Comms Dealer

Collaborative channel relationships stand to make great gains in the cloud environment. To prove the point, Steve Ellis, Managing Director at channel-only distributor 5i, provides an insight into how close working partnerships with vendors can bring success to resellers.

The need for greater levels of collaboration between channel partners is a given, especially in an environment where technology areas are becoming increasingly complex and the need for integration goes beyond systems and extends to management and support. Network, data centre, collaboration and security requires expert skills and knowledge to support them as standalone solutions, but when they are integrated to create a single ICT environment in-house management and support is not enough, believes Ellis. "That's where we see true value added distributors playing a key role," he said. "A critical part of this is around delivering programmes and services that add value to these distributed solutions, and that increase their value or worth both for reseller partners and ultimately for end customers."

5i has done business with over 200 unified communications resellers but there are a core of around 20 that the company is transacting with regularly. These include Central Networks and Technology (CNT) and Montal (primarily in the housing association market), Kelway and Octopus (more generally across the spectrum of the firm's target audiences). "We see it as a key part of our responsibility not only to train all the organisations and employees we work with regularly in the unified communications products that they are selling, but also to support the development of the whole go-to-market strategy of these businesses," added Ellis.

Versatility and flexibility are fundamental elements of the service that any value added distributor should be focused on delivering. In terms of working with resellers, that manifests itself in the pre-sales, implementation and support, as well as enabling them to white label products and services. "Flexibility should also be the keynote of any end customer relationship, whether it is fundamental to that company to maintain its systems under their own roof, or whether it is engaged or interested in moving elements of, or all of their IT systems to the cloud," commented Ellis.

A key element of this approach is to ensure that 5i offers best-of-breed contact centre solutions such as the Enghouse Interactive Communications Center (EICC), for example, that enable end customers to reach out to and engage with their own target audiences. "The key to our success in working with this solution is around the flexibility that it gives us in driving solutions through the channel and ultimately in engaging with our target vertical markets," explained Ellis. "The solution is suitable for contact centres of all sizes and the software is vendor independent in terms of how it can be rolled out at the back-end, but most importantly we can leverage it purely as a service, purely as an on-premise solution, or, if required as a hybrid mixture of the two approaches."

Ellis believes that cloud will become the dominant delivery model, bringing new opportunities for value added distributors because it opens up the market to organisations that have no capital expenditure plans but do have an expense budget. This scenario, pointed out Ellis, plays into the hands of the collaborative relationship 5i has developed with Enghouse. "We have fostered a close working relationship that has enabled us to build our approach to this rapidly evolving marketplace and plan our go-to-market methodology for the future," he said. "We have quarterly business review meetings but also close face-to-face engagement on a weekly, and often daily basis with the Enghouse Interactive team. There is also a joint marketing plan in place and Enghouse runs a range of incentive programmes for the 5i sales teams."

In terms of target markets, the 5i sweet spot is organisations that run contact centres of between 10-200 agents. Often these are regionalised organisations and the company has developed particular expertise in servicing the needs of public sector organisations such as housing associations or primary care trusts. "These kinds of organisations often have complex needs," said Ellis. "Typically, they have a broad and expanding range of regulations that they need to comply with. Call recording and quality monitoring is therefore important to them. And they may have a duty of care to their tenants or patients. A flexible feature rich solution has proved successful in these specific environments."

Ellis is planning to meet continued demand for cloud and contact centre solutions. Even smaller businesses are becoming more comfortable with the cloud, he noted. "Equally, we are now starting to see some of our existing on-premise customers moving capability into the cloud," commented Ellis. "The use of EICC can help us achieve this transition successfully for customers. At the same time, however, the ICT environment will remain complex. There will always be some customers who want to retain a more traditional on-premise or a hybrid approach that blends the two environments. And it is in these complex environments that versatile value added distributors such as 5i working with flexible communications vendors come into their own."

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: During the last two years our active SIM base has grown by over 80 per cent and revenue has increased by over 50 per cent, but this represents only two of our 17 years of experience in the M2M sector.

Recent growth has been driven by this technology becoming recognised, trusted and more accessible to small businesses, and this is likely to be the area that sees significant growth. A few years ago M2M solutions were only considered viable by enterprise businesses, whereas now the SME sector is one of the fastest growing group of adopters.

Looking elsewhere, growth is mostly within businesses looking to optimise their operations. M2M solutions can assist companies when it comes to getting better control and visibility of their connected assets. This facilitates a reduction in operating costs and brings added value through the insight that allows them to do business differently. Even small businesses can achieve true transformation through digital technologies.

We predict that the next wave of growth will be triggered as businesses begin developing end user products to bring smart or connected solutions to consumers. These sorts of innovations will raise competitive advantage and vastly increase audience engagement.

