Comms Dealer

The unified communications market is up 27% from a year ago, according to Infonetics Research. Top player Microsoft is also the only vendor in the enterprise telephony segment to post year-over-year revenue growth in 1Q14. The PBX market continues to decline, says the think tank.

Infonetics Research says the enterprise telephony market continues to struggle as businesses hold off new PBX purchases and invest instead in unified communications (UC) applications.

"Purchase cycles are getting longer, and competitive activity is putting pressure on the market with pricing all over the map," said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.

Worldwide PBX revenue (TDM, hybrid, and pure IP) is down 8% in 1Q14 from 1Q13, and down 8% from 4Q13.

Although there are pockets of growth in parts of Europe and South America, along with strength down market, none of it is large enough to lift the overall PBX market.

Cisco, Avaya, and NEC are the PBX market share leaders, while Mitel is now in the top four as a result of its merger with Aastra.

The unified communications (UC) segment is the lone bright spot, racking up a 27% worldwide revenue increase in 1Q14 from the same period a year ago.

Content Guru has been awarded G-Cloud V supplier status for products including its omni-channel Cloud Contact Centre and secure payment services.

Through G-Cloud's online CloudStore public sector organisations are able to search for and purchase over 17,000 types of service.

G-Cloud V is the fifth iteration of the suppliers' framework. During G-Cloud IV, public-sector buyers spent £175 million on products and solutions, a significant increase from the £37m during the previous three releases.

Additionally, government agencies using G-Cloud are reported to be making savings of 50% on average.

Sean Taylor, Managing Director at Content Guru, commented: "We're pleased to have been selected as a G-Cloud supplier once more. Our business is very focused on cloud services and over the last two years we've seen the demand for them ramp up significantly.

"The increase in the uptake of services using G-Cloud is a good indicator of the general trend for cloud. This is good for our business and good for UK plc."

Tech Data's shares fell 4% as it announced that Q1 saw global net sales for the first quarter of $6.7bn, an increase of 9% yr/yr, but gross profit was $335.3m, or 4.98% of net sales, compared to $322.4m, or 5.24% of net sales in the prior-year quarter.

Europe saw net sales of $4.3bn (approximately 63% of worldwide net sales), an increase of 10% (an increase of 5 percent in euros), from the prior-year quarter. Operating income was $7.2 million, or 0.17% of net sales, compared to $11.9 million, or 0.31% of net sales in the prior-year quarter.

"We are pleased to report a good start to fiscal year 2015," said Robert M. Dutkowsky, chief executive officer.

"Our focus on execution, supported by an improved IT demand environment resulted in record first-quarter sales, nearly double-digit year-over-year growth in non-GAAP earnings and strong operating cash flow.

"Growth in first-quarter non-GAAP earnings exceeded our expectations, demonstrating our ability to achieve solid operating performance when we focus on and respond to the realities of the market. We believe our focus on the marketplace and operations will enable us to build upon this momentum during fiscal 2015 and beyond."

Billing platforms set resellers free to develop even stronger relationships with customers based on the meaningful management of their data, but only if resellers adopt the latest margin rich products and services, says Steve Redman, Commercial Manager for Aurora Kendrick James (AKJ).

First and foremost, a billing platform needs to be fit for purpose. This means allowing the reseller to bill accurately and in a timely manner the products and services they sell to the end customer. The processing speed of the billing platform needs to support the reseller's requirement in this regard, including the ability to scale up as the reseller grows. That said, the timeliness of a billing process is about more than just the speed of the software. An efficient billing operation covers the whole month's activities - daily rating, tariff rate management, updating customer details, invoice design changes and many more. The fastest billing platform won't allow a reseller to get bills out on the first of the month if a backlog of tariff updates still needs to be applied.

But the biggest issue in the billing space right now is the erosion of call margins. Resellers need to be able to embrace new style products and services then manage them properly within their billing system to stay competitive and grow their business. But this brings greater sophistication. As billing solutions become more complex with higher levels of back office system integrations and 24/7 operations, the need for the billing system to be hosted on highly available IT infrastructure becomes greater.

This requires a level of IT investment in hardware and personnel that is greater than many resellers are willing or able to make. As such, AKJ would recommend a cost-effective hosted option. The security of hosted solutions is an important consideration, along with disaster recovery, system availability and performance. Chosen carefully, a hosted solution can offer far more security resilience than most internal IT infrastructures. The risks, however, should be no greater than for a solution hosted in house.

Another key element in the mix of new services offered by today's billing software is the ability to combat fraud activity using a billing system's fraud capabilities such as AKJ's Affinity platform. However, the billing software is only as effective as the information entered into it. And a billing system is not the best tool to identify fraud quickly if the only input is a monthly CDR data feed where a number of weeks fraudulent activity has taken place.

Fraud should be managed as close to real-time as possible. Switchless resellers typically receive, at best, daily CDR feeds from suppliers. For these resellers the billing system can play a key role in monitoring usage and provide reporting and alerting for scenarios deemed unexpected. This can cover genuine fraud and, for the end customer, misuse. For example, high cost calls, long duration calls and calls to unexpected destinations.

