Comms Dealer

Following another six months of profitable growth voice and data recording specialist Red Box Recorders has strengthened its senior management team with two new appointments.

John Fenech has been appointed Global Operations Director while Simon Foster joins as Head of Sales UK.

Fenech brings more than 30 years experience working in the telecommunications industry, successfully fulfilling a variety of engineering, pre-sales, project and support management roles.

He has previously worked at Avaya and Datapoint and joins Red Box from ShoreTel, where he held the position of Senior Manager, Support and Services.

As Global Operations Director, Fenech will oversee Red Box's global support team and will work closely with partner organisations to improve how they support their own clients when selling Red Box solutions around the world.

In addition, he will oversee the company's Project Office, managing installation and engineering resources, whilst helping to drive efficiencies and facilitate the timely delivery of product installations.

As Head of Sales UK, Foster has a remit to manage Red Box's sales team and drive the company's sales strategy and channel business within the UK.

Foster has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years, including 11 years as an Account Manager at Mitel, and more recently at ShoreTel where he managed channel strategy.

Lee Jones, CEO of Red Box Recorders, said: "The company has enjoyed a fantastic first half of 2015 and with ambitious targets in place we are well positioned to push ahead with the next stage of growth.

"By recruiting John and Simon we have made two high calibre appointments that will help to drive our business forward, both in the UK and globally.

:John and Simon bring a wealth of knowledge to the team and their expertise will be of great benefit to our partners and customers."

As part of its support for local charities seven members of staff from Yorkshire business telecoms provider, Intouch Advance, took part in a brace of physically demanding events to raise sponsorship for Bradford-based children's charity, One in a Million (OIAM).

Together with a previous activity undertaken by the CEO on his own, this month's efforts bring the company's sponsorship for OIAM to £8,174.91.

On 4th July the company's CEO Simon Pollard set out early at 4.30am with his team to tackle the Yorkshire 3-Peaks challenge. 

Racing against a number of other leading regional companies, the challenge for the Intouch Advance 'Magnificent Seven' was to complete the three Yorkshire Peaks, Pen-y-Ghent (691m), Whernside (728m) and Ingleborough (723m) in 12 hours.

Polard said, "With a great local cause spurring us on this excellent team rose to the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge. We're proud to have been able to raise all the sponsorship we have and extremely grateful to all those who have helped surpass the target we expected to achieve."

A skydive challenge followed the week after. Company Head of Finance, Laura Barrass and Sales Director, Scott Walker, took part in a tandem free-fall skydive, harnessed to a BPA-qualified instructor during a one-minute descent.

Barrass said: "It was an amazing experience - nerve-racking going up but the jump was exhilarating!"

Sales of the ALSO Group in the first half improved compared to last year by 11.9% to €3.67bn. Profit before taxes (EBT) rose despite high losses of ALSO Logistics Services GmbH, from €30.5m to €36.2m (+18.7%) and net income from €21.0m to €24.4m (+16.4%). ALSO Group increased its consolidated sales by 11.9% in the first half of 2015 in almost all product categories.

"We have made extensive improvements in all parts of the company. In particular, the optimal integration of ALPHA International B.V. in the Netherlands, the consolidation of ALSO France and Finland as well as the excellent performance in Denmark, Sweden and the Baltic States helped this very good result," says Gustavo Möller-Hergt (below), CEO of ALSO Holding AG.

Different products in the portfolio had differing outcome, however: Data Center Networking & Security grew +25.1% and Unified Communications, +24.2%, while Mobile Computing declined -4.0%. ALSO says this is mainly due to the fact that end of the wave of renewals generated by the end of Windows XP support. The Server Computing business rose 17.7%, it says.

The Central European market segment recorded an increase in sales over the previous year by 14.3% to €2.91 bn. Profit before taxes (EBT) rose from €25.7m to €30.5m (+18.5%). The EBT margin remained at 1.0%, similar to the previous year. Central Europe recorded again a double-digit sales growth thanks mainly to a particularly strong performance in Germany, France and the Netherlands. ALSO Switzerland has taken measures to counteract the ongoing cost pressure due to falling margins.

