25+ Years Serving the Channel
Dorset-based 4Com was ranked 12th in the Sunday Times Best Companies Top 100 during a business awards ceremony at Battersea Evolution in London on 25th February.
In 2013 4Com was ranked 45th and one year later rose to 16th.
Chairman and MD Daron Hutt said: "Being just outside the top 10 at position 12 is an amazing result, especially as in 2013 we were at position 45. The progression and improvements have been phenomenal."
NewVoiceMedia has opened a new European development centre in Poland, located in the Hubska Center in Wroclaw, a city which has recently experienced significant growth in the IT services sector and is home to some of the world's leading high-tech businesses.
Chosen for its strong talent pool, the hub is close to Wroc?aw University of Technology which ranks second among the best technical universities in information technology and will provide a base for the company's team of experts while offering capacity for substantial growth.
The centre will support NewVoiceMedia's expansion, strengthen its presence in EMEA and offer the company a facility in which to develop its portfolio.
Jonathan Gale, CEO, said: ""Cloud computing and agile development methods are at the core of our business ethos and the opening of this new development hub reflects our dedication. We now have additional capacity to continuously enhance our platform."
Hosted comms is the de facto lifeline for comms resellers stymied by diminishing revenues from traditional voice, according to Nick Guite (pictured), General Manager, Indirect and International Sales at BT Wholesale.
"Going hosted is the obvious choice," he stated. "The market is changing so resellers need to extend their portfolios and align their strategies with the evolving requirements of customers who want bigger bandwidth, more applications and the ability to work whenever and wherever they happen to be situated."
Connectivity is key irrespective of business requirements, pointed out Guite, and seamless connectivity across all devices can make the difference between success or failure.
"Build a plan and execute now," he stated. "Start your customers on the journey and they will be less likely to churn.
"Moving customers to IPVS and then into the hosted comms world is an option that throws the market wide open. Hosted is no longer the preserve of enterprise organisations, these solutions can be offered to customers of all sizes. If you don't move, your competitors will as they are hungry to acquire your customers."
The delivery of reliable and affordable products underpinned by business-grade connectivity is a proven formula for success, noted Guite, who is on a mission to give resellers a leg up to hosted revenue generation.
"We work closely with key resellers to help build their individual stories through training, collateral, white label information and other support mechanisms such as running end user events," he said.
UK tech firms will grow four times faster than GDP this year with the ICT reseller channel at the vanguard of market expansion. In Barclays' just-published Fast Growth Tech survey ICT business leaders predict an average 11% growth with some expecting growth of over 20%.
Sean Duffy (pictured), MD and Head of Technology, Media and Telecoms at Barclays, said: "These predictions reveal the optimism and drive of the UK's tech sector and there is no doubt that the channel will continue to play a significant role within the overall tech industry's impressive growth.
"Strong growth factors for the comms and IT channel are largely driven by its clients being willing to invest in more efficient and scalable solutions that not only increase efficiencies for the end user, but also provide an improved return on investment for their company."
avsnet MD Graham Fry also attributes these bullish forecasts to the transformational power of ICT.
"Communications and collaborative technologies have already demonstrated their ability to improve every aspect of business, so it is not surprising to see such large growth predictions facing the industry," he said.
"As organisations focus on driving business efficiency and identifying technology strategies that cut costs, they are investing heavily in the communications tools and IT services that enable these outcomes."
In what Duffy calls a 'supercharged environment' it is the ICT entrepreneurs with strong leadership skills who will flourish most robustly, says Duffy.
"Strong leadership rings loud and clear as being critical for growth, particularly important in the first few years of a business' life," he said.
"Leadership is even more relevant for fast growth businesses experiencing unique stressors and demands on their cash flow, requiring their leaders to make many major decisions at speed in order to keep pace."
Rainbow has generated just under 15% growth over the past two years driven by demand for 'all things hosted', explained MD Dave Corgat.
"It is important for business leaders to make changes to their organisation to meet these new demands," he said. "Rainbow has invested heavily in CRM so we can better integrate with our customers, suppliers and staff."
GCI CEO Wayne Martin observed: "Confidence is definitely coming back. We have seen this from the quality and breadth of solutions that our partners are bringing to us.
