Comms Dealer

There was a time when drum riffs and door knocks rang loudly in Mark Furness' ears during the working hours. These days, the CEO of essensys is beating the drum about a sound business proposition based on big advances in user self-service and automation.

Following a stint in the music business as a professional drummer, Furness sought a career change and began to sell cable phone and TV services door-to-door on a commission only deal, a grounding that subsequently enabled him to join distributor Crane on its version of a graduate scheme. "Starting my career 'on the knock' was a great apprenticeship and taught me that sales is all about understanding your numbers," he said. "The more doors I knocked, the more I sold."

Later in his career Furness was working at an ISP in its channel team pushing the recently launched hosted voice service. "While it was a fairly new business model, it was clear that hosted services had huge potential," he said. "Any service that could be delivered, at scale with minimal engineering overhead and which provided an element of self-service would deliver huge customer benefits. I'd been looking to start a new business and in October 2006 essensys was incorporated. We started trading on 1st November that same year."

Key to the company's growth has been its relentless focus on automation and user self-service. "By using our software to automate the provision, management and monitoring of our essensysCloud platform, we are able to dedicate more time and resource to the development of our products and services," added Furness. "Simply put, we invested everything we had into our vision of self-service from day one and have never looked back."

Due to the success of its partner channels the essensysCloud is now supporting over 4,500 UK businesses across all industry sectors. "We have grown top line revenues over 330 per cent in the last 36 months, and as these revenues are underpinned by long-term contracts we can look forward to a future of strong predictable cashflow," commented Furness. "Our most notable growth story comes directly from our user interface JEFF. In the last 12 months, JEFF users have increased their monthly spend by 20 per cent with zero touch from us, enabled by our fully automated provisioning, management and monitoring of the clients' services."

The main changes and challenges within essensys over the past few years have been hinged on the issues of keeping up with the opportunities within its reach. "We're a bootstrapped business in the truest sense," added Furness. "With no VC money or private equity backing we've had to be laser focused on the right opportunities at the right times to ensure we had the cashflows to support the inevitable opportunity costs. We've got a strong balance sheet now that is allowing us to accelerate our R&D investment. To put this into perspective, 50 per cent of our employees are software developers or R&D."

To date, essensys has targeted specific verticals, most notably flexible workspace, and it has enjoyed strong organic growth on the back of this strategy. "We have a proven value and technology proposition and we will be leveraging this into new market opportunities later this year, including an exciting and disruptive UK reseller channel programme," stated Furness. "You could say we've just completed an eight year beta trial and we're now ready for a full GA release."

In simple terms, essensys' orchestration platform automates the complete essensysCloud ICT lifecycle. This includes IaaS, UCaaS, PaaS and SaaS. "We see customers increasing spend with every month without us being involved," added Furness. "They control all of their services via one interface. The key for us now is to leverage our orchestration engine and our service platforms into new markets. We currently have around 50-100 new SME leads per month that we cannot support. In the main these are end users who are moving from our serviced office customers and want to keep our services. So we need a channel to fulfil this need.

"As well as high margin, multi-product long-term revenue streams, we'll also be delivering our channel partners a steady stream of hot leads every month. As we have over 40,000 subscribers on our platform, we benefit from significant economies of scale and our commercial model delivers high margin, monthly recurring revenues to partners. The next 24 months will see us complete the roll-out of our global delivery network to launch a truly global solution. We're also looking to make a number of strategic acquisitions to accelerate our growth."

In the wider market, the trends being tracked by Furness are M2M and SDN. These are technologies that will completely change the IT landscape over the coming years, he believes. "The Internet of Things will drive operating efficiencies across so many industries that new opportunities will appear at pace," he said. "It will be a great time for agile, open and standards-based companies that can support customers' IT teams in their move from functional to strategic enablers.

"I'm also encouraged by the new breed of application and software developers that are actually delivering against customer requirements as opposed to the vendor-led products and services of old. It is refreshing that many vendors are now supporting and encouraging this via initiatives such as standards-based APIs, SDKs and application eco-systems that really allow innovation to flourish."

As well as a vibrant environment for innovation Furness has nurtured a company that encourages the proliferation of staff potential and involvement. "You could say we're like Google on a budget," added Furness. "We've got a fully stocked free bar, pool table, relaxation room with massage chairs and every Friday we have Junk Food Friday when I buy lunch for everyone. We simply all believe and are passionate about the automation of service delivery and customer self-service. This is at the heart of everything we're doing."

Another big driver in the evolution of essensys is the volume of user data that its platforms create. "As we have unparalleled user insight from this data, we are able to develop our products and services much more efficiently," noted Furness. "We're now delivering new functionality and services into the interface every four weeks. This is simply something that would not be possible without the user data to drive this development."

The challenges essensys faces today are the same for any fast growing company - people. "There's a real deficiency in the UK in terms of developer talent, so we've had to adapt our approach to ensure that we can keep up the pace of development," Furness said. "We've now got 32 full-time developers in Hanoi and although I'd much rather they be based in the UK we simply couldn't hire the quality or quantity of developers we needed here."

Furness is currently preparing for TEC'14, the firm's fourth annual conference which this year focuses on 'The Power of Orchestration'. The company will be hosting over 300 supplier, partner and customer delegates for a day of 'inspiration and celebration'. "There will be some major announcements at this year's event and we're looking forward to some great speakers too, with Lord Seb Coe as the keynote," added Furness.

