Comms Dealer

The future success of MSPs depends on their ability to resolve the prevailing ‘analysis-paralysis' paradox, according to speakers at this year's Managed Services and Hosting Summit (staged by IT Europa, 17th September at London's Bishopsgate).

It could be strongly argued that the managed services environment is maturing nicely, but ironically, the organic nature of managed services could also render it locked in a near-permanent status quo, never developing to its full potential. At one end of the spectrum a stream of stimulating new entrants and technology innovations will refresh the traditional IT industry anew, but on the other hand, customer inertia will stunt an industry that perforce cannot realise its full capacity for growth. Therein lies the paradox: Customers are holding back from making buying decisions because of the pace of change, a condition SolidFire's CEO Dave Wright calls ‘analysis-paralysis'.

Changes in customer buying behaviours are influencing the development of emerging managed services providers as well as more established ones. Therefore the industry must reconsider its sales approach and customer engagement processes if it is to achieve its full potential. MSPs need to be smarter at understanding the technology needs of end users, as well as knowing how the different departments within an organisation use technology.

In a keynote address to delegates, Mark Paine (pictured), Research Director at Gartner, underlined these factors and cited research that illustrated the shift away from traditional selling methods like direct telesales towards engagement with a broader range of buyers who are more informed about the options available to them. ‘Knowledge is a dangerous thing', and selling to such customers can be a challenge with 45 per cent of IT spend already decentralised.

The ‘empowerment' of end users could be interpreted as a baby step towards disintermediation, but the opposite is true, with fears over the possible commoditisation of the sector allayed by David Bellini, President of ConnectWise, who has been selling managed services for 25 years. He boldly claimed a premium over other service providers because his people are ‘better', they can resolve issues quickly and the solutions he provides are generally ‘more reliable'. "The commoditisation scare resurfaces every few years and we've seen it off every time," he stated. "Standing your ground as a MSP depends on improved management within the company. Everything has a ticket, including people."

The fast-changing and rising expectations of customers are a key point of difference, believes Bellini. In such a fast moving industry a new buzzword could within a year become mainstream language. Millennials are helping to catalyse the acceptance of new phrases into everyday speech. They expect always-on comms, constant innovation and are less keen on face-to-face engagement. They're even turning against voice and phone communication. As customers, millennials have different demands on MSPs compared to earlier generations, yet MSPs must still cater for the expectations of more traditional users.

The one common factor that bridges the generation gap is customer service. Mark Banfield, VP of International at Autotask, cited research undertaken by the company that underscores the importance of QoS, delivering on time, sticking to budget and specification, as well building a close working relationship with customers who want solid advice and a single point of contact. "Price should not become an issue if you get these things right," he added. "This works for us. We are absolutely not the cheapest in the market, but we obsess about the customer experience."

The go-to-market philosophy advanced by Banfield is a proven antidote to the ‘analysis-paralysis' scenario identified by SolidFire's CEO Dave Wright, who also affirmed that differentiation through good service is key. However, promoting stand-out attributes can be problematic. "In many cases customers can't identify differentiators so they go with familiar brands," he said. "Many MSPs are struggling to stand out and this can limit their success."

Comment
The Managed Services and Hosting Summit identified the primary determining factors that are likely to shape the future look and survivability of MSPs, whose longevity cannot be separated from their ability to unlock the status quo while keeping in touch with a traditional base. Their priority is to action a new approach to customer engagement that reflects changes in end user buying behaviours. Just as important is having the capacity to differentiate. This can be achieved through outstanding consultancy, faultless project delivery and impeccable after-sales service. None of this is rocket science, but turning the obvious into actionable strategy remains a challenge and until achieved the ‘analysis-paralysis' paradox will remain unresolved.

NaviSite Europe has named David Penny as Regional Channel Director and Gary Smallman as Operations Director. The aim is to boost NaviSite's footprint in the UK market and expand NaviSite's European presence.

David Penny joins from Huawei where he and his team setup the channel business for the company and grew it from a start-up organisation to a significant business arm, with relationships established via the UK major distributors and over 100 VARs, Managed Service Providers and Systems Integrators.

