Comms Dealer

Nimans' staff have proved their sporting pedigree and dressed up for charity in support of Sport Relief. Dozens of workers turned up at the company's Manchester HQ in sportswear that reflected their favourite football team, rugby side and even retro tennis players. The funds raised have been donated to Sport Relief 2014.

Vaioni Wholesale has been named in the Top 50 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the The Northern Tech Awards. This follows a £500k funding boost raised through Private Equity House Maven Capital.

Vaioni MD Sachin Vaish said: "It is great to see the hard work and dedication the Vaioni staff have put into the growth of the business is being recognised. Our growth plans are to continue customer acquisition with an order book which has grown by 100% during the last six months."

Outsourcery has posted its preliminary results for the year ended 31st December 2013 reporting revenues of £5.2m (up from £3.6m in 2012) with £4.1m recurring and £1.1m non-recurring.

Monthly recurring revenues have doubled from £0.3m in 2012 to £0.6m in 2013.

The company also reported an adjusted loss from operations of £8.8m compared to £10m in 2012.

A collaboration between Rainbow and The Portable Office Company (POC) has paid early dividends in the virtual desktop space, according to Rainbow's MD Dave Corgat.

He believes that the virtual desktop market will have the same impact as the launch of CPS and is claiming an early mover advantage ahead of widespread adoption.

"It's an easy product to deploy and gives us a strong foothold in what has been a traditional data domain," said Corgat.

"The margins we are seeing and the speed of uptake reflects Gartner's predictions that by 2015 almost 50% of the US SME market will adopt virtual desktops."

In partnership with POC Rainbow has created a portal that enables customers to control the deployment of their service.

"We aim to steal the march in this market," added Corgat. "The success so far has been staggering and supports our strong recurring revenue model."

Rainbow's interest in hosted and cloud integration caught the eye of POC founder Pete Melhuish.

He said: "We targeted Rainbow early due to its appetite for all things hosted and forward thinking attitude towards the unification of cloud services.

"From the moment we handed the platform over and introduced the product to the sales team they were inundated with calls for site visit requests."

Within three months Rainbow had built a 'healthy and growing' installed base with some customers expanding their networks automatically through the bespoke App Stores provided with every desktop.

Corgat added: "We are now seeing revenues rise outside of office hours with no sales team interaction. The dream of making money while you sleep is now very much a reality for Rainbow."

Connectivity and cloud distributor DMSL has joined forces with Plusnet to catalyse dealer recruitment and drive the Sheffield-based ISP's broadband and phone services deeper through the SMB channel, with a particular focus on small businesses. DMSL will also be championing Plusnet's broadband and voice solutions to its current dealer network.

John Carter, MD, DMSL, said: "This is a defining partnership for both companies and will deliver tremendous business potential and benefits for SMB resellers.

"We intend to make full use of the strength of the Plusnet brand in the business market and our own established reputation in the SMB channel to drive new opportunities and make it as easy as possible for resellers to do business."

Carter noted that becoming a Plusnet dealer with DMSL will be a 'straightforward process'.

"Resellers can engage with us and with Plusnet directly," he added. "A tracking system for sales with full billing, contracts and customer support has already been put in place by Plusnet and it will be simple to sign-up and process new customers."

The move reaffirms Plusnet's commitment to building a prosperous channel, according to Nick Silverwood, Head of Business for Plusnet (pictured above).

"With the growth of social media and the importance of online sales, connectivity is more important than ever to small businesses," he commented.

"It can provide more flexibility and agility, and enable improved customer service and boost competitiveness. We are excited about the prospects of working with DMSL to build a thriving and vibrant community of channel dealers who will take the Plusnet message to the SMB market."

Plusnet boasts 16 years of experience providing Internet service solutions to small businesses across the UK, with the primary focus on broadband.

The company's Sheffield-based business support team already caters for tens of thousands of business customers across the UK.

ipcortex aims to unlock new market segments and verticals with Release 5 of its VoIPCortex software.

The company has billed the new release as 'the most significant yet', delivering virtualisation into a single easy to deploy VMware instance, with an open API (with a Salesforce app as proof of concept) and an advanced interface version of Open Communication Manager (OCM 2.0).

The Virtual Editions deliver the same functionality and usability as the corresponding physical hardware.

The release is said to be easily deployed as part of a cloud infrastructure, with 8­-10 minutes from start to live with 5­-10 end­points, claims the firm.

"The open API will prove of interest to resellers and solution providers with industry vertical traction and individual project opportunities where apps could leverage the business benefit of a solution," said Rob Pickering, MD, ipcortex.

"ipcortex have developed a Salesforce app which seamlessly links the phone and CRM system without any other plugins or middleware to make the user more productive and improve customer service.

"The app and the source code will be made available at no cost. Developers can use the API and Salesforce source code as a head start for developing apps for other CRM packages."

OCM 2.0 provides an enhanced and user friendly interface for managing calls, presence and IM. Accessible via all major web browsers with no software install required, this new version creates a platform that is WebRTC ready and will allow seamless transition to web based telephony.

Existing ipcortex customers will have access to Release 5 as part of their Service Package benefits.

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: It's that time of year again. Marketing plans are written, activity schedules are being finalised and marketing activity for 2014 is go.

