Comms Dealer

Nadahl Shocair is to lead snom as CEO following HeidelbergCapital's new status as majority shareholder. HeidelbergCapital purchased shares from former investor Beaufort Capital in July 2014. Due to a capital increase HeidelbergCapital is now the main shareholder.

"We will use the funds to intensify new product development and continue to drive internationalisation," said Shocair, who is joined in the boardroom by Thomas Müller-Braun (CFO) and Olivier Gerling (CSO).

André Deloch, partner at HeidelbergCapital and Chairman of the Board at snom, commented: "We do not want to just invest in snom technology. It was important to us to complement the current expansion course by obtaining extensive funding commitments.

"That is the reason for the capital increase. We want to support the future development of new products and modern software as well as drive international expansion."

Shocair has 20 years experience in the field of business transformation in the ITC market including stints as interim CEO at DeTeWe, interim Director at Boomtel Networks, and Executive Director, Strategy and Business Development at Centile in Cannes, France.

A series of quarterly 'meet-up' events organised by Virtual1 aim to encourage greater collaboration with partners and set conditions where peer-to-peer networking among the partner community can also flourish.

Virtual1 CEO Tom O'Hagan said: "Bringing together our partners in an informal setting within central London on a regular basis enables them to meet with our leadership team and their account managers in one place.

"It's also our role as a service provider to bring our partner community together to build relationships of mutual interest."

The first event is planned for 19th March.

European software development is gearing up for a period of change and growth, as a number of trends are showing, according to IT Europa.

The research house's European Software and Solutions Summit to be held on March 25th (Lancaster Hotel, London) will examine some of these changes and assess the likely impact on the European industry.

Among the sponsoring companies leading the discussions will be a number of industry's most innovative and influential organisations including HP, Interoute, Oracle, Verizon, ConnectWise, Autotask, Coverity, LabTech, Logi Analytics and ISVWorld.

According to Gartner's latest forecasts, Enterprise Software is currently the fastest growing sector in IT, with worldwide spending predicted to grow 5.5% this year - more than double the industry average and outstripping the pace of growth of even the devices sector.

But behind the headline growth lie some fundamental shifts in the way software is being developed, marketed and delivered, says IT Europa.

Reports from the judges of the European IT and Software Awards 2015 on the finalists announced last week, show that the trend towards software development for specific vertical markets has continued. The ISV categories showed increasingly sophisticated projects, often with the external developers buying-in packaged solutions for aspects of security and management, especially in mobile-enabled applications.

"The development world has moved up a gear," said John Garratt, chair of the judges and editor of IT Europa. "And we are seeing the results of the move to cloud and Software-as-a-Service that started to make an impact last year."

There is still a level of uncertainty about future directions, however, with the required level of commitment to a platform to offer multi-device solutions concerning some software companies, he thinks, based on conversations with developers.

The European Software and Solutions Summit (EUSSS) event will set out to find answers to the questions ISVs, enterprise developers, Solution Providers, vendors and channels have on the move 'beyond the cloud' and how business models have to change in an increasingly digitalised and revenue/opex-based software world in which Cloud and XaaS (Everything-as-a-Service) delivery models dominate.

Under the overall theme of 'Beyond the Cloud - Creating competitive advantage by driving Digitalised Business', the European Software & Solutions Summit 2015, which incorporates the European ISV Convention, will explore the new business concepts, models and structures enabled by this new digitalised world and the role the software vendors, solution/service providers and application developers play in their development.

www.isvconvention.com

Westcon Group is running a series of vertical sales enablement workshops to support its partners with tools and expertise to sell more effectively into vertical markets.

Following a successful healthcare event, the latest workshop focused on 'How to sell into Manufacturing' and was held at Polycom's Executive Experience Centre in London.

The event included presentations from Polycom, Spectralink, Westcon, Yorktel and a fashion supplier who successfully worked with Interlink Vision to implement Polycom Solutions.

It also included a live demonstration from New York using Polycom's 'Open Telepresence Experience (OTX)' and Real Presence Immersive Studio Solutions.

Alex Joseph, Account Director at Yorktel, presented his top tips on selling into the manufacturing sector. "Yorktel is a key player in manufacturing and we concentrate on understanding the business requirements and challenges to deliver a solution rather than leading the sale with technology," he said.

John Richardson, Marketing Director, Westcon Group, added: "These interactive workshops are a fantastic way to share ideas and address the pain points that partners experience selling into vertical sectors."

An accreditation scheme introduced by Union Street Technologies aims to increase the professional qualifications of practitioners in the comms billing market.

The qualification, called Union Street Accredited Professional (USAP), will certify the knowledge and capabilities of billing professionals and their competence in using the company's aBILLity billing system.

To gain the USAP accreditation aBILLity users must attend training provided by the company and pass online assessments.

Union Street will offer accredited billing experts access to aBILLity user group meetings, a dedicated USAP specialist support line and discounts on consultancy services.

Union Street has also restructured its training programme, subdividing its courses into three stages - Telecoms Regulatory Stage, delivered by Michael Eagle, former Trade Association and General Manager at the Federation of Communication Services (FCS), which provides an overview of the industry regulatory framework affecting resellers with advice on how to achieve compliance.

A Foundation Stage offers courses aimed at newcomers to telecoms; while a Process and Practice Stage offers courses that advise on managing a bill run from start to finish, with particular emphasis on the inbound and outbound process, mobile billing, and best practices to deploy for compliance and boosting efficiency.

Union Street MD Tony Cook commented: "Our USAP programme is intended to raise standards in the industry, inspire excellence in our partners and their staff and recognise the expertise, knowledge and competence of the professionals that perform this valuable role for their companies.

