Comms Dealer

Prime Networks MD and comms industry TV pundit Adrian Barnard has completed a busy round of BBC TV and radio appearances today commenting on the collapse of Phones 4U.

The mobile phone retailer has entered administration after losing its Vodafone contract earlier this month. Its remaining partner, EE, has confirmed that it will not renew its contract which ends in September next year.

Barnard told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it's possible Phones 4U could be sold back to its previous owner, John Caudwell, who founded Phones 4U and sold it in 2006 for £1.5bn.

"There's been talk from the seller, the previous owner, John Caudwell, about how this is a travesty and they've been forced out of business. Perhaps this tragedy would welcome someone coming back in and being a hero to these members of staff."

He told BBC Breakfast: "The problem for Phones 4U is that its biggest supplier is its biggest competitor. Mobile operators have their own high street shops. There's less money in the trade and the industry has responded by going direct. The tragedy is, of course, it's running up to Christmas and there's 6,000 jobs at risk.

"It's surprising that the managers of Phones 4U had not lined up one of the operators as their key supplier. Now they have none."

Cirrus and its partners will be testing how far they can cycle for the duration of this year's two-day CC Expo event in aid of charity.

"We like to do things differently at Cirrus," commented Jason Roos, CEO of Cirrus. "CC Expo is the perfect opportunity to raise awareness of Silver Line charity which is close to our hearts, and get the contact centre industry behind this very worthy cause."

Silver Line, founded by Esther Rantzen CBE, provides a free helpline for older people across the UK, open every day and night of the year to give information, advice and friendship to those who need it.

The distribution of Content Guru's platforms has become a notable cloud sensation with global proliferation well advanced and a string of king size partnerships neatly bedded in.

The company has been busy seizing opportunities across Europe and is pressing ahead with US expansion plans which its founders could only have dreamed of when they established the firm eight years ago.

Since then Content Guru has grown from a small early pioneer of cloud communications services to become one of Europe's largest providers, and according to co-founder and Managing Director Sean Taylor (pictured) this is just the start of his long-term international expansion plan.

Content Guru now has platforms in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands and is currently rolling out infrastructure in the USA with Asia to follow. The company now operates services in over 30 countries, but one notable partnership stands out today.

"We are seeing particular success with KPN Telecom, the national carrier for the Netherlands," explained Taylor.

KPN is one of the largest telecommunications businesses in the world with revenues of almost 13 billion euro and a staff headcount of 25,000-plus. And Content Guru's flagship storm CONTACT service has been adopted as KPN's exclusive cloud contact centre solution.

"KPN's iBasis wholesale division is one of the world's largest carriers of international voice traffic, supporting more than 1,000 fixed and mobile operators," commented Taylor.

"Introduced in 2012, the storm service is now an integral part of KPN's customer offerings and has already helped KPN to attract over 50 major new customers in the Benelux region."

The storm enterprise-grade contact centre solution is now used by a diverse range of European organisations, from SMEs to major multi-national corporations and government departments, pointed out Taylor.

"These customers are taking advantage of the flexible and modular nature of storm's licensing model to ensure that their communications facilities can be tailored for their evolving needs, both in terms of scale and functionality," he added.

One example is Shell, the global energy and petrochemical company, which is using storm to provide an automated application that connects customers to relevant information and services.

Meanwhile, international Dutch fashion retail chain C&A, which generates annual revenues of over 6 billion euro, uses storm to run an intelligent store location service.

Rabobank, which holds global assets worth over 800 billion euro, has also become a user of storm following Content Guru's move into the continental European market.

"With more than 56,000 employees worldwide, Rabobank's need for an advanced communications solution has been met by storm's over-the-phone menu and integrated disaster recovery," stated Taylor.

Building on its European expansion Content Guru has set its sights on the American domestic market, following requests from multinational corporations for storm's service wrap to be extended to their US subsidiaries.

The storm USA cloud platform is on target to be deployed during the last quarter of this year and will offer the full range of storm services, with an emphasis on the platform's cloud contact centre capabilities.

Key to success is the heavy investment Content Guru puts into developing the storm platform. "A series of advanced products will be launched into the market over the coming months," said Taylor. "These include the DTA, a new user interface that will make accessing storm's capability set simpler and more intuitive."

Outsourcery Co-CEO and TV Dragons' Den investor Piers Linney needs no introduction. Not so well known however are some of the key determining factors that have influenced his career and personal development. Here, we reveal the life experiences and character forming lessons that helped make the man.

Linney has thundered about the onset of cloud supremacy for many years, so much so that the channel's ears continue to ring with his fervent conviction. Here, he reveals the lessons learnt from various aspects of life that helped to put him on the road to absolute conviction, ambition and success...

Parents
I inherited a work ethic and an entrepreneurial attitude from both my parents. My dad was a working class lad from Manchester who won a scholarship to Cambridge. My mum always had an entrepreneurial approach to her work. She was a nurse and a health visitor and established various programmes within the local community.