"In five years time I expect essensys to be one of world's leading cloud service providers. I hope I'm still here and playing a valuable role at that point, but the one thing I know is that this company will not carry anyone or anything that is slowing it down - me included!"

Here we look at how Toshiba reseller partner Excell upgrades and manages self storage company Big Yellow Group's extensive comms infrastructure.

Pioneering self storage company Big Yellow Group was founded in September 1998, listed on AIM in May 2000 and moved to the full list on the London Stock Exchange in 2002. The company operates from a platform of 77 stores and when new facilities are built the portfolio will provide approximately 4.8 million sq ft of flexible storage space.

Big Yellow's focus on location and visibility of the buildings and its customer ethos have helped to create one of the most recognised brand names in the storage industry. Every room in every store is individually alarmed, while secure perimeter fencing, electronic coded gates, intruder alarms, PIN code entry and CCTV (which is externally monitored 24 hours a day) provide additional levels of security for customers. Its expansion has been organic and looking for innovative ways to improve the customer experience is a priority. An important component of its customer experience strategy is the company's communications infrastructure.

Big Yellow first purchased a Toshiba phone system in 1998 when it standardised with the Strata DK280, and has continued to upgrade its installed base as and when the need has arisen. During this process the Strata DK280 was replaced by the Strata CT, the Strata CTX and now the Strata CIX. In the latest phase of development Toshiba's reseller partner Excell Group shipped 36 Strata CIX670 systems to upgrade the remaining Big Yellow estate.

Toshiba's flexibility in supporting upgrades to previous Toshiba models when launching a new PBX has made the transitions to the new platform straightforward, with many of the existing components being reused while adding the latest technology such as VoIP. The latest upgrade moves away from traditional digital ISDN lines with the deployment of IP trunks, with the cost savings estimated to make the upgrade self-funding over the next three years.

Big Yellow's nationwide presence was posing challenges in terms of communications. With it operating on numerous sites, its ISDN line rental costs were the cause of considerable expense to the business. Excell Group, equipped with expertise gained through dedicated training from Toshiba, possessed the knowledge and capacity to solve this issue. In place of the ISDN lines, the core network was revamped to feature a SIP interconnect, which subsequently enabled each Big Yellow branch to be fitted with SIP trunking.

On top of the cost-savings that SIP trunking provided, Big Yellow was also able to benefit from enhanced flexibility and manageability. It has also seen customer facing benefits from the move to IP trunking, as IP has allowed Big Yellow to improve the customer experience when managing call flows during busy periods or when the stores are closed. The delay while a call forward is processed by the traditional network can add a number of seconds delay into the processing of a customer call, which does not fit well when the company prides itself on responding to customer enquiries efficiently.

Stuart Grinnall, IT Manager at Big Yellow, said: "The upgrade to a more sophisticated set-up is a big step for us. It will allow us to significantly reduce our business overheads and reduce the number of ISDN channels associated with forwarding calls between sites. Being able to divert calls centrally rather than outsourcing them to a central call centre should dramatically decrease our expenditure on line rental.

"We also avoid the headache and expense of replacing the whole estate in one go and can benefit from backwards compatibility with the systems we already have in place. Excell and Toshiba have enabled Big Yellow take a bite sized approach to the project, gradually replacing the system bit by bit, and avoiding a major overhaul which has the potential to jeopardise operations."

Adept at deploying and scaling SIP, hosted PBX and Unified Communications, Excell is well positioned to share research, best-practices, applications and experience, and collectively create bespoke solutions and drive change. Excell Account Director Phil Jones added: "The sheer number of Toshiba products used by Big Yellow is testament to its compatibility with the customer service values of the storage company. There are now 67 Big Yellow stores which use Toshiba's phone systems and 66 per cent of all products at Big Yellow are from Toshiba.

"Cloud communications is more than VoIP or UC, it's a new way to build, deploy and scale enterprise comms systems. It goes further than reducing equipment costs and providing higher definition services, it provides features that service the bespoke needs of customers and keeps Big Yellow at the front of the field."

In February 2014 wholesale comms provider Entanet received an initial investment boost to the tune of £6 million from mid-market equity investor Mobeus Equity Partners to support the £14 million management buyout led by new CEO Elsa Chen. Here, Chen provides an update on developments so far.

With Mobeus' support Chen has taken the helm and wasted no time in implementing a strategy that puts the concept of 'true partnership' at the heart of the business. Turning vision into reality, she has already advanced plans to build a solid loyal partner channel that is capable of driving steady, stable and sustainable growth over the long-term. "The investment will also support the continuing investment we are making in our network and in developing and delivering new services that enable our partners to offer more choice and value to the widest range of customers," stated Chen.

As part of the transaction Mobeus introduced Non-Executive Director Richard Atkins as investing Chairman to advise Entanet at a strategic level. He has significant telecoms experience and a strong track record in delivering growth in private equity backed businesses. Atkins was previously Non-Executive Director of Global Crossing UK, Morse and MessageLabs Group. Building on Atkins' strategic expertise the MBO has also empowered Entanet with a much greater investment capability. "We've already committed around £1 million of investment in our network, but it doesn't stop there," explained Chen. "We have a great appetite to further enhance the technologies, services and platforms that we offer to the channel.

"The MBO has also accelerated our large, ongoing initiative to significantly overhaul and redevelop Entanet's back-end systems. This is creating a future-proof and resilient platform from which all of our operational and commercial systems run, and which support both our internal and partner facing interfaces. It's great news for our channel partners."