We'll see exponential growth and we need to be prepared. Our focus will be on strengthening our partner relationships, ensuring they are reliable, tested, and trusted, so that our service will not falter. This is when our Global Partner Programme will come into its own as a platform that allows the M2M market to expand into adjacent markets via structured processes and with the support of like-minded experts.

anton.lesaux@telefonica.com
partnersdigital.telefonica.com

Devising a holistic strategy around converged infrastructure, security and services should be the channel's top priority, according to Dieter Lott, VP Business Development EMEA at Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA.

In November last year Avnet Technology Solutions decided to align its sales and vendor-facing arms in EMEA more closely - a shift of strategic focus that saw Dieter Lott, VP Business Development, take on more responsibilities for the Enterprise Business Group, managing the core strategic supplier relationships. Lott continues to be responsible for strategy, pan-EMEA account management and global SI sales, but his extended remit is to sharpen the distributor's sales and customer focus. "Vendors drive change in the industry," he said. "And having our EMEA sales account team and our strategic supplier teams under one umbrella means I'm at the centre of developments."

On taking his new role Lott's first job was to fix his calendar. "There's a lot of travel required and it's essential I plan my time effectively," he said. "I gain deep insights from vendors in areas such as the cloud and how these developments and trends will change the channel. A challenge is keeping pace with the speed of change, and harnessing technology environments where we need to align every vendor under one roof."

Lott's task is to take the knowledge he gains from core vendors, instil these insights into the various countries under his wing and convert that knowledge into sales strategies. "It's about profitability and organic growth," added Lott. "We have a solid strategic plan in place that defines my priorities. For example, converged infrastructure and security are very much growth areas we're working on to accelerate opportunities for our partners. The number one objective for us, as a distributor, is how to convert this market knowledge into business opportunities for our partners."

Having led the pan-EMEA sales force Lott has gained much experience of building relationships with large partners, managed service providers and ISVs. His aim is to apply this know-how into a medium-sized customer base which is core to Avnet. "Listening to partners and hearing their challenges helps me to understand them better," added Lott. "We can then use this knowledge to validate with resellers what and where the challenges are that need to be addressed."

Lott is well qualified to do this. His previous experience as a management consultant taught him to focus on strategy consultancy while contextualising all scenarios. He also worked in procurement, and a subsequent move into a selling environment proved apt as he already understood how people buy and how markets evolve. "This helped me to understand the channel market," he commented. "I've also lived and worked in many countries. The cultural differences are important as I take a helicopter view and look at the EMEA business as a whole."

Taking an aerial view of the comms/IT landscape, Lott observes in particular that the pace of change within data centres is 'spectacular'. "There's a bigger focus on software and services in the channel," he stated. "This doesn't mean that hardware isn't important, but nowadays I believe you need to lead with software and services. Avnet has already been on that journey for the last few years. Our number one role when working with partners is helping them evolve in this direction.

"For example, we work with partners to help turn server hardware specialists into virtualisation experts, and network specialists into Software Defined Networking (SDN) experts. This enables them to meet the industry trends and demands of end user businesses. That's the common theme we're seeing, and that's how we're aligning our business strategy in EMEA."

The drive for more scalable IT architectures and the convergence of data centres and networking technology is driving this market shift. "We're experiencing a radical change in how data centre infrastructure is designed and implemented and we're still in the early stages of adoption of these new technologies," added Lott. "There's a question over whether the channel has the IT skills to address these market demands. In 2015, not only will the channel need to educate themselves on emerging growth markets and technologies such as SDN and converged infrastructure, but they'll need to address skills shortages. Delivering efficient, reliable converged infrastructure and SDN requires new knowledge. This is where we will be trusted to provide both enablement and even the skills required."
Nor can the channel ignore security issues. With IDC predicting 30 per cent annual growth through to 2017 of smartphones purchased under a BYOD/A (Bring Your Own Device/App) approach, this year the focus will move further into addressing security inside the firewall and not just around perimeter IT defences, believes Lott. Gartner, in its Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2015, called this a 'new multifaceted approach' which will lead to 'new models of building security directly into applications'.

"Resellers will need to learn about these new approaches to address this growth area effectively and to help end user businesses overcome the huge challenge of how to secure apps," said Lott. "Distributors can help by enabling partners to take a more holistic data centre-centric approach, taking BYOD and IOT (Internet of Things) requirements into account. Such value added services include not just technical training but also sales enablement activities. The channel needs this kind of help to address the demands of fast evolving data centres where security and network efficiency is paramount."

The move to software and services means less reliance on hardware. In terms of sales it's now a consultative approach rather than just about selling products. "As IT becomes more integral to how businesses are run resellers need to speak with line of business owners because they're increasingly involved in buying decisions around technology," noted Lott. "Resellers also need to have a finger on the pulse of trends. One thing I've learnt, and got right and wrong during my career, is that you need to get your timings right with trends. It's easy enough to identify when trends are occurring in the market, but spending the time working out when you should enter that market is paramount. This is where we fit in. Our key role is to offer this consultancy."