Also beneficial is integration with back office software, especially for resellers who want grow their product range and add more customers, more staff and more information. A typical end customer will use five software packages in the lifecycle of a sale - a sales system, a provisioning tool, a billing system an accounts package and a CRM database. The benefit or otherwise of integration to other back office software depends on how the reseller manages their version of the above process, and who at which stage needs to know information that may be captured at a different stage.

For example, does the sales person looking to cross sell a product need to be aware that the customer hasn't paid their last invoice, or that there are three fault tickets requiring attention? Independent back office systems performing these various roles lessens the ability to easily share information, and also lessens efficiency if information needs to be entered and maintained in multiple systems.

Another of today's big considerations is a customer's mobile strategy. Mobile billing differs from traditional fixed line, and the complex nature of tariffing options, sharer tariffs, bundles and equipment, plus roaming and other mobile services, along with various taxation rules for these, all add up to the two being very different. This difference is further highlighted once billing reconciliation comes into play. Identifying whether a reseller's tariffs are cost-effective, whether end customers are on appropriate tariffs for their usage profile and so on, becomes highly complex once all the criteria are taken into consideration.

For all of the reasons outlined above, often the billing software is not enough to allow resellers to manage a converged fixed and mobile customer base. But a billing solution such as AKJ's Affinity platform combined with a consultative approach provides the knowledge and expertise to help resellers understand and manage the converged network environment, and have confidence in their ability to manage their business and customers effectively.•

It can be difficult to read the channel's mood, but a clear swing towards Plusnet's relaunched partner programme is on the cards, according to Nick Silverwood, Head of Business, who discusses the Yorks-based provider's reinvigorated channel proposition.

Nowadays the Plusnet brand is well known across the nation as a residential provider, thanks to a clever marketing effort that has paid off handsomely. Not so widely known is its play in the business market, but all that is changing, fast. Plusnet, originally known as Force9 Internet, was established in 1997 on the simple premise that it would 'think and act differently' to rival providers and save customers money. Despite many transformational changes to the business that ethos still holds firm. That's not changed since the day it launched.

Contrary to popular belief Plusnet has been delivering business connectivity products for over 14 years. Silverwood joined the company in 1999 selling dial and ISDN services to small businesses. Last year the company relaunched its business brand to offer fibre broadband. A priority now is to raise awareness of its push into business and build on its channel. "Having refreshed our business services last year, including the launch of up to 80Mb fibre services, it's the perfect time to work with channel partners and widen our reach to the SMB sector," said Silverwood.

"The launch of fibre creates a new opportunity for Plusnet and the channel to service the increasing demand and use of cloud services such as data storage and hosted voice. While copper broadband services can be used to offer these services to a small extent, the increased upstream capacity of FTTC opens up new opportunities for many small businesses."

The benefits of fibre are undisputed. Research by Plusnet has quantified the value fibre can bring to a small business. Companies taking part in Plusnet's pre-launch trial reported that the fibre solution increased speeds, boosted efficiency and productivity, and 87 per cent said they would recommend the package to other businesses. Such a ringing endorsement is good news for the channel as well as end users, noted Silverwood.

"Our main priority is to increase awareness of our channel programmes and to start building a network of dealers and resellers who specialise in servicing the SMB sector," he explained. "We recognise that many small businesses don't have the knowledge and expertise to make the right technology decisions so they work with partners to ensure they have a strategy that underpins their objectives and growth plans. We want to help these dealers or resellers to service their customers with quality broadband, fibre and telephony products."

Plusnet launched its partner programme in 2009. Today it comes in two flavours - Plusnet Dealer and Plusnet Partner. Plusnet Dealer enables dealers to resell or recommend business broadband to small business (and consumer) customers, in turn earning commission. This programme allows business to expand their portfolio but without the cost and overhead of actually providing the service. Meanwhile, Plusnet Partner caters for businesses wanting to deliver quality broadband to its customers or employees, without cost of dealing directly with a wholesaler or building their own physical infrastructure.

The strength of Plusnet's proposition and brand is underlined by the firm's evolution since BT acquired it in 2007. "The buyout has given us the financial backing, resilience and network capabilities to stay ahead in a changing market," said Silverwood. "However, we've not lost touch with our roots, staying independent with our own offices, staff and culture. Many early and established ISPs were also acquired but Plusnet is still here and standing strong whereas most of the others have disappeared or consumed into the bigger brand. This in is testament to what Plusnet has achieved and what we stand for."

The firm's founding principles still apply, and their pillar-like structure will ensure that Plusnet's ethos is maintained amid the forces of remarkable growth. "We started as a small home grown company, so we know the technology demands and challenges that a growing business faces," added Silverwood. "From the outset we recognised that customers wanted more than just access even in the days of dial-up services. We've always provided email, web and domain services which initially made us stand out from the competitors as a progressive and forward thinking provider. We still live by this ethos.

