Comms Dealer

ICUK's philosophy on getting things right by sticking to an in-house policy is paying great dividends, according to co-founder and Director Paul Barnett.

ICUK started life in 2001 as a virtual ISP selling 0845 dial-up minutes purchased from CIX. It then moved from dial-up into web hosting and domains, reselling solutions from a number of providers but hitting barriers with them all. The company then incorporated broadband and telecoms, and again ran up against limitations and obstacles to reselling. "The biggest turning point for ICUK, especially when we were smaller and a reseller, hinged on our frustrations with suppliers," commented Barnett. "They failed to listen, couldn't evolve or simply did not deliver on their promises. We had reached the end of the road and had been forced to either move on or ultimately bite the bullet and bring more in-house."

Those early glitches proved to be a blessing in disguise as it became apparent that reselling was a minefield of overselling, lack of ultimate control and deep frustration. "The only way forward was to build our own platform," added Barnett. "We had seen and experienced the mistakes made by suppliers, and we ensured that at every stage of development our platform delivered what we had wanted as a reseller."

Giving resellers what they want has, not surprisingly, brought about a success story. ICUK has grown from being a reseller to having in excess of 600 resellers of its own. "In 2011 we made our first major acquisition and purchased CIX, the company that helped us start this journey," explained Barnett. "We now have an exciting roadmap planned following a major restructure. Our journey has been undertaken with sheer determination, without external investment and debt, and wouldn't have been possible without the talent and hard work of our staff."

ICUK employs 15 staff primarily split between support and development, and they are backed up by hundreds of servers which help to automate much of the daily routines. The company services in excess of 60,000 clients as well as 600 white label resellers. Last year saw 30 per cent growth in revenues and 2014 should bring a further 45 per cent growth. "Significantly, this growth is not through acquisition and debt," added Barnett. "We are self financed and free from external investors. Although we're always happy to consider acquisitions our focus remains on our current client base and continued organic growth.

"We have a platform and entry path which makes it easy for resellers to enter the web hosting, telecommunications and broadband arenas, and as such we're here not just as a supplier but to help guide them. The advice we give to resellers focuses on their key strengths, and the reasons why they may want to move from a competitor."

Barnett has witnessed significant growth in ICUK's broadband and telecoms business in particular, fuelled by developments in its own network and control panels, along with the inclusion of new products such as leased lines, quoting tools and improved diagnostics. "By exposing a wider portfolio and empowering our resellers they are more confident about selling lines and high value connectivity," commented Barnett. "ICUK is an organisation that prioritises ongoing development and learning. We have a relaxed and collaborative atmosphere and all members of staff are able to contribute and be part of our journey."

Barnett ranks the build of an in-house reseller control panel platform spanning web hosting, broadband and telecoms (with an invoicing platform to link them all) as his biggest career achievement to date. "It would have been easy for us to have opted for an off-the-shelf system, or pay a contractor to build a one-off platform, but it's quite another matter developing in-house," Barnett commented. "It's a big achievement for the ICUK team and I'm proud to have been one of the architects."

The control panel is a triumph of single minded determination and is emblematic of ICUK's inward looking approach to developmental growth. "It would be easy for us to become complacent about our portfolio and expand it to include new opportunities," Barnett added. "Likewise, it would be easy for us to bolt-on third party products. But to do either would not do justice to our clients or what we have achieved by moving control in-house. Everything in our portfolio is our own and managed through our control panel portal. Third party or half-hearted third party solutions are absolutely not an option."

Rather than reach out in expansion mode, ICUK is embarking on a period of consolidation which Barnett calls 'back to basics'. He knows there are limitations to what ICUK offers but he is on a mission to achieve ultimate perfection in his portfolio. "Our aim with this policy is to revisit every product, every line of code and seek out improvements," he said. "Only when this process is complete will we start to work on one of the many avenues that are open to us. And when we do, it will be on our terms, not just a bolt-on service we can't control and that offers limited value in comparison to existing offerings."

Naturally, such an approach demands knowhow, but skills are in short supply and this is a key concern. "Our main challenge is skills," said Barnett. "The talents in the employment market are limited, and without the skills to turn our visions and ideas into reality the progress of our 'back to basics' policy is hindered. We are combating this to an extent by providing internal training opportunities and opening doors to apprentices.
"We have a real need for talented and passionate developers who will work on our platforms to turn our ideas, and those of our clients, into reality. Despite having six positions available, we struggle to find the right people to fit the roles. That's not a limitation of our search, but a genuine skills shortage forcing us to look further afield and relocate staff."