2015 will confirm WLAN as one of the fastest growing areas of the communications industry, according to Richard Carter, Group Sales and Business Development Director at Nimans, who expects WLAN industry sales to far outstrip PBX shipments this year. Here's why...

Carter is abuzz with excitement about the possibilities that surround the burgeoning WLAN market, and he's not alone. Citing research stats, he pointed to the upbeat calculations and predictions of industry pundits, all of whom tout the WLAN space as one to watch. The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide WLAN market segments grew 9.2 per cent year-on-year in Q2 2014, reckons IDC in a Tracker report. Notable increases included France (up 33.4 per cent), UK (up 24.9 per cent), Spain (up 22.9 per cent) and Italy (up 12.1 per cent). Global sales of WLAN solutions generated almost $2.2 billion during the Q4 2013 with year-on-year growth at 9 per cent. For the whole of 2013, the value of the WLAN market reached $8.5 billion.

"WLAN is already bigger than the PBX market and the gap between the two is set to widen throughout 2015," said Carter. "Wireless communication is now firmly established as the preferred means of personal and business interaction in an increasingly mobile-centric world. In an office environment this extends beyond simple email and web browsing to include applications such as VoIP, video conferencing and video streaming. It's one of the most exciting areas of the Nimans business, and a sector that's relatively easy for resellers to address. The days of trailing cables throughout buildings for broadband will soon become a thing of the past. One day wireless could become the universal choice for businesses big and small up and down the country."

To say that Carter is fired up by the prospects for WLAN would be understate the nature of his verve, especially following his conversations with a manufacturer which calculates that the UK market grew 25 per cent last year. "Demand will only increase over the coming years. It's too big an area for resellers to ignore," added Carter. "The UK WLAN market is estimated to be worth over £250 million in 2015, an arena ripe for dealers to explore."

Nimans has teamed up with Samsung and EnGenius to address the growing WLAN opportunity. Although LAN knowledge is useful, any comms dealer can successfully sell wireless solutions, noted Carter, who pointed out that sectors such as hospitality and education are particularly receptive to WLAN deployments. "Many hotels have problems with old broadband systems so WLAN can be an easy win," he said. "According to a survey, a hotel room with free Wi-Fi is just as desirable as a room with a view. Likewise, schools do not want cables everywhere so they are demanding WLAN solutions. In essence, WLAN opportunities run throughout all areas of a reseller's customer base. Nobody wants wires any more."

Not surprisingly, Carter would 'bet the farm' on WLAN growing significantly this year, outstripping PBX industry sales. "Over the next five years 20 per cent of offices are likely to change their phone systems as part of a natural cycle, but they are all going to buy WLAN," he said. "There's going to be a massive spike in demand. The good news is that it's surprisingly easy for resellers to embrace, much easier than phone systems, so there are no real barriers to entry."

Nimans has invested in the software and staff to support resellers in the early stages of WLAN delivery. This software enables resellers to conduct effective sites surveys and build heat maps. "WLAN is a relatively simple area to get into because there's few components involved other than controllers and access points," explained Carter. "It's about delivering the right amount of coverage and joining all the pieces together. We are holding a number of educational events designed to help resellers get to grips with the potential of this market. There's tremendous margin potential and resellers stand a great chance of taking ownership of the connectivity which will further drive their revenue."

To quantify one particular opportunity, Carter cited hotels suffering from low capacity and poor broadband, which can sometimes be worse than what the hotel owner is using at home. "Resellers could make 50 per cent margin on the WLAN installation and a further £2,500 on the connectivity on a two-year contract," said Carter. "Clearly, WLAN is here and now and set to take-off in 2015."

Even for a sector as dynamic as telecoms this year promises to be a time of major change driven by unprecedented levels of M&A. Meanwhile, the early success of 4G and the ongoing move to cloud environments offers both opportunities and challenges, writes Philip Carse, Analyst at Megabuyte.com.

The big news of 2014 was undoubtedly the proposed £12.5bn acquisition of EE by BT announced just before Christmas, with EE preferred over Telefonica's O2. The deal would boost BT's revenues and EBITDA by £6.2bn and £1.6bn, or a third and quarter respectively, and almost double its consumer and business retail revenues. With BT having already announced an aggressive move back into mobile through an EE MVNO, and basically moving the UK towards the already converged structure of most European markets, BT's competitors have had to rapidly reconsider their strategic options.

Life for the mobile-only players is likely to get tougher, hence both Telefonica and EE offering (or even throwing) themselves at BT. Assuming BT agrees a deal with EE, Telefonica O2 could sell itself to Three owner Hutchison (as it has done in Ireland). For the latter such a deal would quadruple its UK presence for less than the £12bn it has invested to date in the UK. It would also represent consolidation down to three mobile network players. Vodafone, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk will also be considering their options.