Sales rose in the Northern / Eastern Europe market segment year on year by 3.3% to €833.4m, with Denmark, Sweden and the Baltic countries contributing most to the growth. Earnings before taxes (EBT) improved from €5.5m to €8.5m and the EBT margin from 0.7% to 1.0%. This increase is attributable to growth in high-margin business segments in Norway and Sweden.

AS announced a few weeks ago, ALSO Group is expanding its presence in Europe through the opening of the new subsidiary, ALSO Polska sp.z o.o. in Warsaw. The acquisition of failed business Logistics Activity (now ALSO Logistics Services GmbH, Augsburg) has caused losses of around €4m in the first half. The reduction measures in personnel have not yet been implemented as planned and without extensive restructuring, it cannot be competitive, says ALSO. So it has decided to discontinue further financing of its current business and a decision will be taken to file for insolvency. Restructuring costs in the second half of the year will be around €8m.

ALSO expects that for the full year, despite the challenging conditions and anticipated costs associated with the restructuring of ALSO Logistics Services GmbH, a result in line with the level for the previous year. "Overall, we look very confidently at the current financial year. We calculate that it will continue with a stable business and a solid result at the same level," says Gustavo Möller-Hergt.

ICT resellers that fail to take advantage of the low energy prices are missing out on thousands of upfront cash deals according to comms entrepreneur Simon Payne.

Speaking at the House of Commons, the Fidelity Group CEO told assembled guests at the launch of his new Fidelity Energy business that leveraging the relationship comms providers have with customers to help them reduce energy bills was a' brutally simple' concept.

Fidelity Energy has negotiated deals with 14 of the world's leading energy companies which means customers can be almost guaranteed savings on their energy bills.

"This is a once in a blue moon opportunity," said Payne. "We have built the infrastructure and established trading relationships over the last 18 months.

"We are now in pole position to capitalise on this rare occurrence. We have invested heavily in automation and that has enabled all our partners to jump on the bandwagon using our white label offering."

Payne said 57% of customers his team have approached in the last few months have signed over to Fidelity Energy and the company will exceed £1m in net earnings in its first year of trading.

"This is a 'money today not tomorrow' proposition that resellers should get their heads around now," he added. "It is not difficult to set up and it could mean a vast difference to a reseller's cash flow, increase customer stickiness and lock in recurring revenues.

"The beauty of this is that there is no real sales process. Resellers will already have a close relationship with customers. All they have to do is ask them for an energy bill then we do the rest."

Pictured above: Left to right: Fidelity Energy MD Paul Havell; Fidelity Group CEO Simon Payne and Henley-on-Thames MP John Howell, who hosted the launch event at the House of Commons.

Timico has boosted its mobile offerings by adding Vodafone's Secure Device Manager (VSDM) solution to its suite of services.

With increasing amounts of workforces operating in multiple countries, the boom in BYOD and the increased likelihood of employees checking their emails or accessing files whilst away on their summer holidays, Timico's latest offering is well placed within the current market - especially thanks to its remote monitoring controls, said the firm.

VSDM allows the IT department to place a cap on the amount of data employees are allowed to use. As well being able to check where devices are geographically, access to data roaming can be controlled remotely, preventing any unexpected bills being racked up while employees are out of the country. Devices can also be remotely wiped should they be lost or stolen at any time.

Andrew North, Director of Mobile Services at Timico, said: "This time of year can present a challenging time for both employees and IT managers. Our 'always on' method of working coupled with an increasing amount of people who use their devices for both personal and business use means it's easy for data roaming charges to mount up whilst abroad.

"Our new VSDM solution allows complete control for organisations - providing a secure, flexible and easy to use solution which offers remote controls, up-to-date business intelligence and detailed reporting to prevent any unwanted bill shocks."

As well as roaming controls, VSDM offers basic laptop management, mobile security and usage monitoring. VSDM also has an easy-to-use portal which allows IT managers to add users themselves, rather than contacting their service provider.

VSDM can be used by customers on any mobile network in the same way as Timico's other device management offerings from Good and BlackBerry.

Three ShoreTel partners will be the first to launch the vendor's new cloud proposition to the UK market. With the introduction of ShoreTel Cloud for Partners, Softcat, Solar Communications and Incom can now up their consultancy game with customers by offering a choice of user profiles including contact centre, mobility and UC.