ICUK has also started to take its marketing and sales operations more seriously. For eleven years the company grew without a marketing budget. Growth was achieved through recommendations and organic search engine listing. "Having a good detailed website and a friendly intelligent member of staff on the phone or email was welcomed by many who were all too familiar with the sales person at the end of competitors' lines, and then a lack of support when issues arise," said Barnett. "However, we're growing up and now have dedicated marketing and sales staff. We still remain true to our principles and staff are not paid commissions, while new starters are inducted into the technical culture that has come to define ICUK in this industry."

The quest for cultural perfection is a big defining factor in the ICUK ethos, and this is reflected across all areas of the business. "Our focus today is on perfecting what we have now," said Barnett. "We're lucky to operate in three core industries that are evolving and collaborating more with each other, which sets up its own challenges and opportunities. However, we are watching various emerging technologies and schools of thought which we hope to incorporate into our portfolio for resellers, while remaining true to our philosophies at every step.

"Within five years, I would like to see ICUK with a larger portfolio, all developed in-house, and with a support and development team twice the size as we currently have. No matter how large we get we recognise the importance of not repeating the mistakes we see time and time again with growth, and that's why our focus remains on support and developing a better proposition to the customer. We've managed it for 12 years, and have every intention of remaining true to our formula."•

There aren't too many comms entrepreneurs who began their careers by setting up a game lodge in South Africa, but as you will see, Mark Colquhoun, Chief Executive at Solar Communications, is one of a kind.

With the job of setting up a game lodge in South Africa done and dusted, Colquhoun returned to the UK in 1997 unsure of his next move. His father was a solicitor who at the time was doing some work for Tony Lewis at Club Communications. Colquhoun senior suggested an introduction as Club seemed to be on the up. "I secured an interview with Tony and worked at Club for a year making appointments for the sales people who were selling LCR," recalled Colquhoun. "I then decided to set up my own telecoms company, Call Options UK, with Tony's backing and support. That was in 1998 and I have been in the comms industry ever since."

Solar Communications was established in Bristol in 1988 providing telephone systems in the south west. After selling Call Options in 2005 to Adept Telecom, Colquhoun set up a company called Drumbeat Communications the same year, primarily focused on selling network services. Colquhoun bought Solar in December 2007 and merged it with Drumbeat. The Solar brand was retained, and over the last six years the company has expanded to offer a full telephony portfolio across the UK from its offices in Chippenham, London and Manchester. The Manchester office was established after Solar acquired Armstrong Communications in January 2013. Central to Solar's growth plan is delivering the best customer experience possible. "We believe this is the main differentiator in our industry," said Colquhoun.

His strategy continues to pay off with revenues rising from 8.5 million in 2011 to a projected 16.5 million this financial year. The company has circa 1,000 customers and has grown its headcount from 42 to a planned 80 this year. Colquhoun expects future growth to come from three areas - providing more solutions to the existing client base (notably in data services and mobile); offering services to new clients delivering contact centre and UC solutions; and facilitating more mergers or acquisitions with companies that have a similar service culture to Solar. The firm's three year strategy is to amass sales of at least £25 million in 2016 based on its business plan.

Aside from Solar's impressive growth phase another big change noted by Colquhoun has been the growing number of customers that buy all of their comms services from the firm. "This has been especially helped by the emergence of SIP whereby clients trust their telephone system provider to install it for them and support the data circuit it sits on," commented Colquhoun. "Another change we have experienced is that we are not just selling to the IT Manager/Director any more. The Financial Director, Sales Director and CEO are now far more interested in the differentiation that a good comms strategy gives them."

In terms of product development, Solar's cloud offering is proving to be the talk of the town. According to Colquhoun, end users are interested in a cloud solution but only if it offers the same reliability and functionality as an on-premise solution. "The cloud also brings with it a number of questions," he added. "Does the client move to a full cloud solution where they pay £x per month, or do they host their telephony in a data centre? Do they retain an on-premise solution or opt for a hybrid model? There is a technology and a financial decision to be made, and Solar can support all of these options.

"The challenge is ensuring that we continue to keep the proposition easy to understand and offer clients the best solution to meet their business needs today and in the future. Coming from a network services background I see the benefit of moving our PBX revenue to a recurring model and I believe that there are a large number of businesses with legacy PBXs who will be interested in moving to an £x per month for everything bundled in - calls, lines, Internet and PBX functionality."

One of the most interesting trends Colquhoun is tracking is the rising number of comms rooms shifting to the data centre and the growth of outsourced managed services. "Yet, in most businesses of 100-1000 employees, which is Solar's typical client size, the IT Manager/Director is still keeping most applications and servers in their own comms room mostly due to concerns around security and control," added Colquhoun.