"What also makes us different to many other business providers is our focus and specialism in all things broadband and fibre. We're not trying to be all things to all men with a plethora of complicated connectivity, telephony and other services. We remain focused on what we do best and that is providing high quality broadband and fibre services, backed by a dedicated and passionate service team. We train partners and will support at customer meetings should this be requested. We also provide marketing funds or to help drive growth or bespoke pricing to help secure large opportunities."

Stand-out factors have become part and parcel of Plusnet's development. It was one of the first providers to build a customer self-serve portal which made it easier for customers to communicate with the firm. This evolved into the Community site where customers can interact with Plusnet in a transparent and open forum. The company also claims 'pioneer' status in the area of traffic management during the early days of broadband.

"We saw that in order to deliver a sustainable and high quality user experience we had to proactively manage traffic to protect the real-time sensitive traffic such as VoIP," said Silverwood. "We continue to invest heavily and evolve our network management solutions, which is even more important in today's world with the increase in video streaming for consumers and hosted voice and cloud services for businesses."

Silverwood describes Plusnet as a 'down to earth organisation' which, despite significant growth over the past 17 years, has retained its heritage as a small and friendly business. "We are very proud of the fact that despite our many changes over the years we manage to retain our staff," added Silverwood. "We still have members of the team who have been here for the full 17 years. The average tenure in our business support team is well over five years. Our main investment comes in the form of our people. We've virtually quadrupled our team in the last four years, but to do that while continuing to win awards for our customer services is a great achievement and testifies that we continue to put the customer at the heart of everything we do."

To accommodate growth Plusnet opened a new £2 million city centre office in Leeds last year, extending its Yorkshire roots beyond Sheffield. A key aspect of the company's expansion is its dedication to a graduate scheme and taking on young people. "We're currently looking for graduates for our third year of the programme and firmly believe that small, high growth companies like Plusnet provide great opportunities, giving graduates more responsibility and involvement than they would receive within a bigger or multi-national organisation. We have also introduced 30 apprentices into our business in the last six months."

Not surprisingly, Silverwood is enthused by the prospects for Plusnet Business and partners as its channel strategy shifts up a gear along with accelerating demand for its services. "We've seen considerable growth in the last year and are set to continue this growth," he commented. "Working with channel providers will be key to that continued success."•

The channel is witnessing huge changes in the connectivity landscape but mapping out how the lie of the land will shape up is no easy task. Here, we report on a round table discussion (hosted by Comms Dealer and supported by Zen Internet) that served as a compass point for the future direction of market developments.

There was a time when the roll out of fibre to all premises took the form of a cohesive nationwide plan. If the idea had been rubber stamped the UK's broadband infrastructure would look very different today, and industry debates about the provision of complex connectivity would be unfounded. However, the first UK-wide fibre blueprint was shelved and as a consequence the provision of business grade connectivity has risen up the channel agenda at a time when significant cloud uptake is driving ever greater demand. Against this backdrop Zen Internet has taken a lead on all aspects of connectivity and is aiming to bring the same coherence and support to the market that was characteristic of the first overarching strategy to link up the nation.

Round table delegate William Poel, UK Tech and Commercial Evangelist at TouchCast, has been working in the industry since the 1970s and he shared his insights into the plan that could have rendered the round table debate null-and-void. His all-encompassing statement spanned 25 years of broadband development, reaching back to the big fibre roll-out plan and its ultimate demise, and extending forwards to the significant challenges faced by ground breaking technologists in the IP TV space today, who all, like the rest of us, rely on resilient and cohesive connectivity.

Poel, who wryly describes himself as 'still standing after too many years at the bleeding edge of HiTech', commented: "In the late 1980s the former CTO of BT, Peter Cochrane, put forward a plan to deliver fibre to every premises in the UK for £50 per end point. However, BT soon worked out the impact of this strategy on existing lucrative services so it shelved the idea. I've seen the plan, and it would still work today if the government was brave enough to enforce upon BT a mandate to overhaul the UK's infrastructure. But the whole situation has moved towards a vulcanised mess of various providers, and trying to get them all together in one coherent plan is worse than herding cats."

According to Poel, today's 'scattered' connectivity infrastructure and the general digging-in of fibre is no match for the growing connectivity demands of the nation. "Within 24 months a revolution could signal the end of scheduled broadcasting and the delivery of all TV via IP will take precedence," he stated. "This will impact massively on networks. Uptake of IP TV has until now been slow and hasn't yet crushed the networks but it's beginning to happen."

The language of networks wobbling at the knees under the weight of an all-IP TV world may veer towards hyperbole but the scenario nevertheless brings a number of issues into sharper focus and shines a spotlight in the crucial role played by provider such as Zen. According to David Dadds, Director at Vanilla IP, the challenge for comms providers will be to meet the connectivity needs of business users who, like IP TV customers, will expect the product to be on tap at all times wherever their location. "This may not be the big issue today, but in five years time we will need all of the pieces in place," he said.