After retiring she set up a business selling flowers and accessories for weddings, which she ran until very recently. My own work ethic and entrepreneurial streak were definitely influenced by her. She taught me to get stuff done and make the best use of the resources you've got.

Childhood
I learnt how to stand up for myself and not be afraid in the process. I also learnt to work hard for the material things that I wanted. I started my own business at the age of 13 in order to buy myself a new (and expensive) BMX. I didn't think of it as a business at the time. It was about wealth creation on a small scale. At the age of 16, I sold that business making a profit for the first time. Through that process, I learnt that in business the outputs are directly aligned with your efforts and inputs.

Friends/personal relationships
One thing I've learnt is that when you're starting a business, available well-meaning friends and acquaintances may not always be the best people to bring on board or issue shares to. Starting a business from scratch with friends, acquaintances, or even friends of friends just because they happen to have some free time or be looking for work isn't usually going to end well.

As a business progresses, you begin to realise that you need people on your team who are specialists in that particular area, so you need to think about hiring well from the beginning, not just choosing people because they are available. You can quickly realise that members of your founding team, however invested or enthusiastic, can't cut it and you will be faced with the difficult task of asking them to leave. Ensuring that any equity issued is structured in such a way that they can't take it with them is key. As the founder, you can't leave.

School/education
Education is critical. I'm a big supporter of learning, whether that's through traditional academic learning, training or apprenticeships. I trained to become a lawyer and didn't actually qualify until I was 26. I messed up my exams on a couple of occasions, but at the end of the day it was still critical to getting on in life and broadening my career options. Most entrepreneurs are not people who leave school at the age of 16 to set up their own business and become billionaires. They are people who have worked for many years in a particular industry, acquired certain skills and know-how and either applied this elsewhere or bought out their boss in a management buyout in order to build the business the way they think it should be built.

Business relationships
In terms of my professional career I have a broad legal and financial skill set which I can leverage in any business. Having this professional background is very useful because it equips me with all the basic skills I need to run my company. In terms of business relationships, it's about making sure that those relationships are mutually beneficial and that you're both putting in sufficient commitment and resource to make it work, otherwise you're wasting your time.

When you're starting out, there's the temptation to jump on any potential new business opportunity or relationship that presents itself, whereas when you've only got finite resources you really need to allocate them carefully. Pick your battles, your business partners and your suppliers carefully.

Hobbies and pastimes
Keep doing the things you love. It's very important to build time for those things into your diary, otherwise life will quickly become all work and no play, as there will always be something that seems more of a priority, especially when you are building a business. One of the upsides of running your own business is that, despite the hours and queue of issues to overcome, you can get to that early morning event at your child's school to see them perform if you really want to. I love mountain biking and spending time riding around the middle of nowhere with friends, so I build this into my schedule. I enjoy cycling generally and commute to work on my bike most days.

It's all about organising it into your routine so it becomes part of daily life. I work hard and take risks in order to look after my family, friends and the causes I'm involved with. Make sure you find time to do the things you love doing, otherwise what is the point?

Failure and success
There's a fine line between the two and in business you tend to hear more about the success stories. There are so many times when you look at yourself or your business partner and think 'how on earth are we going to get through this one?'. You do though, and that is what being an entrepreneur is all about because the alternative is simply an unacceptable outcome.

Having been an investor, adviser and entrepreneur, I know that entrepreneurs are eternal optimists. When you start out, you tend to cling on to things for too long, even when you know deep down that they're not going to end well. Over time, you learn to cut your losses and move on. You learn to live to fight another day. Unlike in the US, there is still a stigma attached to business failure in the UK which will take a generation to change. The vast majority of entrepreneurs I know had a few businesses that didn't work out, or which just didn't scale beyond being lifestyle businesses before they found real commercial success.

Biggest lesson learnt
Know when to cut your losses at the right time, whether it's a potential new business opportunity or you've hired the wrong person for the job. In business (and in life) I've found that as you progress, you learn to focus less on the small things and see the bigger picture.

Comms industry bugbear
There's a sense of denial about the systemic shift to cloud-based solutions and the convergence of telecoms and IT into Unified Communications. The market is going to be disruptive and the channel is going to evolve. Research from a number of sources, combined with our own anecdotal experiences, forecasts that only a small minority of the existing communications channel will embrace the shift to cloud services and survive in the long-term. Now is the time to decide whether you want to become a winner or a loser. Just get out or manage that decline gracefully.

What drives you?
Friends and family. Having fun, creating wealth and the development of innovative and scalable social businesses.

Favourite maxim
I have borrowed it from our company Chairman - 'Do well. Do good'.

Vanilla IP has announced a Virtual Platform Operator programme giving partners the opportunity to set up their own white label reseller channel.

Speaking at VanillaIP's first partner conference at the London Ritz Sales Director Iain Sinnott told delegates: "This offer is open to a limited number of our partners which will enable them to create specific tariffs for their agents via our UBOSS portal."