EE's and O2's desperation to sell is in some ways untimely given that the outlook for mobile is improving. First, 4G has proven to be more successful than expected globally, driving up ARPUs and persuading subscribers to switch from prepaid to postpaid services. Secondly, regulatory-driven reductions in mobile termination rates have now almost worked their way through the system (though meaning fewer arbitrage opportunities for fixed line players). However, lower roaming rates continue to have an impact. Overall, UK mobile free cash flow (FCF) is stable to trending upwards. One likely impact of the BT/EE deal is that it may well significantly boost EE's positioning in the B2B comms market, hitherto dominated by Vodafone and O2.

M&A picks up
While all the headlines will be about consumer telco M&A, we expect B2B comms M&A to also pick up in 2015, not least due to the take-private of Daisy and a new backer for XLN. While XLN will be aiming to consolidate its position in the smaller end of the business market (a possible bid for Vitruvian-backed Universal Utilities?), Daisy and potentially other larger players such as Alternative Networks will be looking to broaden their product sets and technical capabilities through M&A, particularly adding IT capabilities. It remains to be seen whether Gamma will leverage its new found status as a public listed company, following its successful AIM IPO, to undertake M&A.

The rush of private equity investments into data centre and hosting companies in 2010 and 2011 could lead to several exits in 2015, with Pulsant having already changed owners in 2014 in a £200m deal. Contenders for new owners in 2015 (either private equity or trade) include broader network and data player Six Degrees and the more hosting focused Adapt Group and Onyx, with UK2 and Attenda possibly eyeing 2016. Public-listed Iomart could be a target given recent trading wobbles following the unsuccessful approach from Host Europe in Summer 2014.

Other areas of corporate activity could include, as in 2014, networks, differentiated ISPs and companies with a strong hosted/cloud strategy, which are all benefiting from the move to the cloud. The last year has seen several network-based deals, including Zayo buying Geo Networks, Interoute/Vtesse and COLT/KVH. Zayo particularly remains on the lookout for deals across Europe. A take-private of EuNetworks could also herald corporate activity. Examples of private equity interest in differentiated ISPs in 2013/14 included Entanet, Metronet, ASK4 and Cablecomm, while Living Bridge's late 2014 investment into IP Solutions taps into growth in hosted voice and unified comms.

UC will continue to gain ground, aided by the adoption of hosted and cloud solutions, as evidenced by strong growth from companies such as 8x8 and RingCentral. It is also driving corporate activity, for example with Mitel bidding (but subsequently withdrawing) $574m for ShoreTel. We recently surveyed UK service providers on the actual and expected demand for UC services and the major challenges involved. The main message is that hosted UC revenues are expected to double over the next one to two years, albeit off a low base, though many service providers are unclear of the impacts on their finances.

The survey asked service providers what they felt to be the main buying decisions for hosted solutions, and the good news is that flexibility comes out on top, with an average score of 2.5 out of 3.0. The bad news, and inescapable in the world of telecoms, is that price and making an opex rather than capex buying decision come out in second and third place, followed closely by mobility and business continuity. Least important, and not quite attaining an 'Important' score of 2.0, were productivity and collaboration.

We also asked about the main challenges faced in selling hosted services, and these can be broken down into three broad categories. The first mirrors the cashflow impact in that selling hosted solutions on an opex rather than capex basis requires someone (the service provider) to pay for the capex. The second broad challenge is operation, making sure that businesses can support the service and quality requirements

of hosted services, as well as the technical challenges. Finally, customers still need to be educated on the pros and cons of hosted rather than on-premise solutions.

The move off-premise is a strong theme across most Megabuyte peer groups, and our survey shows that it is now definitely happening in the world of voice and unified comms. While industry revenues are still relatively small, one can point to companies where it is having a material impact. For example, the strong growth being achieved by pure-play UCaaS providers such as 8x8, RingCentral and Telesphere (recently acquired by Vonage) in the US, while hosted voice is a strong driver behind Gamma's 16 per cent first half revenue growth.

The broad message is that all existing voice service providers should have a hosted voice and UC strategy, albeit that it will not necessarily improve their financial performance. For existing on-premise providers, they also need new technical skills and a strategy for managing the inevitable shift away from legacy on-premise solutions. For relatively pure-play hosted voice or UCaaS providers, particularly those developing their own platforms, deep pockets are needed to fund infrastructure, invest in R&D, as well as finance start up losses given still unpredictable demand (as evidenced by Outsourcery). The bad news for the latter camp is that, in the event of business failure, customers on a sub-optimal hosted platform will hold little value given the difficulties involved in migrating hosted customers.