The investment is not confined to Entanet's infrastructure and systems, substantial resources have also been made available for staff development. "We're also focusing on our most important asset - our staff," added Chen. "We're firm believers that quality people deliver a quality service and that happy people create happy customers. It's about capability and attitude. Entanet doesn't stop at winning the customer, we aim to win the customer's heart. We are taking this seriously and have recruited a new Head of Human Resources to help us continue to develop the talent and culture in the business. At the same time we've acquired more floor space at our Telford offices and are currently in the middle of a major refurbishment to provide a spacious, modern, calm and professional environment for our staff."

Entanet's core strength is data connectivity and Chen confirmed plans to build additional complementary services based on this key capability. "Connectivity is a delivery vehicle for so many business applications and we'd like to help our channel to capture all of the opportunities that derive from being data experts," she added. "We will remain a channel-focused wholesale provider that's committed to nurturing and developing our channel partners and helping them grow and succeed.

"The last six months have proved to our channel that the promises we made to them when we announced the MBO have been kept. It's inevitable that sometimes news like this can make customers nervous. However, there's been minimum disruption and our customers continue to enjoy the prompt and flexible channel support that Entanet is known for.

"We remain a wholesale, channel focused, business and if our channel weren't happy we wouldn't be in business for long. Our performance in this first half of the year far exceeded our forecast and expectations and this is encouraging evidence, not only of Entanet's own performance, but also of how well our customers received the MBO and their continued confidence in Entanet."

Chen believes that Entanet's policy for establishing true partnerships is a stand-out factor that will ensure it gets the vote over the long-term. "We aim to truly partner rather than just be another supplier," she said. "We genuinely care about our partners and how they want to work with us. That's why we have built high levels of flexibility and support to enable partners to create differentiation within this highly competitive market.

"We work alongside resellers, providing support, training and guidance, as and when it's required and on a case-by-case basis, to help them achieve growth and success. Our basic philosophy is that without successful channel partners we cannot be successful. That's why we always go the extra mile."

Mobeus Equity Partners Non-Executive Director Clive Austin said: "I am genuinely delighted to be working with such an enthusiastic team. Entanet is a great business and has made a superb start. We're pleased with Entanet's performance over the last six months, and happy to see that the company is comfortably achieving, and in many cases exceeding, the targets and objectives we initially outlined at the beginning of the relationship. It's great to work with a company with such clarity and focus in its mission."

MyPhones.com Managing Director Dr Stuart Marsden has forged a course that nudges the boundaries of what's technically possible, and his latest triumph could set a new standard for hosted comms platforms.

Dr Stuart Marsden feels most at home advancing the frontiers of technology. So much so that operating in unfamiliar territory has become his comfort zone. Pushing the boundaries of what's possible and turning vision into reality is his trademark, and soon the comms channel will recognise Marsden as a true pioneer in the development of VoIP. "I have worked at the forefront of emerging technologies my whole life," he explained. "From designing computers and software that explored 40-dimensional hyperspace in the 1970s, to 3D graphics and CGI animation in the 1980s, and financial services during the 1990s."

In 2003 Marsden was involved in a business that began to look at VoIP. The emergence of SIP caught his eye and he decided to set up a company to develop VoIP solutions. "I approached Simon Gregory, who is the best all-round software engineer I have ever worked with," noted Marsden. "With his experience and my own and my wife, Sarah's, background in business, I knew the three of us had all the skills we needed to get the business off the ground. I was also able to fund the project without the need for external investors, having one company sale and a FTSE flotation behind me."

For the last decade MyPhones.com has been at the leading edge of Internet telephony, quietly developing and delivering state-of-the-art hosted platforms. But VoIP was all about cheap calls in the early days and the technology (routers, connectivity etc) was not fit for purpose. "While the technology matured we continued to develop our platform and targeted a system for SMEs," explained Marsden. "Some of our first customers were satellite-based, and we still do a lot of voice over satellite today."

In 2006 MyPhones.com launched a white labelled version of its platform for one of the larger telecoms companies. This system grew to support hundreds of sub-resellers. "Our submersion in the channel was complete and over the next few years we resisted constant requests from resellers to launch a carrier-neutral version of the platform," said Marsden.

"But by 2010, some of the early VoIP players had fallen by the wayside. While a few companies were trying to bend Asterisk into a hosted platform, it was now clear that a single US-based softswitch vendor was starting to dominate the UK market. These were ideal conditions for Version 2.0 of our hosted platform, one that was carrier agnostic, truly white labelled and more competitively priced compared to PBX and other hosted solutions. Initial interest was even better than we expected, and Altos was born."

MyPhones.com has been able to retain all the agility and enthusiasm of a start-up, but with a solid track record on delivery. "We can demonstrate that we are a safe pair of hands," added Marsden. "We are passionate about quality and operate a 'zero-defect' policy coupled with effective process automation. This means that we have been able to grow our base and still remain lean.

"We do not resell or mark-up products and services that we have not created ourselves. This puts the reseller back in the driving seat, free to select the best products from their preferred suppliers. It also avoids the 'one supplier fits all' model. The importance of this power shift should never be underestimated. This approach creates a market where our preferred technology partners - SIP trunk providers, IP phone vendors, CPE fulfilment etc - can grow as we grow. To date, much of our growth has come from personal recommendations and word of mouth. This is custom we value very highly, but in the next phase of our development we need to be more visible across the channel and to develop our sales and marketing activities."