Sinnott also unveiled Vanilla's new Eternity Licence offer for partners which he said could elevate margins to a new level approaching 70%.

"This is all about building value in your business. On our new Eternity Licence a reseller could earn over £50k gross profit per month for 5,000 customers on a five year licence plan."

Summarising the event Vanilla CEO David Dadds said: "We have been busy and we have been listening. We have a slightly different view on the hosted market. It's all about bespoking packages and bundling services and UBOSS nails that."

ProVu Communications has struck a deal with Czech Republic firm Jablocom to distribute its range of GSM desk phones.

Jablocom phones are designed for many applications including temporary offices such as building sites, new offices where there is no network available or remote locations where there may be no infrastructure.

The phones incorporate all the commonly used business features common to a normal IP phone, including an auto provisioning system and the ability to remotely manage the phones.

ProVu Communications MD Darren Garland said: "The fact that Jablocom haa thought through the provisioning and management of these devices makes these products interesting for both service providers and resellers to put desk phone connectivity where it was not previously possible."

Nimans has strengthened its working relationship with long range wireless technology specialist EnGenius by adding exclusive lifetime warranties to a range of Wi-Fi access points and data solutions.

Nimans was already the official distribution partner of several innovations including the Extreme cordless telephone that offers more coverage than any other consumer rated cordless device in Europe - up to 2km. Superior multi floor coverage can even penetrate concrete.

But now the two companies have teamed-up to offer resellers a wireless networking portfolio such as indoor and outdoor long range Wi-Fi access points.

These include a smoke-detector style ceiling mounted device that dramatically expands the overall user capacity of a network especially when transferring bandwidth intensive files. Another impressive innovation is a long range 2.4 GHz wireless outdoor access point that provides internet connectivity for restaurants, educational and corporate sites.

"It's been another year of great collaboration between Nimans and EnGenius Europe," said Purchasing Director, Andy Winfield.

"The latest network devices represent an exciting new chapter in our partnership, backed by lifetime warranties only available from Nimans."

Nimans is urging resellers to sign up for its Machine to Machine (M2M) sales campaign, citing big market statistics that should catch the attention of all resellers.

"The key message around M2M is that we are seeing a shift from connecting people to connecting things," said Head of Network Services, Mark Curtis-Wood.

"Our world is changing to a new digital revolution. There's been a lot of talk about how the world is going to be connected and how the Internet of Things is going to explode. Away from the futuristic hype there is some real business substance behind some of these concepts."

"Billions of devices are going to be connected - smart cities, homes, cars and lives. M2M is at the heart of this revolution. Solutions can be sold through many vertical markets and opportunities exist within pretty much all industries."

Security, engineering, utilities and energy, vehicle fleets, vending machines and medicine are some of the many relevant sectors, according to Curtis-Wood.

"There are seven billion people on the planet. In 2011 there were an estimated nine billion connected devices with expected growth to reach at least 24 billion by 2020. That's a $12 trillion opportunity.

"90% of the world's data was created in the last two years. There's 25% year on year market growth and digital information, creation and sharing has grown nine times in five years. And 9,500,000 Trillion bytes are created every day. The figures are mind boggling and set to grow even more.

"The opportunity is huge and we want to enable our resellers to take advantage of this exciting new revenue stream. Our team of Account Managers are ready to show resellers how to register to start selling M2M and how we help them identify opportunities in their customer bases. They need to join us on the journey."

Cloud and SaaS company intY has been selected by Symantec as its first UK-based aggregator partner for Symantec.cloud solutions.

The partnership will allow new Symantec.cloud resellers access to Symantec's cloud-based security and management offerings via the intY CASCADE aggregation platform.

The partnership will allow intY's resellers to gain full access to the CASCADE marketplace, resell the Symantec.cloud portfolio and they will also benefit from intY professional services, including a dedicated account manager as well as 24/7 technical support and migration services.

Mark Herbert, Founder and Business Development Director of intY, said: "This partnership further validates the role of aggregation services as the new model for our channel as the cloud opportunity continues to grow."

Genevieve Martin, Director of Channel Sales, Symantec UK&I, said: "intY has a strong reseller base. The CASCADE platform offers a rapid time to market and is intuitive and easy to use for partners. Our resellers can now combine Symantec services with other, interoperable products, in order to help meet the security, email management, and service needs of end-user customers as they embark upon their cloud strategies."

Congrats to Lascom Communications which is celebrating 10 years trading. The firm, now based in Fleet, Hampshire, specialises in the installation and maintenance of phone systems, mobiles, lines and internet.

Lascom employs 10 people and services over 650 clients UK-wide, including solicitors, accountancy practices, recruitment firms, financial services companies, estate agents and pizza restaurants.

Karl Cheshire, founder and Managing Director, said: "I am proud that Lascom has reached our 10 year anniversary. The firm is in a healthy period of growth and I want to thank our clients and the team here who work so hard for them. The telecoms industry has changed so much in this short time and we have and will continue to evolve. Here's to the next 10 years."