Comms Dealer

FCS chief Chris Pateman has called on the industry to make as much 'noise' as possible in an 'eleventh hour' representation to the Competition & Markets Authority and Government to influence the CMA's stance on opening up wholesale mobile access to the same extent as fixed line - an issue that is getting hotter by the day as BT prepares to merge with EE and the CMA's November 19th deadline for feedback fast approaches.

"The CMA’s preliminary decision on the proposed BT/EE takeover is monumentally threatening to the channel. Yet the CMA says it does not raise any significant competition concerns," said Pateman. 

"This is partly due to the CMA assessing the likely damage against market definitions which are 13 years out of date.

"They come from the 2002 EU Common Regulatory Framework - drawn up at a time when WLR seemed like a novel idea, and about the sexiest thing you could do with a mobile phone was send a text. Hardly the best basis, in our view, for determining the threats to the converged current and future communications market."

Pateman noted that the CMA has conceded that comms is a complicated market and so left the provisional conclusions open for comment - nominally until January 18th.

"Don't be fooled by that final deadline," warned Pateman in a letter to FCS members. "The CMA confirmed to us that if we want to be taken seriously, we've got until 5pm on November 19th to make meaningful representations."

"We know FCS and our colleagues at iMVNOx, the MVNO industry body, are not the only ones burning the midnight oil against this deadline. And FCS will be doing everything we can to work with other voices, and to harness and focus industry push-back as the process moves forward.

"But right now, we as an industry have just days to make as much noise as we can. Business CPs are pushing on a more responsive door with policy makers today than at any time since BT was privatised.

"Make sure your local MP understands your concerns. A few well chosen questions in Parliament at this stage could mean the difference between success and failure. Or, at least, the difference between no remedies or controls whatever and a new regulatory regime that will open up a genuine wholesale market for mobile voice and data."

Managed services provider Claranet has launched a new service that allows customers to securely connect to public cloud platforms.

The service, Cloud Connect, links customers to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure via Claranet's own private MPLS network, removing the need to transmit data over the public Internet and therefore bypassing data transfer charges from Claranet.

Neil Thomas, Claranet's product director, said: "Over the past few years, we have been working hard to ensure that we've got a complete portfolio of network services to allow our customers to pick the best option for each application.

"Cloud Connect is a key part of our networking strategy, enabling customers to connect to the big public cloud platforms using their own corporate networks.

"Avoiding the public Internet, the connection is more stable and secure, providing the opportunity for customers host their internal, business critical applications on these platforms while keeping their data within their own private networks.

"Both Azure and AWS have tools that can allow businesses to plug directly into their services via the Internet. However, if your application is for internal customers only - or you want to consume data sources from internal applications within your public facing application - then having a link over your private network gives you more consistent performance with enhanced security."

Claranet's Cloud Connect service is provided through a partnership between Claranet and Telecity Group, using the Cloud-IX platform.

Hybrid workforce solutions provider Gibbs S3 is warning that the shortage of qualified cyber security specialists is becoming critical for businesses.

Measures introduced by the UK Government, including Cyber Essentials, a programme aimed at providing basic cyber security awareness at quickly and cheaply for SMEs are laudable and should be continued, noted Farida Gibbs, CEO and Founder of Gibbs S3..

"But these initiatives are insufficient when it comes to combating modern Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) which threaten British businesses," said Gibbs. "In 2015 alone, Ashley Madison, TalkTalk, Harvard University and the IRS have all be victims of sophisticated and damaging hacks.

"The range and severity of threats, coupled with the desperate shortage of skilled staff means that the majority of British telcos are fighting an increasingly complex war with clearly insufficient resources.

"This issue is compounded by the fact that standing still is not an option - firms need to be far more proactive in beefing up their digital defences as the hackers who are looking to get in are constantly evolving and mutating their attacks."

The dangers are not limited purely to larger companies either. Recent research from KPMG has found that 70 per cent of SMEs can do significantly more to protect sensitive client data.

"It is a truly worrying statistic when considering that the same research found that 94 per cent of enterprise procurement departments considered cyber-security protocols to be a key factor in deciding which suppliers to use," added Gibbs.

"The inability for small firms to provide adequate cyber-security protection is now causing small businesses significant revenue losses, an untenable state of affairs."

Punam Tiwari, Senior Legal Counsel and Data Protection Specialist at Gibbs S3, said: "We've now seen CEOs of major companies lose their jobs because of cyber attacks which should be a serious wake-up call about the consequences.