With no master plan to build the big picture, the less desirable 'piecemeal' development of a future-proof comms infrastructure will have to do and the role of pioneers such as Zen Internet will be a critical success factor. The company's broadband, Ethernet and leased line portfolio is growing in popularity among its reseller base, and all of the round table delegates agreed that business grade connectivity is critical, but there was no consensus on how resiliency should be packaged and offered to customers.

"It is paramount to provide connectivity within an overall managed service and ensure it's good quality," said Simon Payne, Managing Director at Damovo.

David Bass, Director at Charterhouse Voice & Data, came out forcibly in favour of providing a primary circuit with back-up bundled in. "We aggregate bandwidth, so the industry should offer 100MG back-up at half the price or free with the primary circuit," he stated. But his stance on how back-up should be offered caused a stir and polarised the views of some delegates who saw this as a moral issue as well as a commercial one. Jason Horan, Managing Director at Connect Express, agreed that there is a moral issue at stake here. "You cannot offer hosted telephony without QoS," he said. "To force customers to buy QoS is wrong." Meanwhile, Michael Thornton, Managing Director at Frontier Voice and Data, did not accept that giving away a service that comes at a cost was the right modus operandi for any business.

If Cochrane's fibre roll out plan had been executed, not only would the nation have benefitted from a more cohesive network, customers would also be buying and using their services in a different way and the method of delivery would probably be standardised by comparison to today's, perhaps, over complicated set-up. Unable to wind back the clock, the time to debate next steps has arrived. Chief among the hot topics discussed around the table was the role of the reseller in driving a connectivity market where new opportunities are arising almost by the day, driven by the cloud, the changing dynamics of end user businesses and the broadening profile of ICT buyers. And the approach to selling connectivity depends very much on end user criteria such as size, budget and attitude to risk in terms of uptime.

But for Tim Wallis, Managing Director of TWS Computer Services, one big issue dominates his thinking: "I concentrate on SME, and my customers need connectivity that works," he stated. "The problem for many of them is that the winter storms have decimated their ADSLs. And because BT can't remove the trees, how do we provide resilience to customers on the end of a copper line and who can't have two circuits from two suppliers or exchanges? Without resilience, cloud services won't work. Many of my customers do not have a connectivity choice. I've gone down the satellite broadband route because that is back-up."

In areas of the market where establishing simple back-ups and SLAs are less of an issue, bundled services are the order of the day along with a different set of attendant challenges. Campbell Williams, Group Strategy and Marketing Director at Six Degrees Group, said: "Sometimes the worst approach to take is to bundle the cost so that the customer effectively gets 'all they can eat'. At some point the IT manager, the FD or MD will see that they've been paying a certain amount for the service, and because nothing has gone wrong the reseller is vulnerable to being undercut by a rival. You have to uncouple the value and educate the customer on what might have gone wrong and the value that has been added to the deal."

Williams also noted that the buying landscape has changed. "The new wave of CIOs and IT directors are not people dealing with network resilience problems," he added. "They have business conversations about profit and loss, trade-offs, upsides and downsides, risk and rewards. Larger corporations do not sit and discuss whether they need resilient connectivity. The cost of back-up and SLAs is less of an issue for them."
On the other hand, Frontier Voice and Data operates mainly in the 10-150 employee customer space where typically there is no board level IT leader. "We deal with IT people who don't have the skill set of CTOs and CIOs," stated Thornton. "The questions we are asked are more cost and product conscious. It's a different proposition. What they need is an understanding of the products that providers offer and where they can be delivered, and for what cost. That is all they are interested in."

Summing up the points, Ben Bradbury, Managing Director at Clarion, added: "We have to cater for companies whether they have small or large cheque books and explain the services to them, and it's the service provider's responsibility to tell us how much capacity there is in the network, where the latency is, the cost, and not just seek the upside. We have various connectivity choices and we have to cater for clients from remote areas right up the scale. Providers need to explain very clearly the price points and risks."

Unravelling the various strands of a connectivity proposition to make it simple to understand, buy and take to market is no easy task, particularly in an environment where resellers are over shadowed by the shades of grey that sometimes blurs the process. But Bradbury said the issue is clear cut. "Providers need to be working together with resellers to ensure the necessary bandwidth to support the services they provide," he said. "We need transparency and honesty to overcome the disconnect between cloud delivery and the connectivity."

Dominic Carroll, Senior Product Manager at Zen Internet, commented: "It's no longer about companies looking to deliver data services over private connectivity such as broadband, Ethernet and leased lines, it's more about how they deliver a converged network and the underlying infrastructure to facilitate that. Attention levels are heaped more on the services than the delivery method. But the emergence of new technologies and how we can take advantage of them to create a world class network that successfully delivers the services is just as big a talking point of differentiation."