Marsden's deep experience as a board member of a FTSE company has helped to ensure that MyPhones.com retains the characteristics of a small family run company even as it scales up significantly over time. "I have seen first-hand how staff numbers can get away from you," commented Marsden. "In every large company there is a small core of key people who truly understand the technology around the product. We believe that we can achieve everything we need to do with just that small core of no more than 10 staff, supported by efficient, reliable automated processes alongside effective working partnerships."

These solid foundations are a reflection of the company's financial strength. It has no debt and is 100 per cent owned by the directors. "We own all our equipment in our growing number of data centres outright," commented Marsden. "Our Altos revenues are growing by at least five per cent per month compound and we are adding new channel partners every few days. With a phenomenal pipeline, we see no reason why this should not accelerate."

An increasing number of resellers will choose to grow by using their skills to act as aggregators for their own sub-resellers. On the flip side, the number of companies with the skills and experience to develop and manufacture their own products from scratch is likely to remain low. This is how MyPhones.com will continue to differentiate. "We already hold a patent for technology to mitigate against CPE router issues, and we will continue to innovate," added Marsden.

MyPhones.com currently has live traffic with more than 15 SIP trunk providers, two of which are not UK-based. Expanding overseas would be a natural progression now that hosted telephony is mainstream and the market is becoming increasingly competitive. And at some point, wholesale prices will come under pressure. "As we own all our own intellectual property rights, we are well placed to continue to compete in this new world," added Marsden. "With our Altos subscription charges as low as £1.95 per month for a fully functional seat, some might say we have already started the trend."

Graham Harris, Product Director for Cloud at Daisy Wholesale, discusses the newly Christened Age of Virtual Hosted Desktops, why the BYOD market will be blown wide open and why now is the perfect time for resellers to capitalise on cloud-based opportunities.

There was a time when mainframe computers sat at the centre of a network of PCs providing storage and applications to the office. As computer processing and storage capabilities improved, dependency moved away from the mainframe onto PCs, replacing the mainframe with a central server that was accessible by all PCs. But in a swift turn of events this trend has now reverted back to a centralised piece of intelligence. "From this central hub users can log-in and use the supercomputing resource in the core as their processing power, ultimately making the desktop redundant," stated Harris. "Welcome to the age of Virtual Hosted Desktops (VHD)."

Daisy Wholesale moved quickly to catch this trend and has introduced Hosted Desktop Services (HDS), the latest addition to its cloud portfolio. HDS enables users to access all of their programmes, business systems and shared files, securely on any device from any location. "Because the access runs over a hosted platform the user is free to work from pretty much anywhere and at any time, in the same way as they would from their desktop PCs," added Harris. "Using an individual log-in, users have the ability to move their activity seamlessly between devices. For example, they may be working on a tablet while on the move, but when they get home they may want to continue working on a laptop. This level of sophistication when it comes to flexible remote working will blow the BYOD market wide open."

VHD has hitherto not been a cheap or mainstream solution for resellers. In the main it was the larger companies that employed hosted desktops as a privately owned solution which came with a hefty price tag. But this new model brings hosted desktops to the masses, making it more accessible for the SME market, pointed out Harris. "In the past, the thought of BYOD has sent IT departments running for the hills and there is still a resistance to change," he added. "Multiple devices running different versions of software, all wanting access to business critical data, has presented them with support and security nightmares.

"With HDS, IT teams don't have to worry about the separation of work and personal content on devices. Because it is completely cloud-based it already provides clear separation between the two. It does not pull data onto the device itself, but onto the platform so it alleviates the fear of data falling into the wrong hands. By deploying virtual desktops, a business could move away from the strains of maintaining a complex IT infrastructure and potentially banish the use of tower PCs. As a result, they can reduce their investment demands and capex in the office, satisfy their employees' needs and still operate to full capacity."

Daisy Wholesale's HDS proposition offers packages that represent different tiers of functionality - Gold, Silver and Bronze. On top of these, resellers can choose to add storage and applications depending on the customer's requirements. "This is where resellers can start to build up the value," commented Harris. "Once built through the portal, resellers simply place the order and within minutes the end user will receive an email confirming their log-in details. A desktop can be deployed within 10 minutes. The level of automation available through the portal can help to improve margins and provide an overall improved service for both the reseller and their customers."

HDS enables non-IT oriented resellers to offer an IT solution to their customers. "This is a new opportunity for resellers to promote, and for end users to throw themselves into, especially given the slick ordering and provisioning portal," claimed Harris. "Not to be confused with Microsoft 365, which allows users to rent licenses, HDS provides the processing power too. Although 365 might be an attractive option for companies with an existing infrastructure, and can indeed be used inside HDS if preferred, it does not provide the engine room processes available from HDS."

According to Harris, virtual hosted desktop is the only option but the reality is that most businesses already have an infrastructure in place with hardware and software etc, and the idea of throwing it all out and losing that investment isn't an option. "However, the retirement of Microsoft's support for Windows XP will see some businesses come to a crossroads when choosing the direction of their IT infrastructure," Harris explained.

"Now is the time for these businesses to make the move to HDS. There is a prime opportunity for resellers to offer them a cloud-based solution that future proofs their communications at a predictable cost, while also providing resellers with great downstream revenues."