"The speed with which companies will move to the cloud will vary depending on industry, business size and personnel's own views. Solar can support either on-premise or cloud or even hybrid versions, and will continue to give the best advice depending on each client's individual circumstances."

A closely related trend is the move away from installing physical PBXs to installing virtualised instances of telephony applications on the clients' servers, whether at their offices or hosted in a data centre. "Solar saw these trends emerge and has already invested considerably in up-skilling our engineers in virtualisation and data centre which are essential to support our clients," added Colquhoun.

He noted that Solar will continue to grow by providing total communication solutions. "We see clients as wanting Solar to be its trusted partner for all their voice and data needs," added Colquhoun. "The biggest challenge is making customers aware of all the available benefits for their business of the different options open to them when deploying a telephony solution, especially around SIP and the move to cloud. We are addressing this by constantly updating our website, holding client seminars, sending out regular newsletters and through constant training making sure that the Solar sales people and technicians are giving a consistent message."

Solar's acquisition of Armstrong Communications is emblematic of the company's knack for achieving a cultural fit at all levels. "I am proud of the acquisition of Armstrong Communications," added Colquhoun. "I was especially keen that we did nothing to upset the service culture that Armstrong had instilled in its staff. We committed to leaving the business alone for a year. Not a single member of staff or significant client was lost and the Manchester team smashed their sales target.

"In January this year we integrated the Manchester staff into Solar and the instant co-operation and team work from the enlarged team has been amazing. Seeing everyone from all offices operating as one team is very satisfying. The whole experience has shown me how well acquisitions can go if the cultures of the businesses are similar. The common message I hear from all is that there is a great team spirit and enjoyable working atmosphere at Solar. I believe this underpins the great customer service that we give our clients - we have staff who all care - and I know that everyone at Solar would say that it is the clients who pay their wages."•

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: Infographics are my topic of the month as I love their simplicity and how they lend themselves beautifully to the IT and telco industry.

They provide visual impact that can quickly and concisely explain the values of a more complicated solution. In an era when we are time poor and experience information overload, infographics draw our attention to the most important elements of a subject and can even encourage us to read in more depth.

Visual thinking is apparently the most common way we piece together information and considering most of us would have seen visual learning featuring heavily in our early years of education, it is not surprising that infographics are so popular. Because many of us think in pictures, it makes perfect sense that marketing and communications should leverage this comfort zone where readers become more susceptible to reading content they may have otherwise found too intimidating to read.

The colours and styles you can introduce to an infographic means that you can use it to literally brighten up text heavy collateral. Sales proposals and onboarding packs are just two examples of how infographics lend themselves well to more traditional collateral that may in the past have been quickly flicked through. It is also a way of highlighting your company's main achievements in a manner that your competitors may not be doing.

Before you start getting happy with ClipArt, make sure you cover a few basic rules. Ensure your visual interpretations encourage your viewer to read more, use simple imagery to complement a complex subject and include as much statistical data as you can, but ensure the message is broken down into easy to digest sections. Better still, use different images to offer both a broad overview and greater levels of detail.

Hats off to Stripe 21 for winning the Technology Strategy Board's Smart Grant competition for the Proof of Market grant award.

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) is a UK innovation agency, offering support and funding to help businesses develop new products and services and ultimately bring them closer to market.

Stripe 21 responded to the Technology Strategy Board call earlier this year, to articulate and document the services it plans to develop around predicted technology market trends.

Stripe 21 noted that the growing global trend towards mobility, working outside the office on personally owned smart phones, laptops and tablet devices such as iPads, would become increasingly difficult to unify, manage and support.

Steve North, Managing Director of Stripe 21 said: "Many SMEs outsource the entire management and security of company data to an IT support specialist or company. Although a reduction in hardware costs is welcomed by many SMEs as employees increasingly use their personal property for work, BYOD devices present time-consuming and disparate challenges, particularly around application support, data ownership, access and security."

North and his team offered their solution to the TSB - a project that will explore the technical feasibility and market opportunity of providing a low cost, vendor-neutral, managed IT desktop service in the cloud.

This platform would be targeted primarily at SME businesses, using Software as a Service (SaaS) applications such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Mail, Salesforce and many others. These applications could be accessed from any internet-enabled device using standard thin-client facilities to connect to the Stripe 21 platform, which is controlled by the SME, not the BYOD user. This centralises the management and access of IT applications, taking away the requirement to support personal employee-owned BYODs.