"The rebuild of our network and cloud platforms has enabled us to take advantage of these excellent growth predictions."
Entanet's growth strategy is in full cry following its multi-million pound MBO in February 2014.
The wholesale connectivity provider has reported annual revenues of £30m, representing 9% organic growth during the year.
Entanet also advanced its post-MBO investment strategy with over £2m-plus going into its national network and other investments made in HR, increasing headcount by 26% to 87 staff.
Elsa Chen, Entanet's CEO, said: "The business is going from strength to strength post-transaction.
"Ongoing investment is crucial to ensuring the performance of our core network and delivering the best customer experience.
"These latest upgrades add significant capacity and strengthen our resiliency, essentially enabling us to keep our infrastructure future-proof and comfortably accommodate the growth in our channel partners' businesses."
The company has also pledged an additional £500k to further invest in its national network throughout 2015.
Chen expects staff numbers to reach 100 across the business by mid-2015.
Entanet has also been redeveloping its back-end systems to ensure a seamless experience for customers.
The commitment and investment to 'Project Jin-Bu' (a staff-voted project name which is a Chinese phrase for Progress) continues to be a key focus for the business going forward.
"Having a single unified but agile operational supporting system is critical in helping our partners grow," added Chen.
"We commenced Project Jin-Bu two years ago with a great deal of planned ongoing financial and resources commitment. Our Salesforce-based platform is now in the third phase of its development plan and has already delivered some really tangible improvement in business efficiency and service level."
Big strides forward in technology and global business practices have sparked a new industrial revolution where machine intelligence and machine-to-machine communications will ultimately dominate, according to Nikhil Chauhan, Director for Product Marketing, GE Global Research.
On the surface, the modern industrial world looks similar to the industrial world of the recent past. A quick glimpse shows the same aeroplanes, factories, hospitals, utilities, assets, networks, people and processes as before. But peel back its skin and the modern industrial world reveals a paradigmatically different place. There was a time when machines, networks, businesses and people operated as independent silos communicating with each other only peripherally, but the modern industrial enterprise is becoming a deeply interconnected ecosystem of smart machines, Big Data and people, collectively known as the Industrial Internet. This new Industrial Internet revolution features machines that are self-aware, that can connect and interact with other machines and their human operators, that can be provisioned, managed, upgraded, and decommissioned remotely, that function safely and securely, and that can dramatically improve industrial operations at all levels of the global economy.
Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, a key component of this revolution, has a rich history in the industrial world, and many existing technologies and standards provide a high degree of functionality across M2M communication. Yet these standards are insufficient to deliver the enormous gains in efficiency that are now possible in industry thanks to advances in communications, analytics, computational power, sensors, virtualisation and cloud technologies. Industrial companies need to move their operations into the 21st century to extend M2M interaction to a new level of functionality, efficiency, and potential savings of $320 billion to $640 billion annually.
In the short-term, modern industrial businesses need a data analytics and operations-driven approach that allows them to collect and deliver the right data, from the right end points, in the right velocity and quantity to a wide set of well designed analytics that provide new insights and support more efficient operations at all levels. In the longer-term, industrial companies need a real-time wide area control environment that allows them to safely and securely deploy, manage, upgrade and decommission an increasingly intelligent set of assets in a controlled, deterministic manner, whether the asset is a single device or an entire fleet or plant full of assets.
Impeding these short-term and long-term objectives is the fact that the software and hardware in today's industrial machines are very interdependent and closely coupled, making it hard to upgrade software without upgrading hardware, and vice versa. Also lacking are standards and best practices that support agile development and deployment, as well as the reusability, scalability, interoperability and portability required to leverage the Industrial Internet. What's needed is the technology and best practices that support a data and analytics driven environment based on machine-centric distributed computing models designed specifically for industrial settings.
GE has developed the Predix software platform to open up the reality of the Industrial Internet to a wide range of industrial companies and stakeholders, from manufacturers and their suppliers to machine operators, buyers, and most importantly, the global society in which we all work and live. Predix provides a standard way to run industrial scale analytics and connect machines, data and people. Deployed on machines, on-premise or in the cloud, Predix combines a stack of technologies for distributed computing and big data analytics, asset management, machine-to-machine communication and mobility.