Businesses are still stuck on 'old world' thinking when addressing security issues. Cloud is different, it requires a seamless approach to security and risk management that understands and manages the new virtual perimeter, according to Garry Sidaway, Global Director for Security Strategy, NTT Com Security (formerly known as Integralis).

Information security and risk management needs to be built into cloud models from the beginning. But the challenge, pointed out Sidaway, is the mix of CPE, data centre and cloud and getting consistent information security controls and management across this complex business environment. "This is why it requires a consistent approach to information security and risk management and one that embeds information security into the overall business," he said.

Security remains the biggest concern facing end users transitioning to the cloud. As an information security and risk management company, NTT Com Security sees cloud security concerns and challenges every day. "Businesses have to understand that they are still responsible for the information and data in the cloud environment and put in the necessary controls and governance to protect this data," said Sidaway. "The other concern is the mix of traditional on-premise, data centre and cloud environments and how to get consistent visibility and information security controls and management across these different environments."

Last year NTT Com Security undertook a global research project on cloud and found that UK businesses were falling behind other markets when it came to integrating cloud as part of their IT infrastructure and moving data or services into cloud. The report suggested that issues like security, compliance and regulation were playing their part in this. "High profile breaches relating to the loss or theft of data stored in the cloud isn't helping to ease fears," said Sidaway. "But as our research showed, even those organisations that displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the cloud saw the inevitability of cloud computing. But users must understand the risks and put in appropriate controls and governance to ensure that these risks are managed to an acceptable level."

With many organisations concerned about security and regulation, cloud suppliers need to work harder at addressing these concerns and work closely with customers to help understand their issues and guide them through the cloud process. CSPs and resellers should also be looking to embed information security, compliance and regulatory services into products and solutions. "We work closely with our strategic partners to build solutions and services that help organisations address these concerns," noted Sidaway. "It is not a matter of simply bolting on or virtualising these technologies, they have to be designed and implemented into a coherent cloud architecture.

"We need to move the defences from the perimeter into the cloud, not the traditional network, but the new perimeter of the 'active cloud'. Clouds that can redefine the network in microseconds; clouds that automatically update and reconfigure applications and systems depending on the actual threats rather than what we have seen before; clouds that have information and security built in and can put risk in context to ensure that businesses can work in a world without constraint and fear."

Security is still the number one concern with cloud adoption, but end users are nevertheless embracing cloud because it makes their lives easier, affirmed Sidaway. "The challenge for the businesses we deal with is that in our private lives we use cloud services that we can't use in our business lives," he noted. "The risks are seen to be too high. But with the correct balance of risk and controls businesses can also embrace cloud. There are numerous technology companies and innovations that are addressing these concerns and we are evaluating new services and solutions to meet this new business dynamic."

NTT Com Security's solution, WideAngle Managed Security Services (MSS), offers insight into what is happening at both the network and application layer, providing customers with meaningful information for active threat management. The WideAngle platform provides a single solution for private, public and hybrid models as well as on-premise. Customers can chose a complete managed service model or the SecureCall round the clock telephone and email support service with four levels of support to suit specific requirements.

The visibility customers have of real and potential threats through an MSS model that offers global threat intelligence and shared knowledge and systems, means organisations can take the appropriate action at the appropriate time and get more from their existing security investment. "There is so much pressure on internal resources today, but a third party supplier reduces opex costs while allowing the business to focus on making informed decisions," added Sidaway.

He also works closely with reseller partners to understand what they are seeing in their market segments. "We embed their services into WideAngle MSS to provide clarity and visibility into their cloud offerings," he commented. "We share our experience and knowledge with not only their employees but also their customers, and run education and awareness training sessions."

BYOA (Bring Your Own App) is a trend that Sidaway believes is gaining in momentum. "At the moment, businesses and employees have little or no visibility over the data exchange between the devices they use and the cloud," he said. "Earlier this year our Global Threat Intelligence Report showed that applications pose a real danger to organisations because many applications that send and receive sensitive data to and from the cloud are not being detected by traditional anti-virus software. This means that the security industry needs to step up its game to ensure endpoint solutions are augmented with network malware detection and purpose-built solutions.

"Our threat report without exception found that organisations are still not implementing basic controls. These controls have been the result of years of best practice and can have a significant effect on mitigating risk. Organisations need to test and continue to test these controls to reduce the impact of risk, and individuals need to take responsibility and also be aware of the risks."•

After three decades in the channel Oak has positioned itself as the prominent provider of call logging and call recording solutions for resellers serving SME customers, but the company is now expanding into the mid-market with what Joint CEO Philip Reynolds describes as 'the big one'.

In October Oak will be unveiling version two of its Evolve solution to resellers across the UK which Reynolds believes represents the zenith of Oak's £1 million software development programme. "This is the biggest software launch in Oak's 30 year history," he said. "We have never been more focused and more excited about any product we've developed, even more than our multi-award winning RecordX.

"I have been writing call management software since 1985, but this one's a bit special. All of my knowledge gained from writing software used by millions of end users across the globe combined with my son David's in depth technical skills has created something that will have an impact on the telecoms world for many years to come. This is the big one."

Reynolds says Evolve is a new real-time product using the latest technologies in all areas. "It has a fully web-based and mobile front-end and a sophisticated back-end that sits on a Windows platform," he explained. "It can process millions of calls instantly with its advanced database indexing and it uses a range of CTI connections for real-time call handling and recording. It's secure and uses a powerful policy system to manage access to all parts of Evolve. Yet it still remains user-friendly due in part to having dedicated user experience designers as part of the Evolve development team. With a team approaching ten developers on Evolve we also see further rapid development to meet all future needs of our reseller partners."

