Comms Dealer

School financial heads are so busy trying to balance teaching and running costs they are oblivious to the potential cost savings that could be achieved by taking a closer look at their telecoms spending.

According to Daisy Group's number crunching schools are wasting thousands every year.

The company conducted a bill analysis of 118 primary and secondary schools across the country and found that, on average, UK schools are overspending by 43% on their communications (telephone systems, calls, mobiles and internet connection). Some are forking out as much as 77% over the odds.

Tony Harcombe, Commercial Director at Daisy Group, said: "We have been working with public sector organisations for a number of years but have only recently started working with the education sector.

"Before doing so, we decided to undertake some research in order to learn the areas in which schools require the most help.

"We expected to find some of the schools paying over the odds but we were shocked when we found that every single school we spoke to was overspending with some spending nearly four times as much as they needed to."

The study identified three issues bursars and schools managers were facing that contributed to the overspending - not having enough time to manage their contracts and shop around for better deals; not having enough understanding of recent technological innovations to be able to procure modern systems with a cost-saving capability; and being encouraged to procure from approved suppliers that did not necessarily offer them the best cost-efficiency.

Harcombe added: "We're aiming to put together a white paper on the subject to help schools make informed decisions when it comes to their communications."

One of the schools in the research, The Douay Martyrs School, Hillingdon, London, was advised by Daisy that it could save 71% on its mobile bills and 40% overall on its communications over a 12 month period.

Teresa Doyle, School Bursar, said: "When Daisy drilled down into our bills they advised us that, by changing the system and contract we had, we could benefit from annual bill savings which amount to thousands of pounds per year.

"By switching supplier we have made invaluable savings which are allowing us to reinvest our budget into other areas of our curriculum.

"Daisy also found that we had been unintentionally overcharged by our existing supplier for a number of years."

Harcombe added: "By working with organisations like Churchmarketplace, which can assist schools with finding new PSN-approved suppliers, there is the potential for schools to increase their efficiency and reduce costs."

A listing of the UK's fastest growing private companies has ranked Softcat 28th, up 69 places up on last year's position.

Softcat notched up the second highest turnover and the top EBITDA of the 100 companies listed in the Investec Mid-market 100, based on last year's financial figures.

CEO Martin Hellawell commented: "Revenues have grown by over 300% since 2010. In order to support our growth we've doubled our staff and opened a new regional office in Bristol. In February we open another in Leeds, bringing our total offices to five.

"We plan to continue our growth across all our business sectors. We're not taking our foot off the accelerator just yet."

The list ranks active UK-registered companies according to their four year average compound annual growth rate, with a minimum annual turnover of £10m.

The companies included on the list have all been grown organically and not through acquisition.

Softcat's revenues currently top £500m, and company profits have increased by 30% in one year.

A firm of solicitors based in Warwickshire has selected ShoreTel for its UC and mobility solutions.

Wright Hassall, established in 1846, is a full service commercial law firm advising corporates, SMEs, not-for-profit and public sector organisations. Its private client team advises families, farmers, business owners and high net worth individuals on matters such as medical negligence, contesting a will, personal injury and divorce. The Lexcel accredited organisation is top ranked in the legal directories in 46 areas (25 Legal 500, 21 Chambers UK).

Wright Hassall's diverse workforce requires high levels of flexibility as employees, from solicitors to debt-collectors, must be contactable at all-times no matter the location. Its senior partners are provided with company phones while the rest of its 265-strong workforce must be available to clients and colleagues both during and beyond designated working hours. The company has recently extended its workforce, with the need for improved internal and external communications becoming more pronounced.

In order to address its continued growth and need for workforce flexibility, Wright Hassall evaluated its previous communications system, and, realising that it was out-of-date and unable to meet these requirements, sought a replacement. Wright Hassall selected ShoreTel and Solar.

Martyn Wells, IT Director at Wright Hassall, said: "ShoreTel's UC and mobility solutions were able to offer our entire varied workforce the flexibility necessary, and ensure that our clients are provided with the support they require, whenever they require it."

Adrian Hipkiss, EMEA MD and VP at ShoreTel, added: "Wright Hassall's employees are not restricted to traditional working hours and are often on the move. We were happy to provide them with our solutions which we are sure will provide the flexibility they need to continue best serving their clients."

Mark Colquhoun, Chief Executive at Solar, added: "As ShoreTel's only European Platinum partner, we understand the value of a smooth, efficient implementation. Wright Hassall required an installation that was fast and offered no disruption to the workforce. We were able to provide this and hope that our continued support and expertise will enable the company to get the absolute most out of ShoreTel's solutions."

ShoreTel has provided Wright Hassall's workforce with greater flexibility through a number of features such as the ability to immediately divert landline calls to mobile, allowing users to track voicemail from an email inbox, and the offer of a wider variety of communication channels, such as instant messenger.

By providing this functionality, Wright Hassall has been able to provide its workforce with increased mobility as well as improved overall communications. Also, ShoreTel's virtualised solution has provided Wright Hassall with a more cost-effective, efficient platform that requires little maintenance and offers improved security with means of disaster-recovery. This has resulted in a 12 per cent reduction in telecoms costs as external conferencing facilities became redundant.