Also at play are new standards and best practices for connectivity and interoperability that allow new and old devices to interface and interoperate, permitting older proprietary systems to co-exist alongside more modern machines and technology. As a result, industrial companies can take advantage of advancements in processor technology, including multi-core implementations and hardware hypervisor support, as well as new capabilities in networking, storage and cloud-based computing to create what GE calls 'brilliant machines'.
Brilliant machines run advanced machine apps, software and operating systems and can function autonomously or connect to other machines in a synchronised fashion. Over 50 billion such intelligent devices will be connected by 2020 according to published reports. Their ecosystem scales from the individual sensor, wind turbine, jet engine or medical device to an entire industrial plant, hospital, fleet of planes or power grid. And at every level of operations, the modern industrial company can deploy advanced analytics that support operations and business processes at all levels of the company, in a context-based manner.
These capabilities also set up the wide area control, in real-time, of industrial assets from a 'single pane of glass' that will allow groups of devices or assets to be deployed, managed, upgraded and decommissioned in a more centralised and efficient manner, allowing industrial companies to deliver new business models and levels of service that simply have not been attainable to date. Software changes can be pushed out simultaneously to an entire network of devices, much like what is done with smartphone apps today, instead of laboriously upgrading each machine's software (and often its hardware) on a machine-by-machine basis.
With Predix, GE is creating an ecosystem of partners and value added companies that will help make the Industrial Internet a reality. These partners - taken from the ranks of industry, technology companies, academia, non-profits, systems integrators and the financial world - are engaging with GE in establishing standards and driving the knowledge and products needed to make Predix an industry standard in its own right. And GE is already seeing valuable contributions from collaborations with industrial, enterprise and developer communities. The next Industrial Revolution has already begun.?Big strides forward in technology and global business practices have sparked a new industrial revolution where machine intelligence and machine-to-machine communications will ultimately dominate, according to Nikhil Chauhan, Director for Product Marketing, GE Global Research.
On the surface, the modern industrial world looks similar to the industrial world of the recent past. A quick glimpse shows the same aeroplanes, factories, hospitals, utilities, assets, networks, people and processes as before. But peel back its skin and the modern industrial world reveals a paradigmatically different place. There was a time when machines, networks, businesses and people operated as independent silos communicating with each other only peripherally, but the modern industrial enterprise is becoming a deeply interconnected ecosystem of smart machines, Big Data and people, collectively known as the Industrial Internet. This new Industrial Internet revolution features machines that are self-aware, that can connect and interact with other machines and their human operators, that can be provisioned, managed, upgraded, and decommissioned remotely, that function safely and securely, and that can dramatically improve industrial operations at all levels of the global economy.
Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, a key component of this revolution, has a rich history in the industrial world, and many existing technologies and standards provide a high degree of functionality across M2M communication. Yet these standards are insufficient to deliver the enormous gains in efficiency that are now possible in industry thanks to advances in communications, analytics, computational power, sensors, virtualisation and cloud technologies. Industrial companies need to move their operations into the 21st century to extend M2M interaction to a new level of functionality, efficiency, and potential savings of $320 billion to $640 billion annually.
In the short-term, modern industrial businesses need a data analytics and operations-driven approach that allows them to collect and deliver the right data, from the right end points, in the right velocity and quantity to a wide set of well designed analytics that provide new insights and support more efficient operations at all levels. In the longer-term, industrial companies need a real-time wide area control environment that allows them to safely and securely deploy, manage, upgrade and decommission an increasingly intelligent set of assets in a controlled, deterministic manner, whether the asset is a single device or an entire fleet or plant full of assets.
Impeding these short-term and long-term objectives is the fact that the software and hardware in today's industrial machines are very interdependent and closely coupled, making it hard to upgrade software without upgrading hardware, and vice versa. Also lacking are standards and best practices that support agile development and deployment, as well as the reusability, scalability, interoperability and portability required to leverage the Industrial Internet. What's needed is the technology and best practices that support a data and analytics driven environment based on machine-centric distributed computing models designed specifically for industrial settings.