"Companies should start from the assumption that their systems have been infiltrated by criminals and operate on that basis, yet many businesses are simply failing to act. Companies can no longer afford to casually dip in and out of the market, assuming that they will find qualified people when they need them.

"There needs to be a greater commitment to data protection and cyber security training across the UK with businesses also carefully assessing and planning how they will bring on cyber-security experts at a moments notice - whether that is for a crisis scenario or not."

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Tech Data Europe has been named 'Distributor of the Year - Best Newcomer 2015' at the EMEA Dell Solutions Conference 2015.

The awards ceremony, which took place on Wednesday 4th November at MetaStadt, Vienna, celebrated and recognized the business achievements of Dell partners and distributors.

Accepting the award on behalf of the company were Michael Urban, senior vice president, Broadline, CE, Procurement and Services and Simon England, senior vice president, Value Added Business and managing director, Azlan, Europe, who collected the award from senior Dell management including Michael Dell, CEO and Chairman.

"This award is a fantastic vote of confidence for the growing partnership between Dell and Tech Data Europe" said Urban.

"Over the last year, we have extended the reach of Dell's products and solutions across the vast majority of our European reseller community, driving significant net-new business opportunities in the SMB segment particularly.

"This success story is a testament to the strength of Tech Data systems, processes and our people, who have very quickly built a close working relationship with their counterparts at Dell."

Ralf Jordan, executive director, EMEA Broadline Distribution, Dell, said: "Tech Data has recently launched distribution of Dell products in 11 European countries and is our fastest growing distributor in Europe. Reaching more than 10,000 resellers and with sales growth of more than 300 per cent during last 12 months, we are pleased to recognise Tech Data Europe as our best newcomer."

Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking has strengthened its Technology, Media and Telecommunications team in London with the appointment of Michael Bond as Mid-Markets Relationship Director.

He joins the eight strong team having previously worked in a similar role looking after clients in the Education, Communities and Government sector across the South East, where he was responsible for helping grow the Bank's portfolio of clients, doubling the size of the team servicing those clients in the process.

With 12 years in corporate banking, he will now be responsible for growing Lloyds Bank's portfolio of Technology, Media and Telecommunications businesses in the capital with a turnover of between £25 million and £100 million.

The team specialises in structuring tailored funding solutions for new and existing clients to provide risk management, financing, working capital and liquidity to dynamic businesses within a high-growth sector.

Simon Bumfrey, Area Director at the bank's TMT team in London, said: "Michael brings with him a great track record of relationship-led banking, in which he has helped grow our client base by ensuring we always deliver the bespoke, tailored funding packages that our clients require to help them prosper.

"By really getting under the skin of clients' businesses, Michael has shown himself able to shape the funding structure that is most appropriate for each individual customer, enabling them to fulfil their ambitions and evolve without putting undue stress on the balance sheet now or further down the track."

Bond added: "This is a sector where the appetite for mergers and acquisitions, and so for a variety of different types of debt funding, is high."

A survey of resellers, MSPs and systems integrators conducted by Agilitas revealed that 54% estimated their customers could lose anything from £10,000 up to £1m from just a single hour of downtime, while 40% are seeing over four hours of downtime when hardware goes wrong.

"Having IT hardware spares available has for many years been essential to business continuity and maximum uptime. However, as organisations become more dependent on technology, SLAs are being shortened and expectations raised," said Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas. "Two hour part-to-site SLAs 24x7x365 are becoming the norm."

The research also revealed that 40% of customers see on average over four hours of downtime when hardware fails; 40% of providers find meeting SLAs the greatest challenge to providing inventory support to customers, and 25% sourcing parts; and 20% are struggling to get parts to customers on time in order to meet critical SLAs.

"Meeting SLAs and reducing downtime through flexible support should be the key aim for service providers," added Lynn.

"Inventory-as-a-service's ability to distribute parts quickly from multiple locations means that providers won't need to worry about getting a part from A-to-B again, coupled with direct access to technical and remote support 24x7x365."

Agilitas also surveyed service providers running their own in-house operations, revealing that a quarter currently run complete in-house inventory operations despite the rising cost of office and warehouse space; over a fifth aren't sure how much storing parts costs each year; and one in seven say the high costs of managing inventory is preventing investment in other areas of their business.