According to Deborah Wrigley, Channel Sales Manager, Zen Internet has stolen the march on this issue by beating the education drum while Zen's hypercautious approach ensures the fitness of its business grade services. The company has, she says, turned its collaborative vision into a channel strategy that insulates reseller partners from the issues discussed and connectivity glitches that blight many deployments by resellers in general who tread a familiar - and doomed - path.

"Zen believes that good providers don't just provide a product, but also the training, guidance and expertise channel partners need to sell it," she said. "With the new Partner Programme, we're working harder than ever before to share our knowledge and expertise. There are huge opportunities out there. We want our partners to be able to take advantage of every one."

Poel's invocation of Cochrane's fibre roll out plan did not just highlight the piecemeal nature of the UK's network infrastructure, it also brought into clear view the opportunity for resellers in the SME market, an opportunity that perhaps would not be present if Cochrane had got his way. The lack of a coherent infrastructure, on the flip side, enables resellers to reaffirm their status as ICT suppliers cum consultants, especially among the smaller businesses which only have admin level IT support. "Sub-50 organisations tend not to have a CTO or IT manager," concurred Williams. "These companies need resellers to offer bespoke solutions. They are dependent on the reseller market for specialisation."

While Williams' argument underlined the value of SME resellers, Thornton wasted no time in sizing up the scale of the market. "There are 80,000 UK SMEs that need to know what the product is, the cost and how it works," he said. "Breaking down solutions into their component parts is very important."

Finding out what resellers need from connectivity suppliers should be, you would think, not too big a mountain to ascend. But climbing higher than base camp all too often proves to be a challenge. But with his climbing boots tightly laced up, Carroll outlined the route Zen Internet is taking to address the issues raised during this lively round table debate.

"Just as the requirements of end users vary significantly depending on the size of their business and the market they operate in, so do the needs of the ICT channel who supply them with connectivity services," he commented. "To serve the population of our resellers that 'just want connectivity to work' we have developed a range of services which can be purchased off the shelf as a fully managed option. These start from basic ADSL2+ and Fibre Broadband with business grade SLAs through to Ethernet Leased Lines with automatic failover to a broadband line for assurance and backup included as standard."•

Pragma's Chairman and mega-channel supremo David George has achieved great industry recognition and stature as a giant in UK comms distribution. Here's his story...

For a Chairman less than two years into office and presiding during the worst economic slump in memory George has managed to pull off a remarkable triumph in building up Pragma. This 'David' had already established himself as Goliath in the comms channel so there were few doubters when he set-up Pragma along with two former colleagues just a slingshot away from where his career in distribution began in 1990 with Crane Telecom. Prior to the advent of Crane George had many years of comms experience under his belt and believed that the reseller channel would become the dominant route to market.

"I spent the early part of my career working in multinationals such as Sony, EMI, ITT and STC with ever expanding responsibilities up to divisional management," recalled George. "However, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my scope to mould a business within the constraints of a corporate environment. So when I was offered the role of Managing Director of newly launched National Telephone Systems - it's main product line was the London range of PBX systems - I jumped at the chance."

NTS was a fast growing international business that went public with full listing on the London Stock Exchange. The business was then acquired by Alcatel and the acquisition reverted George back into corporate life. "I didn't want to be there, and seeing an opportunity with LG to introduce its key system range into the UK market I set up my own business, Crane Telecom. At that time the reseller channel was still in its infancy but it was my belief that it would become the dominant route to market for telecom products and services, and that Crane would become the supplier of choice for resellers."

Crane quickly established the LG brand and in 1995 became the first UK distributor for Avaya (then AT&T) and grew to become the largest Avaya distributor outside of the USA. Crane's revenues peaked at £80 million and the company became the largest independent telecoms distributor in Europe until it was acquired by Westcon Group in May 2007.

"I gave retirement a go but quickly got bored and was lured back into the channel by a long-standing Crane reseller called Redwood," stated George. "I invested in this business in 2008 and despite being faced with the economic downturn we grew revenues by more than 30 per cent over the following three years, with an even greater improvement in profitability. This led to the successful sale of Redwood to Timico in 2011 and I once again had another attempt at retirement."

George kept in touch with a number of old Crane customers who had since become personal friends. They confided that there was little or no added value left in the channel and many felt poorly supported or even let down by their current suppliers, compounded by ever increasing demands to conform to vendor requirements which they did not believe were in the best interests of their businesses, recounted George.

"When playing golf with Tim Brooks in April 2012 , who was a long-serving Crane man and had been running Westcon Convergence UK, we were discussing this and decided there was a clear opportunity to create a new company that would mould itself around the needs of the reseller community," commented George. "We researched the market and decided our vendor of choice was Ericsson-LG which we felt was a sleeping giant in the UK but held leadership in many other global markets."

The former colleagues travelled to Korea to test out their theory and following due diligence they became convinced by the product roadmap and its potential. "By that time we had been joined by Will Morey, another long-standing member of the Crane team," added George. "We then set up Pragma and started sales in September 2012."