In his new role, he will be in charge of developing and driving NaviSite Europe's channel programme with a focus on new partner recruitment and establishing solid go to market plans with existing and new partners across the UK and Europe.

With over 15 years of experience working in managerial and consultative positions within operations and data centre environments, Gary Smallman has been appointed the role of director of operations at noviciate, where he will be responsible for continuing to drive services to NaviSite's customer base.

Previously employed as the Service Delivery Lead for Charityshare, he has delivered IT services to multiple major charities. He also held positions at Colt Technology Services, Align.com and CSC.

Sean McAvan, Managing Director, NaviSite, said: "As we continue to grow our business we need the best people at the top to drive our vision of being the most reliable and flexible cloud and managed services provider in the UK. We look forward to having them help grow our business in the increasingly competitive cloud and managed hosting market in the UK and across Europe."

A quarter of SMEs are struggling to manage their IT infrastructure according to research by Censuswide on behalf of essensys.

Of the 350 business decision makers polled a third of board directors believing their IT is too complex.

The research highlighted a number of other IT frustrations with 29% of business decision makers also agreeing that IT is too expensive; 21% find it hard to stay up to date with new technologies; and 27% says the cost of rolling out new IT services is too high. Less than 8% of those surveyed said they didn't have any IT frustrations.

Mark Furness, CEO at essensys, said: "The way people work is changing all the time as we move towards an ever more hyper-connected world.

"However, the fact that our research has highlighted all of these frustrations means that, more often than not, the reality is lagging behind the hype.

"Not because businesses don't want to embrace new technologies, but because they are hindered by complex implementation, cost and a lack of flexibility.

"We believe that businesses should expect more from their IT infrastructure. IT should indeed play a key role in leading change and innovation inside organisations rather than be a barrier and a source of frustration.

"Businesses should therefore no longer accept IT solutions that are reliant on complex management tools, have high maintenance demands and are difficult to scale."

essensys's report sets out how businesses need IT infrastructures that are driven by far greater automation and sophisticated orchestration technology, empowering people to easily self-serve and manage their services.

"IT can really be a main driver of productivity and competitiveness and thankfully, the experience is a lot better than what most people expect," added Furness.

Following the release of Windows 10 on 29th July distributor Entatech UK has witnessed five-times growth in sales, largely attributed to a bounce back following a pre-launch lull in sales.

Entatech MD Dave Stevinson said: "Windows10 was a much needed injection of enthusiasm that the industry needed. The demand in late July and August has been particularly pleasing."

BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson has unveiled the company's ambition to deliver Britain's digital future.

Ninety per cent of UK premises can already access fibre broadband, putting the UK top of the EU's largest countries, according to Ofcom.

Speaking at BT's Delivering Britain's Digital Future conference in London, Patterson pledged to tackle slow speeds in hard-to-reach parts of the country; achieve a step-change in speeds overall, with ultrafast rollout starting next year; and improve customer service through a number of commitments unveiled by Openreach.
 
Patterson said: "For the past five years the UK has been the largest digital economy in the G20 by percentage of GDP.

"We think the UK has an even brighter future ahead if we make the right decisions today. We want to forge an ultrafast future for Britain and stand ready to help government deliver the broadband speeds necessary for every property to enjoy modern day internet services, such as high definition TV streaming and cloud computing. To achieve this, we need a collaborative effort across industry and government."
 

Patterson committed BT to supporting government in delivering a new universal minimum broadband speed of 5-10Mbps, enough for everyone in the UK to enjoy popular internet services like high definition video. 

Patterson emphasised the need for a supportive regulatory and government policy environment to bring about a commercially viable investment.

He also cited new technologies developed at BT's Adastral Park research laboratories which should help boost slow speeds for many hard-to-reach premises.

Research includes tests on new technologies such as 'wireless to the cabinet' and 'long reach VDSL' to help bring higher speed broadband to hard-to-reach communities.