More generally, the outlook for industry revenues remains tough, notwithstanding the improving outlook for mobile revenues. Fixed line prices and volumes continue to decline, though rebalancing towards line rental helps soften the blow. Industry growth areas (reflected in the private equity interest) include activities that supports the new off-premise cloud economy, ranging from data centre colocation, through managed and cloud hosting, to providing the underlying connectivity either for the last mile or on a broader WAN basis.

The on-premise market has plunged headlong into a terminal tailspin while the dash towards cloud territory has become an all-out land grab, according to BroadSoft's VP of Market Offers Mike Wilkinson, who says it's clearly inevitable that traditional business models have to change with the times.

The way things are going, the modus operandi of traditionalists is doomed, believes Wilkinson, their future being a chaotic stumble into a diminishing market. "The comms sector will continue to see rising levels of cloud adoption, increased capabilities around mobile and more applications in the office environment," commented Wilkinson. "With more intelligence in the system and more interaction with cloud services this will lead to greater productivity in businesses. BroadSoft is responding to these demands by focusing on cloud solutions that are far more integrated and based on intelligence. This change is inevitable and if resellers don't address it they will struggle as they compete for an ever smaller market."

That said, the destination of these trends is far more clear-cut than the means of keeping pace with changes in the market. "The challenge is how to manage the change from a capex to a cloud UC opex sale," added Wilkinson. "Upfront commission models distort the marketplace so resellers will tend to focus on those products that provide the highest financial return within a short time period. This breeds a pattern of behaviour focused on the short-term. Cloud, with its annuity based revenue model, is almost the polar opposite."

At the root of such a business model transformation lies strategic responsibility, the path down which all resellers should tread, believes Wilkinson. "UK SMEs are turning to the cloud more and more for business applications including UC," he commented. "A number of our customers more than doubled their installed base of cloud UC services last year and they anticipate more strong growth in 2015. For SMEs, cloud offers obvious benefits in terms of flexibility, reduced capex and service updates without disruption. However, we're seeing this trend extend to larger businesses where legacy infrastructure is gradually coming offline, and they are looking for faster, more scalable solutions."

Wilkinson's argument is fair and his market vision seems definitive - perhaps the final answer. "UC solutions delivered over the cloud are starting to dominate the market," he commented. "Users are highly receptive to the benefits of cloud over on-premise. As cloud UC is becoming a mainstream solution for small and medium enterprises as well as mid to large enterprises, we are doing far more application integration and partnerships with cloud business application vendors in order to accelerate the adoption of that cloud UC opportunity.

"We have to make sure what we're developing is intuitive and focused on the right business use cases in order to create tangible returns. This means gaining an in-depth understanding of end users' requirements and business processes. As a marketer I have a real issue with using clichés like lower TCO in a throw-away manner. It is far better to focus on case studies and known benefits from a deployment. The industry as a whole needs to continue to change its approach to selling technology. There has to be a shift towards a much broader view of end user customer use cases that appeals to what the customer is really trying to achieve. The more the industry talks in technology or product terminology, the slower the adoption of those solutions."

Early days
Wilkinson's aspirations in the IP world go back a long way. He came into IT from the aerospace industry in 1990 when he joined south Wales-based Newbridge Networks. "It was one of the best opportunities in the area and Newbridge was growing incredibly fast," commented Wilkinson. "I started as an engineer but quickly transferred to new product introduction and product management. I was given the task of introducing a new range of IP router products, so have been in the IP market for almost 25 years."

Wilkinson has always worked on the product and solution management areas of communications, and BroadSoft gave him the opportunity to take the experience he'd gained working with customers in the field and translate that into developing new solutions. "I am particularly excited by the integration possibilities of cloud, analytics, mobile and business applications," he added. "Aside from a focus on the ability to integrate with applications within the business, I'm also focused on mobility integration, improving the management of our cloud UC solutions, especially for highly distributed enterprise markets, while also adding an improved customer experience and vertical integration."

Simplifying the customer journey deserves more consideration, believes Wilkinson, especially given the increasing amount of device diversity in the market, from hard phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops and ultimately wearables. "The journey should not just be focused on features but more on the use cases around those features, and knowing exactly what features people use to collaborate effectively," he commented. "Ultimately, it comes back to understanding what will make a business more productive in the environment in which it operates."

Since its acquisition of HIPCOM in August 2013 BroadSoft has steadily increased the density of UC features available on the BroadCloud platform. Wilkinson is particularly upbeat about the My Room feature in UC-One which delivers a dynamic collaboration capability. "We see the future workplace becoming more like a series of war rooms during the business day where small groups come together and collaborate on a project to achieve rapid results," he said. "My Room is intuitive to use and collaboration sessions can be started quickly to initiate interaction with colleagues inside and partners outside the business."