GE has developed the Predix software platform to open up the reality of the Industrial Internet to a wide range of industrial companies and stakeholders, from manufacturers and their suppliers to machine operators, buyers, and most importantly, the global society in which we all work and live. Predix provides a standard way to run industrial scale analytics and connect machines, data and people. Deployed on machines, on-premise or in the cloud, Predix combines a stack of technologies for distributed computing and big data analytics, asset management, machine-to-machine communication and mobility.
Also at play are new standards and best practices for connectivity and interoperability that allow new and old devices to interface and interoperate, permitting older proprietary systems to co-exist alongside more modern machines and technology. As a result, industrial companies can take advantage of advancements in processor technology, including multi-core implementations and hardware hypervisor support, as well as new capabilities in networking, storage and cloud-based computing to create what GE calls 'brilliant machines'.
Brilliant machines run advanced machine apps, software and operating systems and can function autonomously or connect to other machines in a synchronised fashion. Over 50 billion such intelligent devices will be connected by 2020 according to published reports. Their ecosystem scales from the individual sensor, wind turbine, jet engine or medical device to an entire industrial plant, hospital, fleet of planes or power grid. And at every level of operations, the modern industrial company can deploy advanced analytics that support operations and business processes at all levels of the company, in a context-based manner.
These capabilities also set up the wide area control, in real-time, of industrial assets from a 'single pane of glass' that will allow groups of devices or assets to be deployed, managed, upgraded and decommissioned in a more centralised and efficient manner, allowing industrial companies to deliver new business models and levels of service that simply have not been attainable to date. Software changes can be pushed out simultaneously to an entire network of devices, much like what is done with smartphone apps today, instead of laboriously upgrading each machine's software (and often its hardware) on a machine-by-machine basis.
With Predix, GE is creating an ecosystem of partners and value added companies that will help make the Industrial Internet a reality. These partners - taken from the ranks of industry, technology companies, academia, non-profits, systems integrators and the financial world - are engaging with GE in establishing standards and driving the knowledge and products needed to make Predix an industry standard in its own right. And GE is already seeing valuable contributions from collaborations with industrial, enterprise and developer communities. The next Industrial Revolution has already begun.?
The role of resellers in the success of M2M is assured providing they drill into their customer bases where big opportunities exist, according to Anton Le Saux, Head of M2M Managed Connectivity and Partner Sales at Telefonica Digital.
Many large enterprises are looking to replace existing processes and systems with smart solutions to drive efficiencies and reduce costs. And the typical SME is now seeing smart M2M solutions as a way of creating scale and competing with larger businesses in the same vertical, according to Le Saux. "The forecasted growth for M2M over the next five years is 25 per cent year-on-year for revenue and new connections," he stated. "Over the last year we have seen much bigger numbers and I believe we will continue to see a higher growth number. The scale of the market is vast with the range of verticals expanding. While this creates opportunities it also presents a challenge in terms of market positioning."
The basis of Telefonica's direct strategy is to place a few 'big bets' rather than try to conquer the entire M2M market. "Our smart metering bid worth £1.65 billion is testament to this," added Le Saux. "However, these big wins will create a hornet's nest of activity in similar solutions and sectors. As an MNO we don't have the direct reach to cover all of what is coming. Our long-term relationship with the channel and our past experience and support mechanisms will allow us to create the reach in M2M through partners to ensure that everyone is successful."
Telefonica has been selling M2M solutions through the channel for over 15 years. But up until the last couple of years M2M has been a niche marketplace. Not now. "We believe we have hit the tipping point as M2M solutions and technologies become the norm," said Le Saux. "No longer is M2M niche, it is fast becoming essential to businesses and consumers. The technology is everywhere and growing fast. We are all using smart machines and devices every day that have some form of M2M capability built into them."
Telefonica is working with a range of channel partners to monetise M2M opportunities. The company has adopted a global approach to partnering with roaming agreements covering 368 operators in 154 countries, all available on one SIM through a single platform. "Whatever our channel partners need, from just connectivity to full solutions, software or hardware, Telefonica has a medium for them to go to market," added Le Saux. "The objective is to create an ecosystem of M2M providers who could be our vertical solution partners in the future."