Patterson also pledged the company would introduce a satellite broadband service for some of the UK's more remote premises by the end of the year.
 
He announced BT's desire to go 'further and faster' on fibre broadband, and made clear BT would 'never say no' to providing faster broadband to communities, promising the company would instead explore innovative funding and technical solutions. He said 90 communities were already benefitting from this approach.

The BT chief executive said the UK would go beyond government's current 95% target for fibre availability, thanks to 'success dividend' clauses in contracts covering rollout co-funded by BT, Whitehall and local councils.

The clauses mean BT has to reinvest or return money if take-up exceeds certain levels in areas where public funds have been used.

A sum of £130m is already being released and is potentially available to get the UK towards having fibre available at 96% of premises.

He also announced plans to supply fibre broadband for all new housing developments either through BT's own efforts or in cooperation with developers.
 
Patterson stressed the potential benefit to homes and smaller businesses from ultrafast broadband technology.

These services will sit beside Ethernet broadband services which already offer ultrafast speeds to larger businesses and organisations which can pay for bespoke dedicated lines.

Patterson went beyond his January statement on ultrafast broadband to say BT's new services of 300-500Mbps would reach 10m homes and smaller businesses by the end of 2020, and the majority of premises within a decade.

A 1Gbps service will be provided for those that want even faster speeds. The connections on offer would be a combination of Fibre-to-the-Premises technology, as well as new G.fast technology, which uses existing Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology.
 
Joe Garner, Openreach chief executive, said there was more to do on service.

He made clear his ambition to exceed by 6% Ofcom's 2017 minimum standards for delivering new connections on-time.

He also cited View My Engineer as a key step forward.

This is a new service which gives customers text progress updates plus their engineer's name and mobile number should they need to make contact.

He highlighted an issue which arises because customers often cannot deal direct with Openreach, but can only deal with their retail broadband provider. Garner declared he is open to having Openreach deal directly with end customers, subject to consulting Ofcom and telecom providers.

At the conference, a new report was also unveiled by consultants KPMG, valuing the impact of BT's future commitments as worth £20-£30 billion to the UK economy over the next decade.

Gemma Stopford has joined Zest4 as Channel Manager with a remit to build on the firm's partner base and drive revenues across its portfolio which now includes Office 365 and M2M.

Stopford has amassed much customer-facing experience having worked in roles in the services industry and then securing a Sales Manager role at a well known health club chain.

"I then moved into a sales role in the telecommunications industry and haven't looked back since," she said.

Operations & Business Development Director Mandy Fazelynia added: "Our results have exceeded expectations over the last 12 months and we are delighted to be in the position to expand our team and increase the resource we can dedicate to our partners.

"Gemma's experience will be invaluable in supporting Zest4's reseller partners."

You'll be surprised to hear me say that using a recruitment agency should be your last resort. I've had a long career in sales and management and in this time I've managed the P&L of several companies. I've learnt that when it comes to growing the staff potential of your business there are three key stages before you should even think of using a recruiter, writes Clive Jefferys, Managing Director of telco recruiter JMA Network.

Firstly, you must develop your company brand so that it attracts attention from direct applicants - be that by job advertising or welcoming approaches from your competitor's staff.

Secondly, you should fully exploit the network of contacts that your current people bring to the company by using, for example, incentive schemes for referring a friend. Asking for help in this way often leads to potential hires.

Finally, you must keep your own contacts on-side - people you've worked with before will often know someone that will suit your vacancy.

It is only when you have exhausted all these avenues that you should engage with a recruiter.

There are many reasons as to why recruitment agencies produce the 'magic candidate' even when the task seems impossible.

Your principle motivation should be to gain access to their private network of potential hires.

In the last 20 years the whole field of recruitment has been made incredibly complex by a proliferation of solutions.

That's why clients and candidates should be listening to our advice to create the perfect match.

In this day and age, most recruiters operate below the line, under the tip of the iceberg, as the candidates seen on jobsites are an absolute minority of who's really looking for a new job.