The channel-only solution is based on ShoreTel's platform and advances its strategy to provide choice and flexibility for mid-market customers wanting to implement UC solutions on a pay-as-you-go model. 

The scalable solution also enables capex purchases to be mixed with the opex spending model. 

"Not only can UK customers purchase, deploy and manage ShoreTel systems on-premises, they may also choose to have those solutions delivered from the cloud by partners as a subscription service," said Adrian Hipkiss, VP of EMEA at ShoreTel.

He noted that the solution is a direct result of research gathered from the UK channel showing a customer requirement for cloud services and growth in UCaaS.

"The solution has also been designed to meet the requirements of the ShoreTel channel by complementing their existing access, call bundles and other managed services, enabling them to create complete end-to-end managed services," added Hipkiss.

"More and more enterprises in the UK are looking to the cloud as the most effective solution for their communications needs.

"ShoreTel Cloud for Partners is an opportunity for customers to buy into a cloud solution and have access to genuine choice and flexibility, which is particularly important in the competitive UK market.

"Our goal is to deliver, via our partners, high customer satisfaction and the low total cost of ownership of a stand-out managed service."

David Hughes, CEO at Incom, said: "ShoreTel Cloud for Partners complements the existing services we offer in support of our customers' network infrastructures like WAN and LAN. The result is a solution that's highly available, feature-rich and customisable to meet individual client requirements."

Darren Standing, Head of Products and Marketing at Solar Communications, added: "With a clear focus on user experience and scalability, ShoreTel Cloud for Partners enables us to offer our customers a solution that is scalable to address their needs not only today, but into the future, as requirements change with business growth."

Sam Routledge, Solutions Director at Softcat, stated: "As an extension of our customers' IT departments, we understand that cloud services are key to business growth today. This partnership with ShoreTel addresses this market demand and allows us to focus on the needs of each customer through an end-to-end cloud UC and contact centre offering."

The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has added a Level 2 Intermediate Telecoms Apprenticeship to its portfolio, building on its level 3 and 4 apprenticeship scheme launched in 2013.

Aimed at SMEs in the telecoms sector, the ITP's Level 2 apprenticeship scheme ensures that companies have the opportunity to bring in fresh talent and benefit from a tailored telecoms learning solution.

The ITP has also devised a sales training programme to run alongside the level 2 apprenticeship for those companies wishing to grow their sales teams.

Steve Smith, CTO, Astro Communications, said: "Under the ITP Apprenticeship Scheme our apprentices get a big step up in their career ladder and the business gets a faster return on investment as a result.

"In addition to this, when the apprentices come back to the office and discuss their college work with their colleagues, it incites healthy debate and strengthens team bonding as well as providing a refresh for the senior team members.

"These additional benefits are way beyond our original expectations. I thoroughly recommend the ITP Apprenticeship to any organisation in our industry for both technical and sales apprentices."

Adam Oliver, CEO, ITP, added: "We listened to the demands of the industry and set up the level 2 scheme to help SME companies who find it impossible to get the right framework from local training providers and also to remove the admin burden.

"We have had great success with our Apprentices at level 3 and level 4 and it is clear that they are making a huge difference to their companies.

"This tailored scheme gives the apprentice a lifelong professional career path, benefiting not just them but helping their organisation thrive."

Individuals can join the ITP for only £11 per month where they would be able to gain all the benefits of being in an Institute, such as Seminars, Knowledge Calls, Behind the scenes visits, Mentoring, The Journal magazine and Professional Registration up to Chartered Engineer status.

Non members can register for one of the ITP's 'Becoming a Member' knowledge calls to find out more about the organisation.

SpliceCom has witnessed storing growth in demand for bespoke developments to support specialist applications and solutions based on its voice platforms.

These include infra-red headset support for the MoD, CLI scrambling for a children's' charity and retro trimphone integration for a boutique hotel chain.

"SpliceCom based solutions were designed from day one to be flexible, resulting in their broad appeal across all market sectors," said Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management at SpliceCom.

"A wide range of APIs covering call routing, desktop control, voice conferencing, call logging and hotel interface, sit along side native support for VXML, LDAP and PHP. This combination helps us to deliver a customisable voice platform.