BroadSoft is also focused on expanding throughout Europe, especially with its BroadCloud managed service offering. The company is working closely with service providers who package the BroadCloud managed service as part of their customer offering. For example, one new service provider customer works with 10-15 resellers, and BroadSoft is helping the company sell UC into various verticals including hospitality, retail, professional services, non-profit and education.

"We are carefully managing our rate of growth while also being sure to simplify the user experience for our customers," added Wilkinson. "We also need to remain focused on improving install times, making the journey from signing up to UC to actually using it on the desktop as short and simple as possible. We believe technologies like WebRTC will make a big impact here. As more agreements with browsers are put in place the barriers to adoption are coming down and IT professionals are expressing renewed interest in what is truly a game changing technology."

BroadSoft has undergone a significant expansion in recent years. It's bigger in Europe now than it was globally when Wilkinson joined in 2006. "In the UK there has been growth in UC and SIP trunking," he noted. "BT's new Cloud Voice service using BroadCloud validates how mainstream hosted UC is now becoming, and BroadSoft's focus is to ensure that it becomes a de facto solution for most businesses. BroadSoft has also expanded its offering both organically and through acquisition, always addressing the application integration needs of our customers, with the acquisitions of Systems Design & Development (SDD), HIPCOM and Finocom in Germany. We'll see more customer wins as a result and add more capability into both the BroadCloud and BroadWorks offerings."

Wilkinson has helped many service providers based all over the world to launch and grow their UC services, introducing services as far north as Greenland and as far south as Argentina. This experience has given BroadSoft a truly global view of the development of cloud UC services. "The traditional PBX refresh cycle is approximately eight years in Europe," commented Wilkinson. "But this is all set to change. For example, those businesses that take a mobile-first approach for UC are discovering that the traditional PBX comes with many limitations.

"The future workplace will also see other changes in communication tendencies. These will not only come as a result of the millennial generation entering the workforce, but the UK's older retirement age means businesses will also need to accommodate the communication demands of generation X. UC will come into its own here as a way to offer adaptable and tailored communication options."•

A clear strategy based on recruiting the right staff and giving customers exactly what they want while nurturing client retention is certain to trigger a pipeline of profitable business, according to Richard Pennington, Managing Director at 4net Technologies.

Pennington's ambition is to be the first port of call for organisations looking to transform the way they communicate internally and with their customers, and he aims to generate revenues of £25 million-plus within five years. "We will get there through staff development, the recruitment of the right new people, aligning all of them to our company objectives and ensuring we look after our customers," he confidently stated.

To say that Pennington is on track for growth would also be to invoke his early days in the comms industry while working at Telinet, then a small but growing reseller business based in London. "I spent three years in the mid-90s carrying an SDX INDeX on and off the tube trains, learning and serving my sales apprenticeship," said Pennington. "In those days, all leads were self-generated and there was a degree of scepticism about independent resellers. Positioning a 15-man reseller which had little or no reputation against carriers, manufacturers and a few larger resellers proved difficult."

But the daily challenge of working for a small business fostered an entrepreneurial spirit and can-do attitude. "Those early years covering Central London and working for a small business had a big impact on me," added Pennington. "We had to make things happen, source opportunities, find the equipment to sell, do our own project management and on many occasions attend a customer site as a stand-in maintenance engineer. These experiences pushed me outside of my comfort zone and taught me to deal with any customer issue."

Pennington then moved to a larger more established reseller, Genesis Telecommunications. "I was amazed by the amount of support, project management and technical resource we had," he said. "However, I created a new challenge for myself by leaving most of that behind to move to Genesis' newly opened Manchester office as the third team member and first dedicated sales person, joining the people who are now my co-Directors at 4net. What I learnt from Genesis is that having a great culture in a business, where everyone loves coming to work combined with a sense of purpose enables people to achieve great things."

Following a three-year stint at Genesis, Pennington moved to Central Telecom (since acquired by Vodafone) where he gained his first management experience running the Manchester office. Soon after he was recruited by Redstone to build a northern sales operation for what he says was one of the first 'truly converged' businesses. Redstone was a professionally run organisation with around 500 employees, offering telco, ISP, network integration, PBX/IPT and IT/desktop services. "It sounded like a sales person's dream," said Pennington. "However, building a sales team from scratch and selling these services was a challenge.

"My biggest learning point at Redstone was the re-enforcement that good people are key to success. No matter how hard you try as an individual and how much coaching, training and support you put into a team, there is only so much you can achieve if you don't have the right people to start with."

Following Redstone's acquisition of Xpert Communications in 2005 there was a period of confusion when the senior management team underwent a reshuffle. This was the catalyst for 4net's four founding directors - Frank Jennings, Mike Jervis, Steve Tyrrell and Pennington (who had worked together before) - to do what they had often discussed and set up on their own as 4net Technologies.

