Comms Dealer

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: It should come as no surprise that much of our work is focused on promoting hosted telephony and explaining the benefits of cloud-based technology to end user businesses.

Today's workforces are becoming ever more agile and employees expect their employers to offer workplace flexibility and improve their work/life balance. This development got me thinking about how far marketing agencies such as Blabbermouth can push the virtual workforce concept.

When discussing briefs and presenting concepts I find that so much feedback is gained from body language and non-verbal cues. For example, tangible expressions of enthusiasm from design and marketing teams are important when assessing the thoughts behind marketing activities and bringing projects to life. Can conference calls really capture the vision of the marketing team or the true reactions of the client?

Brand personality is a large factor in reinforcing messaging and maintaining brand consistency. Call me old fashioned, but I find visiting the offices of clients and meeting the team and seeing their environments first-hand gives me the clues and pointers I need to ensure that the desired corporate perception is consistent with the reality.

The upside of remote working is that teams can comfortably work off-site and design briefs can be relayed back to base immediately after client meetings with a fresh impression of the passion and thinking behind the marketing plans. Agency teams can spend the working day at client sites progressing projects and immersing themselves in client life.

In conclusion, cloud computing is actually allowing us to use our time more efficiently rather than reducing the time spent at the client offices.

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: Three or so years ago we were talking about how the IoT would transform the relationship with products we buy and how it would drive business sustainability. These opportunities continue to be explored and developed, with some products like Nest making it into consumer consciousness.

But there are many more operating already throughout global supply chains, hidden from public view but helping businesses use less fuel and energy, improve the lifespan of their assets, reduce waste and improve security and safety of both assets and people.

The knock-on cost and time savings associated with this means that more time and money can be reinvested elsewhere in the business. There are also less tangible benefits to improving your sustainability, from improved customer perception to employee advocacy and loyalty, which bring positive impacts to both the top and bottom lines.

No matter what industry you're in there will be a M2M solution already on the market or in development which can help you operate in a more sustainable way. Whether you are a retailer looking to reduce the costs of transporting or holding stock, a farmer looking to track and manage livestock more efficiently, or a manufacturer looking for better ways to track pallets in order to use them again, the IoT brings a new perspective to solving these operational issues, and I would urge every business to start their M2M journey (if you haven't done so already).

The thought of implementing a new technology could be a daunting prospect, but it doesn't have to be difficult, time consuming or expensive to implement.

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

The Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) underscored a variety of European IT market growth trends during a session at the Canalys Channels Forum.

GTDC members are successful technology distributors driving more than $135 billion in annual product sales across the globe.

The GTDC and its subscription database partners, GfK and CONTEXT, monitor technology industry sales trends and other related market conditions in Europe. The organisations aggregate actual sales of IT distributors and corresponding attributes in a multitude of categories.

The CONTEXT SalesWatch Distribution database, which covers 190 distributors and over 600,000 resellers for 90% of the European IT distribution market, reflects consistently higher weekly sales trends for the countries tracked on a fixed-exchange-rate basis.

For the past three months ending in August, highlights include the following growth rates compared to the corresponding period last year: Data centre and networking sales up 15% in Germany; telecom revenue in France accelerated 77%; server business grew 26% in Italy; storage sales increased 19% across Nordic countries; and software revenue jumped 14% in Spain.

Tim Curran, GTDC CEO, said: "Europe got off to a relatively slow start in 2015, following a strong 2014 driven by the PC refresh cycle. However, we are encouraged by accelerating growth in recent months across a broad spectrum of products, categories and geographies.

"We're also excited about how technology distributors continue to transform their business models during this time of dramatic industrywide change."

NG Bailey's IT Services division has teamed up with vendor partner Mitel and analyst firm Ovum to create 'The Disconnected Enterprise', an eBook of articles and infographics exploring how cloud-based UC can help enterprise CIOs retain strategic control over their IT assets, drive corporate mobility initiatives and build a connected workplace of the future.

The article and infographic series takes a frank and pragmatic look at a number of major initiatives currently challenging CIOs and enterprise IT departments, and explores how UCaaS can be leveraged to their strategic and operational benefit.

Topics covered include digital transformation, enterprise migration to the cloud, bring/choose your own device, IP-convergence management and workplace flexibility.

"Many enterprises remain caught in a 'mobility mismatch' which has, to date, been the cause of more collision than collaboration," said Indi Sall, technical director, NG Bailey - IT Services.

"But once they have harnessed the power of UCaaS, delivered via the cloud, many CIOs are able to reconcile these problems, finding they suddenly have the operational and fiscal flexibility to manoeuvre.

"They can begin to claw back control over their IT assets from other departments and release internal expertise that has, for too long, been consumed by helpdesk requests. With this new agility they can push on with more transformational initiatives and, in the process, win back the confidence and respect of the next generation of tech-expectant workers.

"We thought it was time to tackle these issues head on. This is why UCaaS holds so much power to help CIOs take meaningful steps forward in their roles."

Growing confidence in cloud security has prompted 29% of IT buyers to spend on cloud services, according to a study by Technology Business Research (TBR).

"Throughout the study, we noted the largest customer concern was outside breach of data - there is a customer expectation that cloud solutions should have security embedded to address such issues," said TBR Cloud Research Analyst Molly Gallaher Boddy.