Not surprisingly Pragma exceeded its year-one target and outstripped the first year's sales within five months of its second year in operation. Pragma passed its break-even point after 10 months and is exceeding profit targets, enabling the company to fund future growth. A central part of Pragma's growth strategy is its focus as the sole distributor for Ericsson-LG in the UK and the company was awarded European Distributor of the Year at Ericsson-LG's 2013 global partner conference.

According to George, Pragma is more than a distributor. "Ericsson-LG has no people in the UK, therefore the go-to-market model and execution are entirely within our control," he explained. "Our overriding philosophy is that our business should be designed and run based on the needs of our resellers. To ensure that we achieve and maintain this ethos as we grow we created the Pragma Partner Council. This is a forum to gain feedback and approval from our resellers on all aspects of the business including policies, processes, products and even pricing. We also hold an annual reseller conference which last year was attended by more than 140 of our resellers, where together with Ericsson-LG senior management we presented the product roadmap, new products and market direction."

Pragma has set the date for its partner conference this year - October 9th in London. A centrepiece attraction will be the unveiling of a new UC platform from Ericsson-LG together with a product roadmap which includes cloud-based services. "Later in the summer we will launch iPECS UCP, a new range of VoIP call servers with embedded UC applications that scale from five to 2,400 users," said George. "Our efforts will then be applied to the introduction of a cloud-based iPECS solution, the details of which will be shared at our conference."

Pragma's priorities for 2014 also centre around a complete refresh of the Ericsson-LG iPECS range. This began with the introduction of iPECS eMG80 at the beginning of the year, a new and cost-effective hybrid solution for users with five to 50 extensions. "This product has been successful and well received by our existing resellers and has also attracted many new resellers to the Ericsson-LG brand," added George. "It is important to stress that our goal is not to recruit infinite numbers of resellers, but rather to operate a controlled distributor policy whereby we can grow while protecting our resellers' margins at the same time."

Pragma also offers resellers margin opportunities in connectivity. With the adoption of SIP being a key trend George believes that the combination of SIP trunks together with a highly featured iPECS IP-PBX offers a stand-out solution for most businesses, as opposed to relatively expensive and featureless hosted offerings that use the reseller channel as little more than sales agents, and so risk losing customers in the long-term.

"We've helped our resellers to adopt SIP technology more rapidly with a combination of dedicated sales and engineering training, SIP set-up guides and even our own SIP trunk service through our joint venture company Pragma Networks," added George. "This means we can provide end-to-end compatibility and support to our resellers."

As a result of the new products from Ericsson-LG together with marketing programmes and tools from Pragma plus its network services, George says a great many of Pragma's resellers are growing rapidly. "It's Pragma's strategy to ensure that our resellers are always equipped to compete and win as markets evolve," stated George. "It is our plan to be a major player in the market and I believe we have the products, the team and the resellers to achieve huge gains in market share.

"The consistent feedback I hear from resellers is that they no longer feel valued or respected by their suppliers. In many cases they are seen as nothing more than a route to the end user rather than customers in their own right. I believe every reseller principal is an independent business person who wants to be acknowledged as that, rather than being dictated to by large, faceless corporate organisations."

George believes in building close personal relationships with resellers, and making sure that their needs always shape Pragma's strategy is a mode of operation that cannot fail, noted George. "We get to know our customers better by surrounding our formal events with a great deal of social activity," he added. "We also run regular incentive trips, host sporting events and generally take every opportunity we can to spend time with our customers. We want our customers to feel important, because they are."•

Close engagement, not price, has become the master of relational links in the channel, according to Nine Group Marketing Director Mark Saunders, who argues that today's marketplace demands a new posture on relationship building and customer support.

There has been a lot of hue and cry in the channel about the importance of partner relationships but all too often actions do not speak louder than words. The 'promise' must deliver specifics, not platitudes, asserts Saunders, who believes that Nine has revealed a new world of customer engagement that offers a holistic approach designed to bring about transformative change. Nine's promise, he says, is to deepen partner relationships through a tried and tested process of knowledge sharing and hands-on assistance. "We are in the business of relationships and happen to have a service-centric operation based in the telecommunications sector," he said. "It is important never to lose sight of what we are and what we need to do well. Supplier choice is not about price, it's about how we can help partners be more successful."

Saunders believes that relational policies to date have been too general and that many suppliers are missing a trick simply because they do not prioritise, or invest in, the partner relationship. "Our ethos is based around building and developing relationships with our resellers and we believe this is equally valid for them when they are considering their own customers," added Saunders. "Our Train>Guide>Win formula is about helping our resellers to be more successful by sharing our own views, experience and expertise with them. Resellers are often competing against more sophisticated businesses, so we believe in helping them to level the playing field."