He intends to bring the M2M opportunity to life for all potential partners that operate in the comms and IT space. Another key objective is to make it easy for partners to move into M2M by having everything accessible via a self-serve portal such as package and solutions builders, quoting tools and step-by-step tutorials. This way new entrants can come into this space, build solutions and make money while they learn.
"Our principal challenge is waking up the reseller channel to the opportunity presented by IoT," added Le Saux. "Although we have signed up a large number of resellers already we have only just scratched the surface. Everyone knows about IoT, the only issue for debate is how many tens of billions of devices will be connected by 2020 and how many trillions of pounds the market will be worth. In spite of this, few resellers are preparing themselves to capitalise as the market continues to grow. Many resellers are unsure of the proposition, but we implore them to get on board with M2M and seize this opportunity."
Resellers wanting to take their first steps into M2M should look at their existing customer base, the similarities those customers have and identify the most accessible opportunities. "There is little sense in targeting a completely fresh vertical such as vehicle telemetry if the previous sales success was predominantly in a different sector such as retail," noted Le Saux. "The recommendation would be to add M2M services to the existing product portfolio and sell telecoms, IT, managed services, connectivity and now M2M as a joined up solution. Once resellers have done this and seen the opportunity they can start to diversify."
There are many addressable verticals within IoT such as vehicles, health, agriculture, retail, epos, buildings and wearables. Resellers can either position themselves within one or many of these market sectors or use the M2M ecosystem to offer solutions to their base that fit the needs of many sectors. Within each vertical market it is likely there will be connectivity delivered through a managed platform, powering an application sat on a particular device. "The opportunities, and the ways of going about winning in the M2M market are practically infinite," added Le Saux. "Once resellers start digging into their base and having smarter conversations about the challenges a customer faces they will find M2M opportunities in almost every one of their key customers."
As far as the customer is concerned resellers are the value chain. For many years customers have trusted resellers with the keys to the IT room and this status puts them in a prime position when it comes to M2M, believes Le Saux. "Most resellers offer more than one solution to their customers," he said. "The key to their success is not to see M2M as another, separate value chain but to see it as another product or solution that they can supply to existing customers.
"Resellers have far more value in the chain than Telefonica. As an MNO all we supply is the connectivity. For M2M to work someone has to supply the hardware, software and IT solutions that will make sense of any data that is being passed between smart machines and devices. Whether the reseller develops their own solutions and software or uses a third party, the fact that they are ultimately providing the billing and support for the end-to-end product ultimately makes them the most important part of the value chain to the customer."
Two Telefonica partners new to M2M in 2014 will write close to £2.4 million of M2M business before the close of the year. This has prompted the company to modify its strategy to ensure all sizes and types of reseller can establish a relationship with Telefonica. "We have created a partner on-boarding process which coupled with our transparent pricing model means that barriers to entry into the M2M market in partnership with Telefonica are practically non-existent," claimed Le Saux. "Early adopters who execute successfully could become increasingly aligned to Telefonica with a view to jointly targeting vertical sectors within the market."
Telefonica's channel proposition starts with a Global Partner Program that gives partners access to products and local pricing and support in other Telefonica territories such as Spain, Germany and Latin America. "The proposition that we are taking to market has also been tailored to suit all levels of experience and expertise in M2M," explained Le Saux. "For partners that have the experience and capability to supply their customers with a full end-to-end solution they can buy their connectivity directly from Telefonica, they can get access to our bespoke solutions and make sure they tailor their bid to give them the optimum opportunity to succeed. For partners that are new to M2M and perhaps don't have the same experience or ready made M2M platforms, we have created an ecosystem where they can get access to the support and services that they need from one of our fully accredited and approved aggregators."
Telefonica's principal challenge was initially managing the levels of interest from the channel. It has signed up over 100 partners already and the number is expected to more than double over the near term. Another key challenge is educating the channel. "The level of understanding around M2M varies massively among resellers," added Le Saux. "To combat this we are doing all we can to increase market awareness and presence through events and media outreach. The most critical action has been adopting a two tier support approach where we have the most experienced legacy M2M partners offering support and solutions to new entrants."