It allows access to corporate data for the BYOD user, but would prevent the data being physically transferred to the user's personally-owned device. Where licensed on a per-seat basis, the cost per user would reduce substantially as all subscribers benefit from the economies of scale. This would make the Stripe 21 service lower cost, more secure and easier to manage than contracting directly with the SaaS provider.

The Technology Strategy Board was suitably impressed and Stripe 21 has been announced as a winner of Round 5, stage 1 of the Proof of Market grant award.

North added: "Our team were delighted to be recognised by the TSB, and to have the opportunity to take our business to a global market". The competition win marks another success this year for the Stripe 21 team who have been putting their efforts into innovative, new, exciting offers to bring to the Channel. The team now look forward to the launch of their cloud desktop BYOD service, which already has subscribers waiting to beta-test in Q4 of 2014.

Irish Minister for Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation Richard Bruton has welcomed news that SAP is to add 200 roles across its business suite and cloud support teams based in Galway. It also plans to add up to 50 R&D positions at its Citywest campus.

Welcoming the announcement, Liam Ryan, managing director, SAP operations in Ireland, said: "SAP continues to be a great success story in Ireland and the announcement is another strong vote of confidence in the ability of SAP's Irish-based operations to continue to attract talent that will be the source of innovation and support."

"The technology sector is driving much of the recovery in the economy and is providing the types of jobs and careers that we need to create to compete in an increasingly international and digital world.

"To truly take advantage of these exciting and emerging job opportunities, we cannot become complacent. I would urge all stakeholders in Ireland's education and employment sectors to work together to ensure we continue to have a healthy pipeline of talent and skill sets that meet the demands of our businesses."

US-based IT solutions specialist American Digital Corporation's 2014 State of SAP Report shows a rising trend to managed services.

The study aims to show trends driving SAP use, and found that 61% of IT leaders plan to invest in outsourced managed services in the next two years, while only 39% will depend on in-house resources for SAP support.

The US is generally regarded as being one-two years ahead of Europe in the take-up of SaaS and managed services. There seems to be a recognition of a skills issue with SAP use. Even so, it says, despite an overall growing dependence on third party support, there remains a hesitancy to outsource infrastructure. SAP HANA, SAP Mobile and Managed Cloud rank as the most in-demand SAP offerings.

"SAP environments are relying more heavily on outsourcing to maximise overall efficiency," said Bill Loupakos, VP of Professional Services, American Digital.

"Today we see companies comfortable with outsourcing application support, but many are still holding on to the infrastructure in-house. Providers have evolved to meet these growing market demands, so companies can maximise cost savings and efficiencies and focus their intellectual capital on their business processes and compliance."

Global server shipments fell in the latest quarter after a year of rising sales, says IDC. Cisco was the big winner, IBM the loser.

IDC said factory revenue in the worldwide server market decreased 2.2% year over year to $10.9bn in the first quarter of 2014.

Server unit shipments improved 2.1 % to 2.1 million units as investments in datacentre capacity were largely offset by consolidation, which continued to be a strategic focus for many large and small customers around the globe.

The midrange and high-end markets were impacted by difficult year-over-year comparisons combined with transitions in the technology refresh cycles typical for these segments, said IDC
"The server market continues to be heavily influenced by the emergence of the 3rd Platform as mobile, cloud, big data, and social enablement drive significant hyperscale server deployments globally," said Matt Eastwood, group vice president and general manager, Enterprise Platforms at IDC.

HP held the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 26.5% factory revenue share for 1Q14. HP's -2.0% revenue decline came mainly from continued weakness in Itanium-based server revenue. IBM held the number 2 spot with 19.1% share for the quarter as factory revenue decreased -25.4% compared to 1Q13. Cisco's 1Q14 factory revenue increased 37.0% compared to 1Q13, gaining 1.6 points of market share, and Oracle's factory revenue was up 1.9% year over year in 1Q14.

Demand for x86 servers grew in Q1 with revenues increasing 4.9% year over year in the quarter to $8.9 billion worldwide as unit shipments increased 2.5% to 2.1 million servers. HP led the market with 29.6% revenue share based on 0.4% revenue growth yr/yr. Dell retained second place, securing 22.0% revenue share.

Density Optimised servers, used by large heterogeneous data centres, fell back as demand in 1Q14. Revenue declined -10.8% year over year in Q1 to $649 million as unit shipments decreased -6.0% to 215,567 servers. Density Optimised servers now represent 6.0% of all server revenue and 10.4% of all server shipments.