Having served the SME reseller market for so long the 'Evolution' into the mid-market and contact centre business sectors could be seen as risky, but Reynolds says Oak is simply responding to channel change. "It's all been driven by the fact that we sell through resellers and resellers have been predominantly SME which is no longer the case," said Reynolds.

"Switch manufacturers now offer solutions that don't stop at 20, 50 or 100 extensions but expand to 500 to 1,000 extensions and beyond on the same platform. The knowledge and skill set needed to sell and support the 50 extension solution has now become transferable to much larger opportunities. We want to highlight that our solutions are also expandable in the same way, not just that they can record or report on larger or more sophisticated solutions, but that they have been enhanced to cater for the new demands."

Reynolds believes channel partners may still regard Oak and its solutions as SME centric, and while Oak will continue to serve this sector he is keen to widen reseller thinking about his company's solutions. "Of course we want to continue to be perceived as SME because having a large number of small sales every month is a great business model, but we want to highlight that the regular mid-market opportunities can also now be fully addressed by Oak," he stated.

Oak's Evolve solution started life as a complex call centre management solution for the Avaya IP Office. "It's positioning was almost self-determined," commented Reynolds. "We've taken that to the next level by adding not just call centre functionality but more sophisticated options for real-time business functionality. It was initially designed to address the needs of the call centre market, but it quickly became apparent that it could also handle larger more complex real-time business opportunities.

"In version 2.0 we've added advanced real-time call recording functionality, drill down cradle-to-grave reporting, a powerful dashboard, a real-time wallboard and real-time fraud detection. In essence, we've added advanced functionality to address the business market."

Oak is planning a UK-wide roadshow to launch Evolve 2.0 to current partners and, Reynolds hopes, new resellers targeting the contact centre and mid-sized business sectors. "We always aim to upskill our current partners as well as look for other partners who might be vertical market focused," he commented. "We're planning a roadshow across the UK to promote both the Evolve Business Edition as well as the Call Centre Edition. This will give all our reseller partners the chance to see the product first hand. If we can attract a few new resellers along the way that would be great."

Reynolds says individual Oak account managers and specialist technical support people will be on hand to assist both the Oak sales team and its resellers in driving the more complex mid-market opportunities which he believes are growing fast.

"We see a growing demand for larger bespoke call recording solutions which is a perfect fit for Evolve 2.0 and our resellers," he added. "If an end user opportunity needs speech analytics, quality management, multi-platform playback, mobile access, enhanced security, scalability, PCI compliance and a state of the art user experience then Evolve meets these demands and more.

"The call centre and real-time reporting functionality will also present our resellers with high value sales opportunities. End users are looking for solutions that integrate with their business and they are prepared to pay top prices to get them. A fully integrated business solution saves so much time, and allows a business to attract and process more sales and provide a better service to its customers. The return on investment is always assured."

Building sites were once the stomping ground for Darren Boyce, CEO of Proximity Communications, so it's no surprise that he's laid firm foundations for one of the comms industry's highest risers.

Scroll down Boyce' CV and you'll look back to a time when he made a living out of tree surgery, hod carrying and driving a JCB before an opportunity arose to join a cabling company 21 years ago. He soon found his feet and moved into a sales role, and after a run of healthy deal wins he was approached by LANBase to build up its sales operation. More success followed and a place in the management team beckoned ahead of a promotion to Sales Director. "It was during this role that I learnt a lot about managing a mixed but successful team of sales, project management and pre-sales," recalled Boyce. "After growing the business from inception to £25 million in seven years we sold the organisation to a listed company that was later acquired by a leading Tier 1 telco in 2000."

This experience infused Boyce with enough confidence to take the plunge and start his own business. Proximity Communications was created in 2009 following a merger between Applinet and the Unified Group. Boyce was Managing Director of Applinet at the time, and in a joint arrangement with the Managing Director of Unified Group, Michael Lloyd, the pair bought the two companies together. Boyce then took the role of Group CEO while Lloyd assumed the MD position.

"It was unusual at the time for close competitors to merge, but Applinet and Unified Group shared many cultural similarities and both teams were striving towards the same goals, so it made perfect sense," said Boyce. "The merger allowed the company to provide nationwide coverage to more than 200 loyal, growing customers. Combined, the two companies also had a turnover of well over £10 million and a far more comprehensive portfolio."

Through keeping a sharp focus on its core strengths and building an effective team Proximity has gone from strength to strength over the past three years, with EBITDA rising rapidly over this period. The company closed FY2013 with £3.8 million in the bank and forecasts this year point towards 25 per cent growth. This success has resulted in Proximity being listed in the London Stock Exchange: 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain and the Thames Valley Top 250 Companies.

Proximity caters for small SMEs and enterprises, tailoring solutions as required while not over promising or under delivering. "Our medium and long-term ambition is to keep striving for success as we introduce new skills and services to our client and partner base," added Boyce. "We aim to be seen as an extension of their team and not just another supplier."

A major challenge for the entire industry is the lack of talented resource available, a point on which Proximity has no immunity. "Five to ten years ago the market overflowed with very capable people who were able to make a great living in the IT sector," commented Boyce. "Now, most of those people are either retired, running their own business or have taken some of the industry's most prestigious roles. I believe we've failed in bringing in new talent from the next generation to fill up the positions that have become vacant. We could learn a lot from the Premiership where many of the most successful football teams have a youth programme and academy that allows them to develop and nurture the stars of tomorrow."