As a specialist recruiter, we have been building contacts for years with the industry. We make it our business to try to know everyone!

What you really pay for is our ability to know exactly who to have a quiet word with about your job.

Niche recruitment exists within a world where everyone has an opinion about everybody, so it's our job to dispel myths, highlight opportunities and give our recommendations.

The second Channel Telecom MPLS workshop will take place in the midlands next month.

The event builds on the first workshop staged at Virtual1's London HQ following a link up between the two companies.

The one day workshop was rounded off with a short exam after which successful partners gained the accreditation to quote and sell MPLS networks.

Clifford Norton, Channel Telecom MD, said: "Providing partners with product knowledge and an accreditation means that they are more comfortable in selling and supporting the growing number of services we are able to offer.

"By providing partners with the necessary tools the transition from dealer to reseller is made all the easier."

Workshops are a recurring theme for Channel Telecom this year, having introduced webinars and training events on its hosted offering. In the pipeline are billing and IP voice webinars.

Resellers who take the wireless route to headset sales stand to gain most as cordless devices are set to 'dominate the sector', claimed Nimans.

"Wireless are on the rise and set to overtake corded, so this is a significant growth area for resellers to exploit," stated James Burns, Head of Sales, Systems Integrators.

"Wireless headset sales are rising across the industry at around 35-40% whereas traditional contact centre and office headset sales remain fairly stable."

The two dominant market sectors for headsets - contact centres plus office and UC deployments - are vibrant, according to Burns.

"In the traditional contact centre space the emergence of high-end intelligent headsets is the next big thing," he added.

"The integration of headsets with intelligent communication platforms is all the rage.

"The buzzword for several months has been around contextual intelligence, based around software developments and headset smart sensors.

"For example, smart sensors enable an agent to take off their headset which alerts the system to automatically take them out of a group status. This creates a slicker call centre operation."

Skype for Business adoption is also driving the uptake of headsets, especially following the changes in how Microsoft issues payment commissions, pointed out Burns.

"Changes to licence commissions are paid means that only half is delivered upfront with the remainder triggered upon activation of a licence," he said.

"This offers a real growth opportunity for headsets because in order to use a voice licence a suitable UC end point needs to be connected to optimise audio performance.

"The quality end points must match the quality of the overall system otherwise there is a risk to the user experience. Many resellers understand this, but there remains too many that don't."

avsnet has formed a new strategic partnership with Redscan, a managed security service provider (MSSP).

Staffed by avsnet and Redscan's network and security specialists, the companies' combined operational centres will provide customers with complete network visibility and 24/7 protection from a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

This includes protection from risks that can result in extortion, data loss, reputational impacts, network outages and financial loss.

Specific services include immediate information on actionable security events, remediation guidance, compliance audit reports, data for forensic analysis and security device management.

Graham Fry, Managing Director at avsnet, said: "IT security used to be a taboo subject, however businesses have awoken to the very real threat of what doing nothing could mean to their reputations and bottom lines.

"After all, cyber-criminals never rest on their laurels. Our customers are increasingly looking to us for advice and protection. Whether it is minimising the damaging effects of security issues, rapidly mitigating threats or providing general peace of mind, we chose to partner with Redscan because of the company's consultative approach."

Redscan's capabilities bolster avsnet's managed services portfolio. This includes proactive network management and monitoring services, cloud-based unified communications and video solutions, managed visual communications, and proactive support services. Furthermore, Redscan's certifications (CREST, CISSP, OSCE, CEH and numerous others) match avsnet's focus on regulatory compliance and industry accreditations.

Simon Heron, CTO at Redscan, added: "As our penetration tests regularly demonstrate to new customers, most organisations incorrectly believe their network is well protected.

"This is rarely the case - there is often an insecure network end-point, weak password or unpatched vulnerability that is putting their business at risk.

"Critical issues such as these need identifying and rectifying the moment they occur. Much like avsnet's understanding of how important the corporate network is to improving business performance, we recognise how important security is to a business's day-to-day operations. This shared ethos makes the two companies a natural fit."