The lesson of Nine's success for others is that close collaboration with partners reaps rewards and ongoing mutual growth is no pipe dream. "We change the depth of our reseller relationships from strangers, to acquaintances and friends and even fans," commented Saunders. "We believe with certainty that by building the trust of our resellers we will both enjoy success. Nine embraces ambitious resellers looking for a lasting relationship with an energetic, innovative service provider. Furthermore, for those resellers who want to talk openly about their business exit, our track record in structuring deals makes us a natural choice where this factor is a key consideration."

Nine's partner-centricity is aligned with various service options for resellers including outsourced billing, direct debit collection, out of hours service and provisioning. "We offer a compelling alternative to the carriers," emphasised Saunders. "Through our Purple Partner Programme, we offer real world business benefits to our resellers, not just re-branded collateral, but professional quality videos and workshops which deliver practical advice on improving margin through a better understanding of tariff maintenance and billing rules.

"Marketing workshops and Twitter Q&A sessions also benefit our reseller community. We take our role as defender of the channel seriously and offer support for our resellers to join FCS, enabling them to be engaged with legal and regulatory changes that impact telecommunications. We are also working alongside the industry fraud awareness body, TUFF, to deliver a second reseller event in June."

Nine also evangelises the importance of measurement. "We are obsessed with improving and translating the data we hold on our resellers into information that we can then use to create better levels of engagement," explained Saunders. "It would be folly to invest precious marketing dollars talking to the wrong reseller about the wrong opportunity, so we always preach the gospel of clean data and recommend this to our resellers too. It is just as important to understand what our resellers buy from us and what they buy elsewhere so we can market our proposition more effectively. They should be doing the same with their customers and we are happy to share our insight. There is zero value in implementing an idea, not checking if it worked and then repeating it just because that was Plan A."

Nine's stance puts less engaged organisations to shame, according to Saunders, who pointed out that employee collaboration and engagement is a key factor in the company's overarching philosophy. "Our business is about our people and we invest in allowing them to be the best that they can be," he commented. "Last year we achieved the Silver Standard for Investors in People on our first attempt and we going for Gold this year, supported by our move across the car park to a new 12,500 square feet flagship office which offers a remarkable work environment with great facilities for meeting our customers."

Nine is a natural relationship building organisation that with alacrity puts resellers on a new course by imparting sound advice rather than the self-righteous bluster, believes Saunders. "There is always a lot of noise around new product developments, be they alleged seismic shifts away from ISDN towards SIP, the eternal question of what is Lync really for, the possible business applications of 4G, or the as yet not so meteoric rise in hosted IP telephony," he said.

"We try to engage with our resellers to debate the key issues, often over lunch, and offer our own perspective on which product is worth putting on the shelf. There is a lot of traditional hardware and network services business still out there, and although a monocular focus in this area would prove catastrophic a balanced portfolio can provide rich dividends."•

Fourteen IP Communications may be 'Fourteen' forever but standing still in time is not an option in the fast moving comms sector, believes Managing Director Neil Tolley.

Tolley's introduction to telecoms came early in life. His father worked in the industry and the close family linked proved to be a formative factor in Tolley's outlook on how best to operate in the comms sector. He joined Wigan-based Ashland Communication Equipment in 1997 and his experience there also made an indelible imprint. "Ashland was a fantastic company with fantastic people and a genuine zeal for doing everything we could for our customers, something we have carried on with Fourteen," said Tolley. "Ashland and I were a perfect match and we had many great years selling a mix of Mitel and NEC solutions and thousands of payphones."

Tolley recalls that Ashland's Managing Director Anthony Vose was a 'detail person' with a passion for caring about customers and for making a profit - a winning combination. "Anthony inspired and drove the management team and instilled in us a way of working that carries on to this day," added Tolley. "After my early experiences I swore I would never get involved in running a business of my own, but Ashland and Anthony changed that view. And even with all the hair loss and sleepless nights starting your own firm brings, I am delighted that we did it."

Lancs-based Fourteen IP was established by Chairman Alan Poole with Tolley and a group of former Ashland colleagues joining soon after. "The plan was to operate as a small data and voice reseller but we grew bigger than expected in the UK and across Europe," explained Tolley. "We initially focused on wired and wireless networking with considerable success, only doing voice projects when asked. Now we are busy on both fixed and hosted telephony as well as a range of networking projects.

"Starting a business in the worst recession in memory was always going to be a challenge. Selling phone systems to customers who don't want them is also no easy ask, so we have adapted. We have listened to our customers and created solutions that they want, some quickly and some over a period of time. We have had to innovate and that approach along with working closely with our partners and being seen as a thought leader in our chosen market is making a real difference to our business."

Fourteen IP operates in the hospitality vertical market and as if that was not niche enough, its also tries to do things differently. An approach that is paying off. "Our customers are a mix of local UK hotels and chains and global hotel chains plus some strategic partner organisations. We have focused on partnerships with vendors such as NEC, Mitel, BroadSoft and HP, and creating solutions around these products," added Tolley.

"It amazes me how many of our peers don't work closely with their partners. We are working with Mitel and NEC on a range of PBX and DECT solutions, and it is going well. But the world is going hosted and there is no stopping it. If a five star luxury hotel can take a hosted solution then what more proof is needed. You need to own your own platform or partner carefully with someone who does."