Despite the recruitment headache, last year proved to be Proximity's most successful in terms of new business secured, both in contract value and client numbers. The company came out of 2013 debt free with a 21 per cent rise in net profits. And having secured talented people into its management team, Proximity is able to harness their diligence and passion on its organic growth journey. "We're also looking at acquiring, where the skills that we believe are required can maximise the accounts we have today as well as attract new ones tomorrow," added Boyce. "Finding the right skill sets, areas of interest and the size of organisation that we're comfortable with will take some time and won't happen overnight. However, it will be an interesting journey and as the merger has demonstrated, we have the necessary experience to get the best out of bringing organisations into the Group."

To prove the point Boyce cited a milestone deal win that he believes puts Proximity firmly on the map. "In February this year, against all the odds, our team was awarded the contract to help a major LSE business move its premises," he enthused. "This proves Proximity has some of the best people the industry has to offer. When you start a company you have an idea of what it will hopefully become, and this February my vision became a reality. There's something special in that. That was a defining moment for me.

"My biggest achievement was also realising that there are great talents out there who can care about the business as much as I do. Also, me learning to let them get on with it, without getting in their way, is a massive achievement. It's hard to let go when it's been your baby for the last 10 years."

Having learnt these lessons, hindsight demonstrates that there are a number of things Boyce would have done differently. "A big regret is not having enough faith in myself earlier," he explained. "If I could go back I would definitely start my own business much sooner because if you believe in what you're doing and in yourself anything is achievable. Another regret is not employing the calibre of people I now have from the very start of the business. It's a fact that finding a good team and getting them to work as a team are two very different challenges. But now we've ticked both of those boxes."

As well as building a winning team, having a clear view of where Proximity performs best and playing to those strengths is also a priority. "It's not rocket science to understand what you are good at but it is amazing how many successful companies are swayed by the market and diversify significantly, too quickly, only to fail and then revert back to their core competency," commented Boyce. "Like a house, a company must be built on sound foundations and then be erected brick by brick."

Boyce has also adopted a step-by-step approach to developments in the market such as virtualisation, public and private cloud. He believes it is difficult to make money from the cloud unless the infrastructure is owned and funds are available to invest over a long period before getting the returns. "That said, all the typical topics of voice and data infrastructure, be it on-premise or a hybrid of both physical and virtual solutions, are still very much happening," he added. " We are watching with interest the development of some platforms that will complement, not replace, our current business. When we feel it's right for the enterprise client, we will push ahead with gusto to ensure we deliver these requirements for our customers."

Boyce urges his counterparts to continue focusing on client needs and to do so with the right level of structure. "As time moves on, VARs and SIs will be expected to provide services that clients truly recognise," he commented. "It's the value added extras we do as part of a package that the client is really wanting to pay for. I have worked in a number of large organisations and one in particular had its face to the boss and its backside to the client. Needless to say the company never made it through, even though it was successful at the time."

This year Comms Vision explores the impact of the Digital revolution and how it is transforming the comms channel. Such 'Change is Good', writes Content Director John Chapman, who outlines the many ways in which this industry-leading event has tracked change, and helped delegates to chart a new course for their businesses through strategic change management.

In the mid 1980s I attended a week-long intensive management training course delivered by Price Waterhouse, and I remember when completing the course questionnaire about how useful the course had been, writing down 'You allocated only half an hour on Wednesday afternoon to change management. Change Management is all I ever do!'. For anybody in the comms channel, over the last few years this cry has echoed a hundredfold.

But that has not always been the case. When we were debating the idea of Comms Vision and whether the comms channel would be interested in an event that looked to the future and the likely changes afoot, we decided to do some intensive research on the channel and its vendors and service providers. The feedback we got was not encouraging.

The main comment was that little had changed over the last 15 years and that any change would happen over the long-term with a slow evolution. Vendors and service providers however were keen on such an event as they saw massive change coming and felt the channel to be totally unprepared for the level and speed of change. Thus Comms Vision was born.

We were clear from the very start that Comms Vision was not about disseminating tactical product knowledge and providing a shop window for new products as most industry events are. With a target delegate audience of channel CEOs and senior directors we deliberately separated the content into open sessions with a focus on the future and market evolution, with business focused Boardroom style sessions and one-to-one meetings where sponsors and delegates could get down to building relationships at the highest level. The formulae has stood the test of time as we are now in our ninth year and the feedback from delegates and sponsors gets better each year.

Such positive feedback affirmed that the future of Comms Vision was not going to be just about the content and the business networking, it was going to be about helping delegates understand that change is good and by first changing their thinking they could plot a successful future without endangering their existing business.

It was this change in thinking that was going to be the key: 'The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking', said Albert Einstein. This revelation helped us structure the content over the years adding in many external speakers who could stretch the way delegates think and see their challenges among a much broader evolving business world.

Over the years we have covered many technology changes - the evolution from the traditional TDM-based PBX through IP Telephony, virtualised architectures, hosted telephony and cloud-based UC. We have charted the move to a software led world through soft PBXs, integrated CRM applications, mobile and M2M applications, Big Data analytics and social collaboration.