"By rebuilding our training programme around the USAP accreditation structure we are also able to offer a cost-effective, end-to-end training process for existing telecoms professionals and newcomers.

"We believe this will make it significantly easier for employers to recruit staff from outside the industry and help to address the skills shortage that currently exists in the billing arena."

IDI Billing Solutions is to provide the billing and OSS support for Mitel's operations in the UK, supporting EMEA operations.

IDI's cloud-based CostGuard billing and OSS solution will run on the Microsoft Azure platform to support the regional rollout.

CostGuard will be hosted in local data centres on Microsoft Azure, an open cloud platform that enables solutions providers like IDI to quickly build, deploy and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed data centres.

In the UK rollout Mitel will use CostGuard's workflow capabilities to track and automate orders and create market-specific products and services using the solution's product management capabilities.

"We are excited about our global prospects and our ability to create competitive offerings for the UK wholesale market," said Jon Brinton, Mitel's Executive Vice President and General Manager Global Cloud.

"The combination of CostGuard and Microsoft Azure gives us the ability to deliver a communications solution with the reliability, flexibility and efficiency that is crucial in today's wholesale communications space."

Tim Wrona, Vice President, Marketing and Product Strategy for IDI, added: "There are many considerations when service providers expand outside their domestic market. With our cloud-based CostGuard billing and OSS solution, we are able to help providers eliminate their most pressing back office concerns and provide the speed-to-market that's required to compete in a global communications marketplace."

Westcoast is gearing up to stage a series of regional roadshows to help resellers prepare for the end of Microsoft's support for Windows Server 2003 in July.

The company is running three 'Time for Change events' - in Birmingham (24th February), London (March 5th) and Manchester (March 12th) - that are deigned to enable resellers to successfully migrate their customers from Windows Server 2003.

Clare Leetham, Microsoft Account Manager at Westcoast, said: "We want to make sure resellers fully understand the risks of not upgrading and are also able to articulate the benefits of migration to more modern infrastructures or cloud solutions.

"That way they can inspire their end users to upgrade with confidence and optimism."

The London event will include a presentation delivered by Alistair Campbell (pictured), the former Downing Street communications chief.

He will address some of the key issues facing leaders and business today and sign copies of his book, 'Winners and how they succeed'.

Every attendee will automatically be entered into a draw to win a pair of Rugby World Cup tickets to see the England versus Wales group match.

EE is to invest £1.5bn between now and 2017 as part of a new manifesto called 'signalling the Future' designed to tackle the UK's changing digital infrastructure needs.

In this second phase of its network strategy EE will focus on extending its 4G network to more than 99% of the population and 90% of the UK's geography.

EE CEO Olaf Swantee said: "Stage one of our network strategy saw us overhaul UK mobile networks, launching 4G and changing the way people and businesses use their smart devices.

"This revolution of the mobile landscape has made the UK a leader in global communications once again.

"Today we're announcing the next stage with a commitment to radically improve mobile coverage, this time with a strong focus on rural UK, all while continuing to increase speeds and capacity with deeper coverage in more cities."

Tech firms in the UK will grow four times faster than GDP in 2015 with business leaders predicting an average 11% growth. The results of Barclays' latest Fast Growth Tech survey also showed that 58% are expecting their business to grow by up to 10%, with 18% forecasting 10% and 20%, while 9% predicted significant growth of over 20%.

Sean Duffy, MD and Head of Barclays' Technology, Media and Telecoms team, said: "These remarkable growth predictions reveal the optimism and drive of the UK's tech sector.

"The fact that many firms are expecting further growth in 2016 shows that this trend isn't transient and the UK is a launchpad for innovative tech businesses.

"Investors are seeing the UK as an international talent magnet and a platform to grow or launch their business for a number of reasons, including the culture, light-touch regulation, supportive Government policies and access to finance."

Duffy also noted that strong leadership 'rang out loud and clear' as being critical for growth, particularly important in the first few years of a business' life. "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.

"It takes an extremely strong and dynamic individual to have a clear vision and the energy to lead their workforce to success in this type of supercharged environment."

Exclusive Group has posted 627m euro in revenue for 2014, up 91%, and is on course to reach its 1bn euro target within two-three years.

The value added services company has expanded its presence in new and existing territories as well as developing new service capabilities.

The result has seen year on year revenue almost double bringing it to within striking distance of its stated 2017 target of 1bn euro. Organic growth with both established and emerging vendors has continued to be extremely strong at 36%.
 
"These are outstanding results, but we remain fully focused on making 2015 another record breaking year as we strive for more organic growth and bring on stream substantial new capabilities in financing, leasing and global services support," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Group. 

"We anticipate more growth in 2015 and good uptake of new services."
 
Exclusive Group made significant inroads into new markets in 2014 with the purchases of value-added distributors Bilisimcim in Turkey (January) and WhiteGold in Australia/NZ (August), and expanded existing Italian operations through the acquisition of Sidin (October). February saw the launch of Exclusive Networks operations in Denmark. 
 
The acquisition of ITEC Intelligent Services in December has further enhanced the Group's global services capabilities and reach into 90-plus countries worldwide and bringing in-country presence into the United States and mainland Asia for the first time. 

The Group's latest acquisition of Fibail System and subsequent launch of Exclusive Capital, a new IT asset financing/leasing division fell outside of this reporting period, but will have a major impact on future service revenue growth.
 
Among the other highlights of Exclusive Group's 2014 financial performance is the first full year of its Big Technology value added distribution division, focused on data centre transformation opportunities. 

BigTec Germany, Spain and Benelux have all set up in recent months alongside the UK and France, with the combined entity posting nearly 40m euro in revenue for the year. 

Elsewhere, revenue for Exclusive Group's Passport brand of professional services, 24/7 local language support and training has also performed well, with double-digit growth for the period.