"The company has achieved profitable growth every year since inception," said Pennington. "There have been many deals along the way that have pushed us up a level or into new territory. Building teams in the Midlands and London has also helped us to accelerate our growth and create a scalable platform for further expansion."

4net Technologies has realised an impressive 270 per cent growth over the last three years. Turnover is forecast to hit £7.7 million this year with projections for £10.8 million in 2015. The company now has 39 staff stationed across three offices in Manchester, London and the Midlands. It targets customers in the mid-enterprise, enterprise and public sector with a specific technology focus on contact centres and managed services. "We have undergone significant internal changes in all aspects of the business to help create growth," added Pennington. "But the most significant step has been the development of a scalable internal structure."

Another big change in 4net Technologies' go-to-market strategy has been its approach to managed and cloud services. "We have gradually added to our managed and cloud services portfolio to meet customer demands and to differentiate ourselves," commented Pennington.

"We also focus on UC and contact centre which are underpinned by our managed services. We work closely with our customers to enable workplace and customer experience transformation through the relevant implementation of technology. We manage this through building strong long-term relationships and have a customer retention rate of 99.96 per cent."

4net Technologies has collected a number of awards in recognition of its managed services offering, called 4net ESP. The company has also been chosen to represent the UK in the European Business Awards for Customer Service, having garnered plaudits for building a staunchly loyal customer base.

The 4net Technologies team has also retained a loyal and fruitful partnership with Avaya that dates back to the mid-90s. The company is now an Avaya Platinum Partner and also has a rapidly developing MS Lync practice. "Our Lync proposition has contact centre at its heart, and we work with strategic partner Enghouse to enable enterprise class contact centre capabilities within Lync UC environments," added Pennington.

Aside from the aforementioned, there are a number of additional areas that interest Pennington such as video and BYOD. But key to growth are cloud and customer experience transformation. "Cloud services provide flexibility, scalability and redundancy," explained Pennington. "This is an important area of growth and focus for 4net Technologies as traditional hardware revenues diminish. We have built our own core cloud infrastructure in order to deliver private cloud solutions and integrate public cloud services into our hybrid offering."

The second focus area, customer experience transformation, draws on the firm's contact centre and customer interaction capabilities. "Almost all of our largest clients have a contact centre at the centre of their operations, whether that is 50 seats or 500 seats," noted Pennington. "A few years ago customers were only interested in reducing their contact centre costs, now they're focused on customer experience transformation to win new customers and maintain the loyalty of existing ones."

The end user consumer now demands a real-time response via the media of their choice - voice, email, web chat, social, mobile etc, at the time of their choosing. If organisations cannot provide this they risk losing customers within a few clicks. "Our clients need to transform in order to meet this demand," said Pennington. "4net has therefore developed this capability. We now have a portfolio of services including our own applications to ensure customers maintain a competitive advantage."

In this technology-orientated customer environment traditional revenues from hardware and equipment, and even software in some cases, are no longer available. But revenues from managed services, consultancy and new areas of technology more than make of for those losses. "Resellers need to adapt their models rapidly to ensure they remain relevant to the customer," commented Pennington. "My priorities over the last 12 months have been to ensure that we have the appropriate internal people and structures in place to continue our rate of growth and that they are all aligned to our company objectives and end user requirements. Recruitment of the right skills and experience remains our biggest challenge."•

The average British worker receives 1,728 pointless emails in a typical year, according to a poll by Sennheiser Communications.

Emails detailing trivial information such as 'organising a whip around', 'please sponsor me' and the reams of polite 'happy birthday' emails topped the list of irritating topics.

As does mail with subject headings such as 'the printer has broken' and 'can we turn the air con down?'

The poll found mundane emails about fire drills, Secret Santa and running out of milk were also viewed as futile by busy workers.

The poll of 2,000 office workers found a third said they have someone in their team who is known for sending pointless emails and half said they have colleagues that copy in 'everyone and anyone' to round robin emails.

Not surprisingly, 53 per cent of those polled said they wish everyone picked the phone up and spoke more to one another, rather than clogging-up inboxes with wasted emails.

And over two thirds said things are far less likely to be misconstrued when there has been a physical conversation opposed to an email trail.

Charlotte Gaskin, Marketing Manager at Sennheiser Communications, said: "We are used to firing off emails for even the slightest thing. But it seems like some of the more mundane requests can be avoided. Copying in lots of people to emails does seem to be a bugbear of British workers.

"Sometimes it's more effective to have a face to face conversation or just pick-up the phone. This way there's less room for misinterpretation as well."

Electronic mail introducing new starters, messages about the lottery syndicate and missing food from the fridge were also deemed pointless by time stretched workers.

Not surprisingly, staff members also recoiled when emails about blocked toilets dropped in to their inbox.