Blade servers increased 2.3% year over year to $2.0bn. Blades now account for 18.0% of total server revenue. HP maintained the number 1 spot in the blade server market in 1Q13 with 43.7% revenue share; Cisco held the second position in the blade market with 24.4% revenue share; and IBM held the third position with 12.3% revenue share.

Maintel has appointed Rob Leader as Sales Manager of its Mobile and Network Services divisions.

Leader will head up a team of nine people initially with a view to recruiting a larger team and significantly growing Maintel's base of 1,000 Mobile and Network Services customers and 13,000 connections in the next year and beyond.

He comes with an impressive track record of transforming telecoms sales teams into high-performing units.

Having initially started out in the industry on the technical side of the business with Nortel, he moved to T-Mobile, before joining Vodafone as a data specialist and then being headhunted to a similar role by 02.

While at 02, Leader was seconded to head up the London sales team within a year of joining before being appointed to the role of Regional Sales Manager for the South-East, proceeding to transform the lowest performing sales team into the best in the UK with minimal changes to personnel and winning accolades across the board.

Jim Close, Group Sales Director at Maintel, said: "Rob has an impressive track record of getting the best out of people and creating winning teams through strong leadership and positive sales culture.

"He's the perfect fit for Maintel's vision for its Mobile and Network Services divisions, and we're all excited by the boost we know he will give the business."

Leader said: "Maintel is ambitious, growing, and has a strong vision for developing the business. I am delighted to have this huge opportunity to be part of a successful company that is really going places.

"My goal is to stimulate aggressive growth through new business, while improving our already strong account management team, and growing the already highly rated service team and selling a wider range of solutions into existing customers."

Smartphones have twice the global reach of laptops and PCs with penetration in the 15 biggest developed markets at 65% at the end of 2013, and 23% for the 15 biggest emerging markets, noted Mary Meeker in a mobile-centric 2014 Internet Trends Report.

Global smartphone penetration has reached 22%, well above 11% penetration for laptops and 10% penetration for desktops. Tablets are still only at 6%, and mobile phones in general at 73%. There were 2.61 billion global Web users at the end of 2013, and 1.79 billion smartphone subs. Mobile made up 25% of Internet traffic as of May 2014, up from 15% a year ago and 10% two years ago.

Mobile accounts for over 1/5 of online video time (favorable for YouTube).Internet ad sales grew 16% last year to $116bn. Google had a Q1 annualised ad ARPU of $45 (up $3 Y/Y), dwarfing Facebook's (FB) $7.24 (up $2.84), and Twitter's (TWTR) $3.55 (up $1.58), it says. Mobile is estimated to account for 20% of media time spent, and just 4% of ad sales. For Internet, the figures are 25% and 22%.

Runners lining up for this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon can look forward to some high profile support to spur them on as they tackle the 26.2 mile course.

The BBC Question of Sport team captain and BT Sport rugby pundit, Matt Dawson, has agreed to be an official ambassador for the event which takes place in York and its surrounding villages on Sunday 12th October.

The 41-year-old former England Rugby Union captain has given his backing for the race, held for the first time last year, and will be at the start and finish line on the day.

Matt, who completed the 2007 London Marathon for charity in 4:35:39, said: "I can't wait to be at the start line, cheering on the runners at this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon. The enthusiasm and support this event has already received, in only its second year of existence, is truly infectious and I can't wait to witness it all for myself."

Andy Baker, CEO of Plusnet said: "Matt is both a sporting legend and household name so he is an obvious choice to bring on board to help promote this year's event. We hope as many people as possible will come and join ourselves and Matt in supporting the runners out on the course come event day."

Lisa Ashcroft, Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon event lead, said: "It is brilliant that Matt has agreed to be an ambassador for the event. His own sporting achievements are well documented and we hope his support for The Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon will prove inspirational for the thousands who will line up at the start on October 12th."

Matt, who toured with the British and Irish Lions, was a member of the England team that lifted the World Cup in 2003. He retired from the game in 2006.

The 2013 inaugural Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon, last October, was hailed a huge success, bringing in up to £2m for good causes. According to financial experts, it also brought a boost of at least £1m for the local economy. 

And this year's run is on course to be another big success. Capacity for the event was increased to 7,000 due to popular demand and all the places were snapped up in just a few hours. Only charity places are now available.

The marathon is organised by the team behind the popular Jane Tomlinson's Run For All 10K Series and Leeds Half Marathon, and is part of the lasting legacy of the late Jane Tomlinson CBE, who raised almost £2million by completing a series of amazing sporting challenges, despite being diagnosed with incurable cancer. 

www.theyorkshiremarathon.com.