The opportunity presented by IoT is no longer up for debate, according to Le Saux. "We are seeing a growing propensity to buy M2M services from all manner of customers, from a typical SME to large enterprise customers, presenting a great opportunity for resellers of all sizes," he said. "The IoT is happening all around us and will continue to grow, with or without us. We see a huge portion of this opportunity being realised through the reseller channel, and most of the independent analysts agree. The key is to understand customers and the challenges they face as businesses. Many M2M solutions remove complexity, increase efficiency and dramatically reduce costs."
Le Saux's top priority is to educate resellers about M2M and IoT and what it could mean for their businesses. "We want to help channels understand the technology and how it can benefit them and their customers, and we also want to educate them on how to make money through long-term recurring revenues," Le Saux commented. "We want to accelerate the recruitment of M2M resellers. We see velocity as being critical to our success and the success of our partners."?
Telefónica Business Solutions is extending its m2m Global Partner Programme to Latin America throughout 2015. Since its initial launch one year ago, more than 500 registered companies in Europe and the United States have contributed to build a consolidated m2m partner ecosystem.
The launch of the Programme in Latin America is the final stage of this successful global rollout as it extends its scope to this key market which, according to Industry Analysts, is expected to grow by 20% yearly with up to 45 million connections and €1 billion in revenues by 2019.? ?The m2m Global Partner Programme is Telefónica's approach to the m2m managed connectivity business. The Programme aims to work in collaboration with the key players in the m2m value chain such as device manufacturers, solution providers and distributors, offering a simple, structured and transparent Channel Programme that boosts both the partners' business and Telefónica's managed connectivity sales.? ?By leveraging Telefónica's presence in the region, the launch will enrich the Partner Ecosystem with new players and solutions.
Companies that join will benefit from increased commercial visibility and the possibility to scale their business throughout the region using Telefónica's networks as well as more than 400 roaming agreements that allow optimal coverage on a national and regional level. While creating this ecosystem, Telefónica will also be able to identify the best solution providers in the market that may qualify to become a Vertical Solution partner in the future.? ?Alfonso de Andrés, Director, Telefónica Digital Channels, responsible for the m2m Global Partner Programme worldwide, said: "The m2m Global Partner Programme has proven to be a successful model to manage the m2m connectivity business in Europe and the United States.
"Therefore, expanding it to Latin America was the natural next step. We look forward to having the Programme fully implemented in LatAm during 2015 as we believe it will have a great impact in developing the m2m market in the region."? ?The m2m Global Partner Programme has been recently launched in Peru and Mexico and is scheduled in four additional countries (Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil) throughout the first half of 2015.
Other countries in the region will then follow suit during the second half of 2015.
Exertis has agreed a contract with iHealth to distribute the company's range of connected health products in the UK including blood pressure monitors, wireless scales, fitness devices and glucometers.
Founded as part of the Andon Health Group in California in 2009 and launched in Europe in 2013, iHealth operates in the high growth connected health market and claims over 50% market share.
Joe Officer, Head of Accessories for Exertis, said: "Health services globally are struggling with the burden of growing/aging populations and continue to put more emphasis onto patients directly to monitor their own well-being.
"And more generally, consumers themselves want to use their increasing number of connected devices to proactively stay in tune with their bodies. The potential for iHealth in the UK is vast."
Stéphane Kerrien, European Sales Director, iHealth, added: "Our partnership with Exertis is a strategic decision to help us continue our growth plans for the UK market."
More than half of ShoreTel's partners in the United States are offering cloud services just one year after cloud tiers were added to the vendor's Champion Partner Program.
"More than 40 per cent of our US partners carrying our on-premises solutions have added ShoreTel Sky to their business, and many more are joining every day.
"This uptake shows our partner community's strong desire to participate in the growing cloud segment, which we've supported with education and training initiatives," said David Petts, senior vice president of worldwide sales at ShoreTel.
Andrew Gray, Marketing Director, EMEA, added: "Cloud adoption is growing strongly in the UK and we feel the time is now right for us to launch our cloud proposition.
"Many of our partners are strong competitors in the managed service and cloud market and we've been working with them to define precisely what service they require from us.
"The platform we've built utilises all we have learnt from being innovators and market leaders in the US, and is refined to meet the UK channel's requirements around flexibility, billing, integration and most importantly, the ability to create hybrid solutions.
"We will be making announcements regarding our launch at our Partner Conference in April."