The poll also found 38 per cent of adults said they have sent an email that has been taken the wrong way, with the recipient thinking they were being rude, sarcastic or upset.

And writing emails in capital letters causes havoc with employees, with more than two thirds of Brits saying they feel like they are being shouted at.

And half of people said it irritates them when the person sat next to them sends them an email instead of just talking to them.

But 25 per cent said they're usually emailing because they are talking about someone behind their back.

And 24 per cent said they like to make out they are working, when in reality they are just typing emails to their pals.

The study found 67 per cent of workers reckon they send more emails than they make phone calls, with seven in ten claiming it's easier and one in five confessing to not being confident on the phone.

One in ten even say they are often scared to pick up the phone and talk.

In contrast the best email to receive were ones that included pay slips, juicy bits of gossip and those detailing birthday cakes in the kitchen or canteen.

Gaskin added: "It's clear many people tend to hide behind emails, rather than have a telephone call.

"But phone calls don't leave room for error and making a call is usually easier than writing an email, especially with the wide range of professional headsets we offer, which mean your voice can be heard in HD sound clarity.

"Headsets allow you to be hands free and multitask to allow for even the most hectic of working days. You're also far more likely to resolve an issue quickly and correctly. Perhaps it's time we all started using our voices a little more often."

IT Europa and Angel Business Communications will jointly be staging the fifth annual UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit on 17th September 2015.

The event will bring leading hardware and software vendors, hosting providers, telecommunications companies, mobile operators and web services providers involved in managed services and hosting together with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and resellers, integrators and service providers migrating to, or developing their own managed services portfolio and sales of hosted solutions.

All indicators are pointing to the continued rapid growth of managed services, but many organisations remain uncertain as to direction in which the market will develop.

Recent research by IT Europa has also pointed to significant differences between channel organisations and their clients in perceptions of the factors both driving and inhibiting the growth of managed services as a supply model.

The UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales. Building on the success of previous managed services and hosting events, the summit has been expanded in 2015 and will feature a high-level conference programme exploring the impact of new business models and the changing role of information technology within modern businesses.

The summit theme for 2015 is Creating Value through Managed Services and conference sessions will include:
• The changing face of Managed Services - Trends in service delivery and changing customer demands
• Improving the Customer Experience - the key to creating value and gaining competitive advantage - How to create value, gain competitive advantage and build greater value into your business.

These conference sessions will be augmented by breakout sessions within which leading vendors and service providers which will provide further insight into the opportunities for channel organisations looking to expand their managed services portfolios. Area addressed within the breakout session will include:
Service Management - more than Tools and Tickets
Security and Data Management - controlling access and ensuring continuity
Cloud and Managed Hosting - not what we think it is
Customer experience - automating operations
New Opportunities - exploiting the customer relationship

Throughout the day there will also be many opportunities for both sponsors and delegates to meet fellow participants within the Summit exhibition and networking area.

"Advances in technology, economic pressures and evolving business models are combining to fundamentally change role of both IT and Telecoms channels, with more and more organisations are adopting cloud-based solutions and Hybrid IT as part of their IT landscape," says Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015 provides a unique opportunity for vendors, VARs, integrators and service providers to come together to address the issues and opportunities arising from the surge in customer demand for managed services and hosted delivery models," says Jason Holloway, Director of IT Publishing at Angel Business Communications.

The Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2015 will take place at 155 Bishopsgate, London, on 17 September 2015. MSPs, resellers and integrators wishing to attend the convention and vendors, distributors or service providers interested in sponsorship opportunities can find further information at: www.mshsummit.com

The latest version of 3CX's VoIP system incorporates click-to-call and video calling functionality based on WebRTC technology, a development that takes UC to the next level, claims 3CX CEO Nick Galea.

"UC has been no more than a buzzword until now," he said. "Our new video conferencing and click-to-call function is set to change all that. Customers no longer have to pick up the phone, with one click they can be immediately connected for free.

"This technology offers great benefits for all businesses by enabling them to provide a new customer service experience."

Using click-to-call website visitors can make a free voice or video call directly to a business through the Internet browser without the need to download any additional software.

When the embedded call button is clicked a VoIP call to the business is initiated. Calls can also be elevated to offer screen sharing to show customers new products or offer assistance.

"Businesses using 3CX Phone System 12.5 can publish any number of call button links enabling customers to be directed to the most relevant person," added Galea.

"As inbound calls via the click-to-call function are free, businesses can reduce the cost of expensive 800 number calls. This new feature also includes a WordPress plugin so that it can be easily integrated into a business's website."

3CX Phone System 12.5 also provides each extension user with their own personal WebRTC call link enabling users to make video calls. Additional new functionality includes advanced telephony features, updated 3CXPhone Mac client, improved Chat feature, and new supported IP phones.