"The beauty of being a British based business is that our development team are on-hand to quickly and cost-effectively discuss and, where necessarily, address customisation requests as they arise. This one of the major reasons why we've gained a reputation for the delivery of quality bespoke solutions."

Cloud firm Outsourcery has augmented its restructured partner team with the appointment of Vicky Ryder as Head of Partner Sales.

Ryder will work alongside Simone Hume, Head of Public Sector and Robert Pope, Head of Business Development, completing the top-level management of Outsourcery's sales team.

Her remit is to enable existing partners to provision more cloud services, recruit and activate new partners, oversee Outsourcery's strategic partner relationships and ensure Outsourcery's partners receive technical support.

Ryder brings over ten years of sales, channel management and marketing experience to the role, alongside industry knowledge, having previously held positions at Telefonica, Symantec and Cable & Wireless Worldwide (now Vodafone).

Outsourcery has a network of over 500 partners, which range from specialist SME providers through to large enterprise organisations, like Vodafone and Virgin Media Business, spanning the IT and telco markets.

Pope said: "Vicky's appointment shows Outsourcery's commitment to building a strong sales and support pipeline across all verticals, and expresses our commitment to working with our partners."

Outsourcery's Annual Partner Event will take place on 10th September at Microsoft's Cardinal Place, London. The event, for existing and prospective partners, will feature speakers from Microsoft and the Cloud Industry Forum, and will launch Outsourcery's Skype for Business partner solution, alongside its refreshed Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering.

Buoyed by its acquisition of Norman AV last November, AVG is now looking to expand its presence in the UK and Europe. Comms Dealer sister publication IT Europa caught up with Francois Daumard, VP of Global Channel Sales, during its UK roadshow last week.

"The UK is a strategic market and not just because of its size," he said. "The Chinese market is bigger but we have no plans to go into China. It is because we have been historically very successful in the UK. The UK is probably the market in which we have been most successful with our anti-virus and Internet security products so we now have an expanding portfolio of products including Managed Workplace and Secure Sign-On."

As the recent roadshow evidences AVG is also in the process of adding further capabilities through partnerships with other companies.

"AVG Business is all about ecosystems and partnership. AVG Business is local and it's all about the channel; we want the channel to understand that we are full line security company." he added. "We acquired Norman AV in November 2014 and, eight months later, I couldn't be happier about the success of the integration." And he claims it is 'real integration' of 'people, culture and systems' and that no-one from the former Norman team has left the company. "The Norman acquisition fixed the geographical gap we had between France and the Czech Republic where AVG was born."

AVG launched Managed Workplace in Germany, Sweden and in the Nordics in April and May and Daumard claims it has been 'a phenomenal success', although the company declined to provide any numbers. "We think we have first-mover advantage in the Nordics. The market is less crowded than the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, and in terms of new partners we are exceeding our highest expectations," he said.

"Since then we have grown the team in Germany in the UK and in the Nordics. The Nordics market is clearly less crowded and what we also have is an advantage from the Norman acquisition with local people speaking in local Nordic languages. In Germany and in Switzerland the competition is more visible and there we focus on the wider capabilities of AVG - as more than just a security company."

With a background in the mobile market, Daumard thought that market was hot and is surprised to find the security market even hotter: "in security there is no need to educate the market and engage in demand generation - the newspapers do that for you every morning," citing the much publicised recent hacking of the adult matchmaking site Ashley Madison as a recent example.

He claims that AVG has an advantage in awareness over other security companies: "AVG has a great asset in its 202 million users. If you consider that there are 1 billion PCs in the world, statistically speaking, one in five PC users in the world uses AVG.

"The launch of the AVG Business brand was pivotal to us - this is the transition we want to make. The AVG Business has its own set of products and it is entirely a channel business."

Asked what the target markets were for future growth in terms of future growth. "There is the other half of Europe - particularly France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

"Here we have at a historic presence. In France we have our own office and people. In Spain and Portugal we have historic AVG distributors. We are reengaging with them and putting new people in place to reinvigorate the relationships. It can be a curse and asset to have historical relationships.

"They are loyal they know the business but we need to help them evolve to promote the wider portfolio."