The hosted telephony versus fixed debate is only just catching on in hospitality. This is due, in the main, to nobody actually using the phone systems in hotels, and also they are interconnected to numerous other systems, so there was no real solution, pointed out Tolley. "We have a solution now that is gathering momentum," he commented. "Equally, there are also real opportunities for systems integrators who can pull together solutions built around copper or fibre converged networks. Luckily for us we are one such company."

Fourteen IP is growing significantly year-on-year, reporting circa 100 per cent growth last year and Tolley's formula for success is easily understood. "We are 100 per cent about our customers and will do anything for them 24/7," he commented. "Having the core team from the Ashland days means that this culture is embedded in our company, and as new people join they are quickly on board with the way we do things. We used to have the Ashland Way, we now have the Fourteen Way. It's about our customers, our people and making a profit.

"Listening to customers and innovating means we are not just another reseller, and it means we have things people want to see and talk about and buy. It's an approach that has led us to places and potential deals we would never have thought possible. It has also led to some operational challenges and quick thinking requirements."

Also occupying Tolley's thinking at the moment is the emergence of Big Data, a buzzword that has landed squarely on the Fourteen IP agenda. "Big Data was something I kept hearing about but assumed it would never have relevance to us," he added. "But it suddenly arrived. By leveraging technology and the imagination we are able to achieve incredible results with the data, and customers quickly see the benefits."

Evolving in this way is vital for all resellers, believes Tolley. "The world is changing and to succeed we need to move with the times and somehow stay ahead of the game," he commented. "There has been no future in just selling PBX for some years. It's about solutions, integrated solutions and creating a need. The day-to-day business has to continue, but it is important to keep an eye on the future and deliver the solutions that customers want."•

Openreach has boosted its high bandwidth optical capability with a UK-wide 40Gbps and 100Gbps service capable of delivering ten times more traffic capacity than existing solutions.

The new services are supported by Ciena's 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and enable comms providers (CPs) to connect multiple sites more efficiently by cost-effectively transporting larger amounts of data over longer distances. Comms providers using the service can offer flexible, high bandwidth multi-site connectivity and cloud-based services to their enterprise and data centre customers.

The optical services also give enterprises and storage providers the tools to offer a broader range of services and applications, including the ultra-low latency facilities required by particular industries such as high frequency trading in the financial sector or synchronous data backup. They will also enable businesses to locate in the most strategic locations, with the assurance of having access to high bandwidth, high quality connectivity.

Mark Logan, Director of Fibre Products, Openreach, commented: "As more and more businesses move to high bandwidth cloud-based services and applications our CP customers are looking to support them with a much broader range of high quality connectivity options. These new optical services from Openreach are future proof, and they take advantage of BT's investment in fibre infrastructure across the UK. They also come with the backing of our combined professional service teams, giving customers access to expertise and support from both Openreach and Ciena."

Nigel Williams, Vice President of Global Channels and Strategic Alliances, Ciena, commented: "Demand for high bandwidth services and business critical applications is increasing at an exponential rate. Expanding our relationship with Openreach ensures that providers get the flexibility and scalability they need to build a competitive advantage in the marketplace, offer a broader portfolio of next generation services and the applications critical to the success of their enterprise clients."

The product, which was rolled out on April 29th, took just nine months to develop from its conception to launch. "With the market growing at pace, and requirements for 100G solutions already evident, we wanted to offer a solution fast," commented Darren Wallington, Head of Optical Solutions.

"We already had a proven capability for best practice use of third parties to carry out installation on our behalf, so deepening our long standing supplier relationship with Ciena to bring the 6500 to market in this way was a no-brainer. Importantly, the approach does not change any of the planning, order or repair touch points for customers. It simply means that all installation and repair functions are carried out by Ciena."
The close collaboration between Openreach and Ciena helps to align best practice design choices with specific sector requirements. "We are also working together on continued lifecycle improvements such as fault finding and diagnostics," added Wallington. "We now have the potential to bring additional 6500 capabilities to market just as fast in the future."

The spirit of collaboration also played a role in shaping the look of new services by taking into account the viewpoints of customers. "We received a full wish list from one customer at the outset," added Wallington. "We reviewed this with all customers and provided a view on the items we could deliver. The period of development collaboration with customers that followed earned feedback via the OTA (the telecoms adjudicator) as an example of how Openreach should engage and develop products."

The overall optical market is forecast to grow by a significant 135 per cent during the coming years, representing a big opportunity for communications providers. The size of the opportunity and speed of potential monetisation is illustrated by the big advances made by Openreach following its previous major optical product launch - the ADVA FSP 3000 launched in January 2012 - which now has over a thousand installations. Furthermore, at the close of 2013, Openreach's customers were collectively supplying industry with 20TB/s of access and backhaul data capacity via its Optical portfolio alone.•