Comms Dealer

Joined up comms provider Fidelity Group has been ranked No 8 in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table.

The table ranks Britain's 100 private tech (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales over the latest three years. 

"This is the highest position ever achieved by a comms channel business and we are absolutely delighted to have been recognised for the results we have achieved," said managing director Alan Shraga (pictured).

Founded in 2008, Fidelity's turnover has grown from £400,000 in 2010 to £5.7m in 2013,  a sales growth of 134.15% in just three years.

"We are a small team but we have worked extremely hard and achieved this result in the headwind of the UK's biggest recession in decades," added Shraga.

"More importantly as a channel focused business we have succeeded because of the hard work and talent of our partners. Our mantra of Loyalty, Trust and Delivery has never had more resonance."

Shraga and fellow founder Simon Payne sold two telecoms companies before starting Fidelity, Cable Telecom and VNetworks.

Fidelity's joined up solutions for the channel  include Anvil, a web-based portal for customer management and billing.

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna has praised Pennine Telecom's championing of apprenticeships following a visit to the data and telecommunications specialist's Bury headquarters.

Umunna and local Labour prospective parliamentary candidate James Frith visited to witness first hand the positive impact vocational training has had on young people and the business.

As well as meeting with MD Andrew Roberts the politicians also took time to chat with the ten apprentices currently employed by Pennine to see how they were benefiting from on-the-job training.

Umunna commented: "It is fantastic to see businesses like Pennine Telecom supporting and promoting quality apprenticeships and helping young people get a foot on the ladder."

Frith added: "Pennine is embracing innovation and its growth is founded almost entirely on people with a technical background. The company's success, and how it was achieved, is testament to the importance of providing young people with technical as well as academic routes into work."

Among the young apprentices and workers Umunna and Frith spoke to was Adam Tobin, 22, of Tottington, Bury. He joined the company straight from Tottington High School and has just completed a six year apprenticeship arranged through Bury College.

"I've learned a tremendous amount by training on the job," he said. "Over the years I've received a lot of help and support and gained lots of new skills. Now, having finished my apprenticeship, I have a great full-time job which I see as the beginning of what I hope to be a rewarding career in the communications industry."

The ten apprentices currently on Pennine's books are working across the business, including the company's sales support, radio engineering, telephone engineering, sales, service control and accounts departments.

Roberts said: "I, my fellow director Geoff King and our operations manager Xavier Senelle all graduated from apprenticeships so we know full well their power for personal development and the contribution they have made to our successful and growing business."

As well as supporting apprenticeships Roberts has also promoted technical qualifications and courses locally.

He and HR Manager Ann Barnes have been heavily involved in the development of a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) Centre at Bolton College where Mr Roberts is a governor.

The company also participates in the University of Salford's Knowledge Transfer Partnership which supports businesses wanting to improve their competitiveness, productivity and performance by accessing the knowledge and expertise available within UK universities and colleges.

Nimans' 2014 trade catalogue is flying off the shelves with more than 18,000 of this year's 'Voice & Data Book' despatched to customers across the country so far this year.

The directory encompasses 7,000 products across more than 500 pages and reflects the company's 'Everything Connected' strategy - where resellers can find all the components they need to complete a job from start to finish, backed by a service and support structure.

"The catalogue has been well received and welcomed by our customers," said Group Business Development & Sales Director, Richard Carter. "We all live in a digital age but the catalogue remains a firm favourite as it's a convenient and easy reference point for thousands of products - on a desk or in a reseller's van out on the road.

"The high demand and positive feedback represents one of our most successful launches. Printed pages still remain popular in today's online and digital world."

GCI has bagged mobility services provider CommsXchange, a Vodafone Platinum Partner and Solutions Pioneer. GCI's MD John Whitty stated that the deal came after a detailed search for a right-fit acquisition target. "GCI has been looking for the right mobility business to acquire and CommsXchange proved to be the perfect fit," he said.

"This acquisition provides an excellent springboard to enter into the mobility product space to support the launch of our own applications such as Hosted Desktop, Hosted Lync, Hosted Broadsoft and Exchange."
 
CommsXchange was named Vodafone's Total Communications Partner of the Year and is closely aligned to Vodafone's UC and 4G strategy.? ?Ross Cooper joint MD of CommsXchange, added: "We are focused on carrying on our momentum and embracing the additional opportunities that being part of a large organisation like GCI brings.

"We felt that although we had grown a successful business and we are on a steepening curve this was the right move for us to make at this juncture.

"Becoming part of GCI will enhance what we can deliver to customers and because GCI seem to share many of the same ideologies and focuses the chance of this acquisition being a success for all involved is high."  

Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron joined Brendon Cross of STL Communications to hand over a cheque for £120,000 to Dr Mick Donegan, founder of SpecialEffect.

The money was raised in the Twin Town Challenge, which was organised by Cross and supported by a number of teams from the comms industry including Gamma, LinkConnect, Oak, M12 Solutions and STL Communications.

The Twin Town Challenge was based around the twinned towns of Witney and Le Touquet and saw 50 cars costing less than £500 driving to Le Touquet with challenges at three iconic motor racing circuits.

The event was in aid of SpecialEffect, an Oxfordshire-based charity that helps people with disabilities to benefit from the fun and inclusion of video games.

Cross said: "The amount raised exceeded our original target and will enable SpecialEffect to work with more people with physical disabilities by helping them to play video games using technology ranging from modified joypads to eye-control."

Dr Mick Donegan added, "By levelling the playing field with video games, we are bringing families and friends together and having a profoundly positive impact on therapy, confidence and rehabilitation.

"This amazing sum of money will give us much needed resources to enable even more people to benefit from our support."