Most importantly through presentations and debate we addressed how the channel needed to evolve their businesses not only to survive but to grow and develop to be leaders of the future. Through sessions on managed services, creating a value chain and competitive advantage to understanding business transformation and true customer satisfaction and experience, Comms Vision has helped change the thinking of some of the UK's finest business minds. The results of which can be seen by the make-up of delegates over the last few years.

Quite a few of the delegates from the first few years are no longer in the business having chosen to sell their company or their customer bases, preferring to take early retirement rather than tackle the enormous changes they could see coming. We have also seen many mergers and acquisitions as delegates got together over Comms Vision and decided to combine their skills and knowledge to give themselves a better fighting chance in this new comms world.

Most intriguing have been those organisations who have changed and evolved to meet the challenge. Some have done this through their own resources, taking time to develop new skills and expertise, others have gone with a big bang approach raising funds to create scale by acquiring skills and organisations and accelerating the pace of change.

For all these organisations the challenge has been huge not only in acquiring new technical and software skills but most importantly in developing sales organisations capable of talking to the new types of customers about business topics rather than just features and benefits.

Tony Parish, CEO of G3 Comms, offers an insight into the scale of this challenge: "In my years in comms, there have been in my view two or three waves of change in our industry - analogue to digital, digital to IP, now IP to SIP. The changes are becoming more complex and challenging to traditional comms businesses. In the past we have had to retain our people for the changes, this time I believe that we need to re-engineer our businesses altogether. On the back of a global financial crisis that has challenged our industry, we have had this radical change in the technology that we sell. These are testing times!"

Comms Vision may not be able to take the credit for the incredible change and prosperity of today's comms channel because what is needed to drive through change in any business is down to the bravery, enthusiasm and skill of the directors. However, I am confident that Comms Vision has had a great influence in changing the way business leaders now think about how to develop their businesses.

Stephen Dracup, Managing Director of Chess Telecom, commented: "Attendance at Comms Vision has always been valuable as it allows me to get to meet many of the key people and vendors in our space without having to visit them all separately. We have also found the guest speakers especially useful. Implementing some of the ideas discussed at Comms Vision has added value to our business.

"In particular, in 2012 we implemented energy and attitude scoring for all our people, revolutionising our recruitment and 121 processes. Last year, after the sessions on social communications, we rolled Yammer out to all our businesses significantly improving both internal communication and engagement."

Brendon Cross, Managing Director of Oxon-based STL Communications, is also an enthusiastic supporter of Comms Vision. "STL is a progressive, innovative and forward thinking communications services provider and over the years Comms Vision has had a major influence on many of the decisions we have made in the business," Cross commented. "Comms Vision has also provided confirmation that we are on the right track at STL, most notably with regard to SIP-ISDN replacement and hosted telephony, both of which are now the strongest growing areas of our business.

"STL enjoys long-term and mutually beneficial partnerships with all of our suppliers and some of these have come as a direct result of one-to-one or boardroom sessions at Gleneagles. Where there was already an existing relationship it will have been enhanced through interaction at Comms Vision."

Steve Niven, Director at Networks First, commented on what makes Comms Vision special for him. "I have always enjoyed the opportunity to attend Comms Vision as I know that I will have the opportunity to meet with likeminded people who share the same business interests," Niven explained. "I've found the key differentiator with this event is that developments within the channel are debated at a business level. The technology is still a part of this, but how the channel can address the needs of organisations at an operational level is key.

"With a 25 year history of working with the channel, Networks First has witnessed a changing scenery across both partners and vendors. With the rapid pace of adoption of new technologies being bi-directional, whereby those in the IT world need to keep pace, no longer does technology only infiltrate from the enterprise down. Employees are demanding working practices which reflect their use of technology outside the business arena. I'm looking forward to this year's event and the focus on the way UC&C is changing."

Moving forward, Comms Vision will keep to its 'Change is Good' mantra particularly this year as we explore how the confluence of new market forces and technologies are creating a whole new era of IT which will in turn bring new challenges and opportunities for the comms channel.

Under the theme of 'Digitalisation - driving new enterprise and industry business models', Comms Vision 2014 will attempt to clarify the major trends driving Digitalisation, what this means to the comms channel, how it is changing the way organisations will be purchasing UC&C solutions in the future, who will have control of the budgets, where UC&C fits within the wider hybrid IT world, and most importantly how to exploit the opportunity. We look forward to welcoming those with the vision to understand that 'Change is Good'.

To register your interest in attending the conference, please visit: www.commsvision.com

As I write at the start of September our vacancy board has pretty much the same jobs on it as six weeks ago, plus half as many again of new ones that have come in since. We bust our two month target in early July, but since then most companies have struggled to get much interest over the summer holidays, writes Clive Jefferys, JMA Network.

Many clients have called to say 'What am I doing wrong, why is no-one applying?', and I have reassured them it's nothing personal. We've had great weather and this did effect the candidate market, as when life is good and fun, most people put off hard decisions like moving job.

The good news (for recruitment) is that summer is over! The kids are glumly awaiting their return to school, but parents and hirers have much to celebrate!

September and October is the second peak in the recruitment year, and by the looks of it business will be brisk. Hirers are fully primed to make fast decisions as they need new people to start work as soon as possible. The opportunity loss of empty seats is costing companies too much, so we are now seeing much higher salary offers to attract the right people. Overall, business confidence is at its highest point for many, many years and in recruitment terms, this is a perfect seller's market.

So my message this month is aimed squarely at people who would like a new job. Stop liking, and get looking! You'll be amazed at the selection of great job opportunities open to you.