"Yet there was also a desire for tailored security solutions, offering consulting and managed services vendors a chance to help customers gain the security specificity they require.

"Because of this, the cloud security market is led by multiline companies that provide a range of cloud security and private cloud services that ultimately give customers cloud security packages with the option for additional add-ons."

Though customers expect CSPs to offer comprehensive security, survey respondents sought additional security options from third-party providers that offer vertical and workload-specific solutions.

As the cloud market matures, end users will purchase additional managed security services to help them customise their cloud environments, creating a rich opportunity for cloud consulting firms, systems integrators (SIs) and third-party providers, says TBR.

Given the state of the market, TBR believes CSPs that offer a range of customised cloud security services alongside private cloud options, such as current leader IBM, are best situated to win in the cloud security market.

TeleWare has appointed Nigel Simpson as Global Sales Manager whose remit includes the management of the firm's channel partner strategy.

Simpson has worked across a number of international brands including WorldPay, BT Global Services and Cisco. Prior to joining TeleWare he was the VP of Corporate New Business Sales at Barclays (within Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance).

TeleWare CEO Steve Haworth said: "Nigel brings extensive experience and expertise in building collaborative relationships with both channel partners and customers across a wide range of vertical sectors.

"His appointment is an important part of our strategic plans, as Nigel brings added depth to our sales team along with a proven ability to enhance partner relationships and deliver growth."

Simpson added: "TeleWare is at an exciting point in its journey and positioned to support partners with new regulatory challenges such as MIFID II and Dodd Frank. I look forward to helping the company and our partners achieve their business objectives across the UK and the rest of the world."

D-Link has launched the Smart Installers Programme (SIP) in the UK and Ireland, a partnership scheme for installers of physical security who sell to small/medium-sized businesses and homes.

An online portal allows users to register deals, apply for demo products and secure prices whilr NFR tools such as Surveillance Floor Planner Pro and Bandwidth Calculator aid installers in planning and creating new surveillance solution projects.

Paul Routledge, Sales and Marketing Manager UK, said: "Security installers have a huge market opportunity, yet need to have the right ingredients in place to ensure they can attract new business prospects. We've created a range of specialist tools and benefits to assist security installers in achieving this."

A new study from Juniper Research has found that OTT voice providers are expected to see an increase in service revenues by 2020, reaching over $10 billion, representing a fivefold increase over the next five years.

The study argued that OTT application providers such as Skype and WhatsApp would experience a significant rise in traffic and revenue potential as 4G network rollouts accelerate, thereby increasing their capability to offer high-quality VoIP (Voice over IP) calls.

The new research - 'Future Voice Strategies: mVoIP, Carrier OTT, WebRTC, HD Voice & Video Calling 2015-2020' - found that as most mVoIP services were offered as a free or low cost service, only a small minority of OTT players had generated a significant revenues from the service.

Instead, it argued that the more successful service providers had developed indirect or adjacent revenues on the back of the core voice offerings, with a number offering in-app purchases or - as with Daum Kakao - a social networking platform.

Meanwhile, the research observed that with traditional operators' voice revenues in sharp decline as a result of OTT voice activity, a number of operators have adopted new business models mimicking those of OTT players. These include directly offering functionality such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE) and Wi-Fi calling through the handset.

The research also argued that white label OTT services, such as the fring alliance, are becoming increasingly important in helping operators compete with the OTT business model. However, it cautioned that such initiatives historically had mixed results, with both Telefonica's TuMe and O2's TuGo service having been discontinued.

Voiceflex has revamped its logo and brand to better represent what the company stands for and how it has evolved.

"Our logo is purposefully simplified to complement all channels, distributors, resellers and dealers and SIP voice connectivity," said Paul Taylor, Sales and Marketing Director of Voiceflex.

"With this evolution of our brand, we're staying true to our 100% channel focus and we believe that our new identity reflects that.

"We knew that the year we celebrated our 10th anniversary was the right time to unveil a new look for Voiceflex.

"It's an exciting, more relevant logo and brand for us as a company that's growing and providing the next generation of voice products, all focused on the channel."

TD Azlan has appointed Phil King as Technology and Services Director, a newly created position. He will also be in charge of the Business Solutions Centre (BSC) at TD Azlan's Heathrow location.

King brings more than 15 years of business development experience in value-added distribution, vendor and reseller businesses to the post. He has worked closely with data centre and systems integration vendors such as Cisco, EMC and VMware, and with VADs and VARs, helping them to formulate and execute their services- and cloud-led business strategies.

His career has included a five year period as Sales Manager for Enterprise Software and Specialist Solutions at ETC Distribution and over four years working in senior business development roles at storage vendor EMC. King has also worked for Veeam Software and for distributor CCD and reseller Esteem Systems.

His most recent appointment was as UK Business Development Manager for Canopy Cloud, the cloud solutions business of Atos. He vacated this role to take a six month break during which he hiked from Mexico to Canada.

Sarah Deller, Azlan Software Director, stated: "The Technology Practice is at the very centre of our value proposition and Phil will lead our strategy here to build differentiated market solution propositions."

King said: "The whole channel is changing radically and Azlan is in the vanguard of that transformation. We will now integrate Azlan's presales technical practice with our service delivery team providing seamless availability of skills and value to both partners and customers throughout the whole project lifecycle."