644% per cent.

"Securing a position in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 is an impressive feat, especially given the highly competitive and rapidly changing environment of the technology industry," said David Cobb, Deloitte UK and partner in charge of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA programme.

"We congratulate SIPHON on being among the most dynamic and successful technology companies in the region."

Steve Harris, co-founder and MD of SIPHON, added: "Being recognised as one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa is a significant milestone for us at SIPHON, especially as we look to take steps to expand into new European markets."

Rob Smith, co-founder and Technical Director at SIPHON, stated: "Making the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA ranking is a tremendous achievement, not least because it recognises the commitment that SIPHON has made to innovation and technology-enablement through the disruptive solutions that we continue to bring to our customers in the evolving market for cloud-based UC."

Node4 has appointed John MacMillan to the newly created role of Sales Director, reporting to Business Development Director Paul Bryce.  

He brings 15 years sales and senior management experience and a proven ability to drive growth in the IT sector having secured major deals in previous roles at Azzurri and Daisy Group.

MacMillan will lead a team of 30-plus sales, pre-sales and account managers to focus on growing revenues within the enterprise mid-market and verticals including the public sector. 

He said: "I can see a clear opportunity to take Node4 to the next level with its combination of technical expertise and solutions. I'm looking forward to building a highly focused and ambitious team."

Bryce added: "We have purpose built our service offering to meet the market need for an agile IT partner. John will be instrumental in driving our next phase of growth."

The 2016 edition of Nimans' Product Catalogue includes information on 7,000 products across 460 page.

"The Nimans trade catalogue is affectionately known throughout the industry as The Bible and its popularity remains as strong as ever," said Group Sales and Business Development Director, Richard Carter.

"The world of communications continues to evolve and the catalogue encapsulates all the new areas of our business such as WLAN and hosted along with many traditional favourites. It also highlights customer support services such as leasing, training and logistics."

Exponential-e has added a channel cloud pricing function to its Partner Portal.

The platform, known as CloudPort, enables partners to price and order cloud and networking services, and offers live quotation tracking and price protection.

Lee Wade, CEO of Exponential-e, said: "With spending on cloud computing infrastructure expected to grow by 21% year-over-year to $32bn in 2015, CloudPort will empower partners to meet growing customer demand for cloud services.

"Channel partners will be able to seamlessly tap into Exponential-e's cloud solution portfolio to build and order a range of solutions."

Michala Hart, Head of Channel Strategy, added: "CloudPort provides a service creation platform for our partners, providing them with the tools to create, price and order solutions tailored to meet their customer's needs.

"We will work with our partners to incorporate additional functionality into this new automated portal in the coming year."

Distributor Zycko has big expansion plans in EMEA following a significant investment by Rigby Private Equity (RPE), the private equity arm of Rigby Group Investments. David Galton-Fenzi, CEO of Zycko, said: "The backing and support of RPE means we are now in a position to accelerate our ambitious growth plans.

"It's a great opportunity for the company to continue its growth and transformation into a significantly larger organisation focused on providing support to vendors seeking services-oriented, EMEA-wide distribution. I'm looking forward to spearheading our expansion plans."

Zycko is the second acquisition for Rigby Private Equity, which is building an EMEA-wide specialist distribution business.

RPE was formed earlier this year to identify established companies with a strong value proposition and plans for significant growth, to invest in these companies and to support the acceleration of their growth plans.

In July, Rigby Private Equity made a major investment in security value-added distributor Wick Hill.

Paul Eccleston, Head of Rigby Private Equity, commented: "Zycko has a great track record and a reputation for helping vendors successfully bring new technologies to market and grow their business.

"Zycko is already in 12 countries in EMEA, which helps us move forward rapidly with our growth plans. The benefits for Wick Hill, and its partners and customers, include access to the international scope offered by Zycko's established EMEA network

"While the benefits for Zycko include access to Wick Hill's strength in security and the chance to further build on high value and consultancy opportunities for channel customers."

ProVu has signed a new distribution agreement with VTech business phones to supply the new ErisTerminal SIP range which includes entry-level to high-end desk phones and DECT solutions.

ProVu's Managing Director, Darren Garland said: "ProVu believe VTech's exciting new range will become strong competitors in the UK SIP market.

"Despite not being commonly associated with telephony in the UK, VTech are a major global player in the telephone market and have a vast heritage in producing telephony equipment."

Both the phones offer users ultimate flexibility. With an inbuilt DECT module the VSP725A and VSP735A models can be paired with the VSP601A DECT handset and/or the VSP500A headset.

VTech's EMEA Sales Director Charles Williams added: "ProVu's understanding of the technology, allied with the wrap-around services it offers installers and service providers, will add a great deal of value."

To launch the VTech ErisTerminal range ProVu are inviting resellers to sample the models. They currently have a limited number of samples for testing on a 14 day sale or return basis.