"The increasingly high capital (capex) cost of managing hardware often makes it unsustainable for many IT providers. Organisations want an always-on service, with two hour SLAs met 24x7x365. As a result, organisations moving towards inventory-as-a-service are reducing capex, as the service keeps costs stable, ensuring inventory management is an operational (opex), not capital expenditure," said Lynn.

Hats off to Nimans for collecting the Distributor of the Year award from headset manufacturer Jabra.

Impressive sales performance and expert knowledge combined with 'playing an ambassadorial role' helped Nimans clinch its latest in a long line of over 100 industry accolades.

Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, Jabra UK & Ireland, said Jabra worked with the team at Nimans on a plan for significant growth throughout the year.

"The results have been far better than we imagined and growth has exceeded all expectation," he pointed out.

Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans, added: "Winning awards is great testimony to the skills and dedication of our staff coupled with the fantastic support of our loyal customers. We enjoy an excellent working relationship with Jabra which is set to grow even stronger throughout 2016 and beyond based on their innovative product range and exceptional industry reputation."

Last month Nimans picked up the Best Convergence Distributor award in the Comms National Awards.

Almost one third (31%) of CIOs globally are routinely side-lined when it comes to making IT purchasing decisions, but a growing number (42%) are now actively embracing a new internal service provider model in an attempt to stay relevant to line of business colleagues, according to the third annual CIO survey from Logicalis.

The 2015 Global CIO Survey polled more than 400 CIOs worldwide and found IT leaders under growing pressure from Shadow IT.

The phenomenon of Shadow IT, when line of business executives bypass the IT department and CIO in making IT investments, is now a reality for the vast majority - 90% of CIOs worldwide find themselves by-passed by line of business at least sometimes.

With CIOs gradually losing the battle to retain the balance of power in IT decision-making, the survey found that today, two thirds (66%) of CIOs hold the balance of power over spending - making more than 50% of purchase decisions.

This shows that the threat from line of business driven IT choices is forcing CIOs to re-align their IT strategy to better serve the needs of their line of business colleagues, and transforming IT to become the first choice for all IT service provision.

Mark Rogers, CEO at Logicalis Group, said: "These results suggest CIOs are at a tipping point. They are just about maintaining overall control of IT spend, but with the democratisation of IT through technology consumerisation, ubiquitous mobility, growth in the cloud and business transformational technologies such as analytics, line of business colleagues' power in decision making is only going to present increasingly tough challenges for the CIO and the wider business executive.

"Unchecked and often unseen by IT, this has serious implications for IT governance and security, especially from solutions designed to directly fire the imagination of line of business executives to the possibilities that technology could have on their business."

Only the most negstive naysayer could see anything bad in the latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics, believes Clive Jefferys of Telecoms recruiter JMA Network.

According to the ONS, unemployment fell by 103,000 people between July and September and for the record 31.2 million in work, earnings grew by an overall 3% in the last 12 months.

"The good news is that despite much-hyped skill shortages, employers are finding additional people to hire and investing heavily in training and development. Any kind of increase in economic activity leads to yet more growth and so on, in a positive spiral." said Jefferys.

As quoted on BBC News, Martin Beck, senior economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club, said: "Looking ahead, with less room for joblessness to fall, a slower rate of decline in unemployment seems likely.

"Moreover, a recovery in productivity also points to a softer pace of job creation as firms extract more output from existing workforces. That said, the same trend will give firms the resources to pay more."

TalkTalk Business now accounts for over 30% of total Group revenue, delivering revenue growth of 6.2% with data revenues up 15%, according to its H1 FY16 financial results (six months to 30th September 2015).

TalkTalk Business' growth has been driven by the strong demand for voice and data connectivity, as well as the evolution of TalkTalk Business' partner channel fuelled by the acquisition of tIPicall.

TalkTalk Business' success has been strengthened by its relationship with existing customers such as the Post Office and Utility Warehouse and its sustained ability to offer wholesale phone and broadband services across 95% of the UK.

H1 FY16 also saw TalkTalk Business offer a wide range of connectivity and data products to customers ranging from SoHo and SME businesses to multi-site enterprises, and generating revenue through long-term relationships.

Charles Bligh, Managing Director of TalkTalk Business, said: "Demand for data will continue to drive growth for TalkTalk Business. As we look to expand capacity on our network and concentrate on developing new and innovative products, we are excited to see TalkTalk Business evolve and continue to deliver innovative and reliable services to our customers."