Polycom has partnered with distributor Imago Group to launch RealPresence Cloud VaaS into the UK.

Imago is first to market with Polycom RealPresence Cloud Video Meeting Services, a subscription-based cloud video service.

Glynn Jones, Vice President Advanced Technology Group, Polycom EMEA, said: "In today's business environment organisations need to be flexible, both in terms of work styles and IT services. That's why we have rolled out our VaaS offering in the UK after a successful launch in North America. The scalability and flexibility offered by software in a virtualised environment, coupled with a subscription-based pricing model is a great option for many of our customers."

Through the partnership with Imago and its VaaS-t service, Polycom is able to offer a set of always-on virtual meeting rooms or VMRs connecting a variety of voice and video endpoints, priced by participant or by the minute.

Ian Vickerage, Managing Director of Imago Group, added: "Polycom users can be confident that this service will be compatible with their existing video estate while accessing support for their video endpoints and video service from the same supplier."

Jones added: "Partners are a critical component of Polycom's success. Together, we serve a diverse customer base with unique challenges to solve. Our combined efforts help them succeed, and we will continue to drive growth and broader adoption of Polycom's video, voice and content collaboration solutions."

Tom Maxwell has celebrated 25 years in distribution as Nimans held a surprise presentation in front of work colleagues to mark his career in the comms channel.

Maxwell was presented with a bottle of champagne, cake, card, framed photo and vouchers, from Group Sales and Business Development Director, Richard Carter - to acknowledge his milestone.

When Maxwell first started at Nimans in the late eighties the IP, digital and mobile age hadn't even started, and staff numbers were around 12 compared to today's 200 plus.

"There have been many changes," he said. "When I first started, DTMF phones had only just launched and Loop Disconnect systems were still selling well - followed by deregulation that helped shape the industry.

"Fax machines took off due to a postal strike, the payphone market opened up and then we witnessed a digital revolution with ISDN followed by IP. Technology has led opportunity and change.

"Most of the early resellers were retail-based independent phone shops selling landline phones because mobiles didn't exist. Technology has made a huge difference and today's ‘super resellers' are now mainly B2B focused operating from large business units and plush offices.

"The presentation came as a complete surprise. I still enjoy working here as much as ever. There's still many industry characters around and close working associates."

In addition, Warehouse Supervisor Dave Barber has also celebrated 25 years' with the company. Seventy two people have been with the company more than 10 years.

Microsoft multiple Gold Partner Core has acquired Oxford-based CRM company Excitation in a seven figure deal.

Core CEO Conor Callanan said: "Excitation's CRM expertise rounds out our full cloud offering by providing CRM both on premise and online, and aligns Core with the Microsoft strategy of mainstreaming CRM."

The acquisition makes Core a platform partner in the UK and Callanan is not ruling out further acquisitions in the future. "There is ongoing consolidation within the Microsoft partnership space, as customers increasingly move towards full cloud partners and away from specialist boutiques. We're always looking for opportunities to expand the breadth and quality of our services."

Having recently expanded its London offices, Core plans to maximise use of the 4,000 foot Oxfordshire premises where the 14 person Excitation team will continue to operate.

Mark Dendy, CEO of Excitation will join the Core board as CRM Director, and David Jennaway will become Head CRM Architect. "David is the UK's longest standing CRM MVP and the first of key MVPs we plan to add to our cloud teams," added Callanan.

Dendy added: "Having enjoyed Gold partner status in our own right, we're looking forward to introducing our clients to a new pool of expertise, and to be part of a fast growing Microsoft multi-platform partner"

Maintel Holdings has announced growth of 52% in Group revenue in its interim results for the six months to 30th June 2014. Its adjusted profit before tax is up by 21% to £2.9m.

Increased confidence in the economy has seen companies start to re-invest in upgrading their communications infrastructures. In particular, Maintel has won significant infrastructure upgrades in the Higher Education, Health and Retail sectors.

In communications, there is a greater move to IP technologies, which have led to more opportunities in data, VoIP and SIP. It also requires companies to outsource the monitoring of their voice and data networks.

In terms of mobile services, Maintel has been adding more larger corporate customers, who are seeing the value of mobile working. This has resulted in an 11% increase in revenue compared with H1 2013.

As companies modernise, there is more demand to outsource the complete management of their voice and data infrastructure. Maintel has accordingly developed an ITIL-based full managed service proposition underpinned by ISO 20000 certification. This new managed service proposition is already gaining traction with two significant customers going live in H2 2014.

Strong equipment and professional services growth has been supplemented by the services and communications technology capabilities that were acquired via Datapoint in 2013. Datapoint is now fully integrated and performing well. This builds on Maintel's status as the winner of Avaya's Technical Excellence Award 2014.

Maintel is on track to meet the Board's full year expectations with a positive outlook for the second half.

Eddie Buxton, CEO, said: "This is a positive set of results for the Group, with growth in the core Maintel business complemented by a full six months' contribution from Datapoint. The integration of Datapoint is now complete and we remain open to further acquisitions should they provide clear value to shareholders."

Olive Communications has appeared for the 2nd consecutive year in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100. Olive has made a move 42 places up the table to number 49 in 2014.
 
The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 measures the fastest growing privately owned UK technology firms and bases its rankings on revenues from the last three years.
 
Martin Flick, CEO, Olive Communications, said: "It's been a fantastic year for Olive - we've won long-term contracts with prominent enterprise customers such as Lastminute.com, Chelsea FC, Murphy and The Royal Household to name a few.

"At the same time we have enhanced and expanded customer operations including a large new customer contact centre at Hatfield, we have revitalised our brand and won a number of top industry awards, which has all contributed to a strong increase in revenues and profitability."