ShoreTel's UC solution brings together VoIP telephony, instant messaging, conferencing, mobility, plus presence and collaboration capabilities into a seamless business environment.

Former Proximity Communications CEO Darren Boyce has joined the board at Maintel as Non-Executive Director.

Proximity was created in 2009 following a merger between Applinet and the Unified Group. Boyce, who was Managing Director of Applinet, took the role of group CEO when the two companies came together. The business was sold to Maintel in October this year.

Boyce was previously Sales Director at LANBase which was acquired by Workplace Technologies (subsequently acquired soon after by NTL Incorporated in 2000).

John Booth, Non-Executive Chairman of Maintel, commented: "Darren brings a wealth of commercial experience and insight in our sector and his skills will be a valuable addition to the Maintel Board as we focus on our future development and growth."

According to a BBC news report BT is in talks with Telefonica over the potential acquisition of the O2 mobile network from the Spanish firm.

The discussions are described as being at a 'highly preliminary stage'.

BT spun-off O2 in 2002, then called BT Cellnet. Three years later it was acquired by Telefonica for £17.7bn.

Telefonica said in a statement, 'Telefonica informs that, although it is in talks with British Telecom, these talks are in a highly preliminary phase and there is no certainty that a transaction will take place'.

Resellers with the ability to simplify end user IT infrastructures and provision connectivity solutions stand to make significant gains next year.

That's according to a channel survey undertaken by Brocade which found that the biggest challenges faced by customers are complexity (46%) and bandwidth provisioning (46%).

The study also identified three trends that are front of mind - virtualisation (72%), BYOD and Software Defined Networking (30%).

Over half of Brocade's EMEA channel partners and systems integrators believe that SDN and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) will be significant trends within the next two years.

Of those surveyed in EMEA 18% are already deploying SDN and NFV technologies, with 62% either currently evaluating SDN and NFV solutions or planning to do so within the next year.

Marcus Jewell, Vice President, EMEA, Brocade, said: "Our channel partners are looking to the future and focusing on building technology solutions that their customers will need in the years to come, in particular SDN and NFV.

"With customers prioritising virtualisation and BYOD, it's only natural that complexity and bandwidth are their top challenges."

SIP technology is tops according to delegates at Britannic Technologies' annual Convergence Summit held in London. In a live poll 47% of attendees voted SIP as their most favoured technology, followed by cloud at 36% and CTI 32%.

The end user event was targeted at decision makers from mid-sized and enterprise organisations and the big theme this year was 'business enablement through technology'.

Britannic Technologies Sales and Marketing Director Jonathan Sharp said: "The presentations were delivered over a technology that enabled the audience to view the presentations on their devices and interact with the presenters. And a live poll was conducted among the audience to discover which technology they thought would add the most value to their business."

Incom Business Systems celebrated its 25th birthday this month and the Directors marked the milestone by hosting a employee team-building weekend in Prague.

Colleagues worked in groups to carry out team-building tasks which included escaping from a Mind Maze and completing an Apprentice-style challenge.

The event also marked Incom's growth in the past five years, doubling in size since 2009.

Managing Director David Hughes said: "It was rewarding and an absolute pleasure to see colleagues - some of whom I've worked with for two decades and some for only a few months - working together and having so much fun.

"The way everyone pulled together on the team challenges is testament to the culture of our company, both inside and outside of the office. I will take away many happy memories from our 25th anniversary celebrations in Prague."

Westcon Group's UCC practice awarded its top performing Avaya partners with a day's sailing at the Royal Solent Yacht Club in Lymington.

"The sailing incentive rewards partners that have sold the full stack of Avaya products to their mid-market customers. The results this financial year have been tremendous. The trip demonstrates our thanks to our partners for their constant support and commitment," said Ralph Donohue, General Manager UK & Ireland, Westcon UCC.

Partners spent the day sailing in a fun environment with plenty of teamwork challenges and highly competitive close quarter racing, followed by a prize presentation and dinner.

Paul Sheppard, Sales Manager, Maintel, added: "I had a fantastic day. The competitive sailing was great fun and I am looking forward to next year's already."

tIPicall has launched a new bundle pricing offer exclusively for channel on OnePBX, its proprietary hosted telephony platform.

Available on a monthly rolling contract, resellers can take advantage of bundle pricing including seat license, DDIs, UK landline, UK mobile and either EU landline or USA landline and mobile calls.

On a 36 month term, resellers can also benefit from an included Yealink handset.

tIPicall Managing Director Guy Miller said: "We want to offer our partners a different proposition - while free UK calls are great, the added value to the right opportunity to bundle in European or American calls takes bundles to a different level.

"As we're Channel-only, it's up to our resellers how they want to price and promote this service, they can carry on as they are now with a new zero cost base for the calls or they can pass the savings on to new clients to win more deals. They might even want to migrate existing clients on other platforms and split the savings.

"The pricing of these bundles means resellers will be making a minimum 100% markup on hosted. We want to bring back profit into the Channel and our global reach has allowed us to slash worldwide prices to achieve this."