I thought it would be beneficial to list the key areas that many resellers would find helpful for their own marketing ideas. While every company is unique and differentiation is key, some basic rules can be applied.

Planning: This is a vital exercise and was discussed in one of my previous articles. Planning is key and should be firmly integrated into your business strategy and corporate goals. Ensure all key stakeholders are on board with your marketing ideas.

Know your customers: Get a true understanding of your client's business, their key objectives and pain points. If you know this you can offer them meaningful services that will enrich their business environment.

Don't confuse: Be clear on your key messaging and ensure this message is repeated in the same fashion across as many channels and as often as your budget will allow.

Be open minded: There are many more routes of communication than before. Experiment with video, SEO and social media but always ensure it is integrated with your more traditional activities.

Don't be stubborn: Give new marketing ideas a chance to establish but equally do not continue with a route that is not working for your business. Use this knowledge to create a new more successful campaign and move on.

RoI: Always a hot topic. Utilise the monitoring tools readily available for online activity. Speak to your sales team who engage directly with your clients on a daily basis. Although not automated, they have knowledge that offers invaluable insight into your campaign success and how it was received by your target audience.

Six months on from Oak's launch of its on line real-time comms management solution Evolve, Comms Dealer caught up with joint CEO Phillip Reynolds to assess how the channel has reacted to an industry game changer.

The management and analysis of voice calls via a value-added 'bolt on' to the most popular telephone systems has been the lifeblood of Oak Telecom for almost 30 years. Oak's development of a Microsoft Windows-based solution was a major step forward in the nineties and given the explosion of online business monitoring in recent years it was no surprise early last Autumn when Oak unveiled its totally web-based solution, Evolve. Reynolds' enthusiasm for the solution is palpable but he readily admits to some paternal bias as his son David has masterminded the Evolve project from day one. So, was it a case of 'come on Dad smell the coffee, the world's going online!'?

"It wasn't exactly like that as I have been developing web-based solutions for years, but David was a key driver," said Reynolds. "I needed somebody with a younger vision who already had an understanding of call management, but also knew how the web and device integration worked. Family prejudice aside, he was the perfect man for the job."

David Reynolds actually started developing software for telecoms back in 1998. He wrote the award winning RecordX call recorder in 2008 and started building Evolve in 2011. He is now based at Oak's office in Canada and works alongside William Emm, the son of Oak joint CEO James Emm, so effectively the two sons are building a doppelganger of Oak 'across the pond'. "To accelerate the growth of Evolve into new markets we set up a dedicated team that spans both Canada and the UK," added Reynolds. "We love to invest every year in R&D to make existing products better and to create new products like Evolve and it's working well. I guess because we're all 'family' we share the same goals and work values."

Evolve combines leading-edge telephony, Internet, database and mobile technologies in a single solution that does everything through the web. Fundamentally, it works with any operating system and on any communications device including tablets for maximum flexibility. "Business is increasingly carried out remotely, on the hoof, on tablets and smartphones, in homes and at restaurant tables," said Reynolds. "We believe that today's technology must be as flexible and mobile as we are. Evolve uses CTI technology to give managers and supervisors a real-time, bespoke overview of their business wherever they are, using whatever device they have to hand. It works on Apple Macs as well as PCs, on a personal tablet in Starbucks and your laptop at the dining table. Fully interactive, neither vital communication nor management responsibilities are compromised as supervisors can handle all calls, prioritise them, record them, listen to them, intervene with them, transfer them, and even receive them!

"There are a number of software solutions out there to help businesses manage their informal call centres, but many are highly priced, difficult to use and don't have fully featured web interfaces or interactive control over calls and queues from a browser."

Clearly, giving business managers the opportunity to view what's happening at that very moment in their business whenever they want and wherever they are in the world, is key to its success and Reynolds claims channel and customer feedback has been excellent. "The product has already been chosen to replace current market leading products in many cases and is seen as more usable and more affordable," he added. "In today's world, secure Internet access is a must to any next generation product. By being able to access up-to-the-second stats about your call centre from anywhere with any device is seen as a big positive.

"Our reseller customers particularly like Evolve's flexibility. It means they can design call centre wallboards that are tailored to their business, they can run a large range of reports and they can use the cradle to grave reporting to trace call activity through their business. It can adapt to any type of business and the way any business operates."

Reynolds says resellers can earn good margins from Evolve as it represents a new product folio that will help them achieve higher sales and higher profits. "We've launched many great products over the years such as RecordX and ReportX but this one is a bit special," he added. "It's both innovative and technically advanced and uses the best technology available in 2014 to deliver something exceptional which will enable existing resellers in the call centre marketplace to close more sales with a much more affordable solution, as well as enable other resellers to dip their toes into this growing market."

The first version of Evolve was built to work on Avaya IP Office but Oak's Evolve team are promising integration with others in the near future. "They're looking for switches where a high degree of integration is available," said Reynolds. "Evolve seeks to maximise the capabilities of the switch thus adding value to the overall proposition of switch and software as a complete solution. The more APIs available, the more powerful the TAPI interface, the more advanced the CTI interface, the more we can do. In our book, the more integrated we become, the better the solution."

With a young team driving Oak's next generation growth the final question to Reynolds senior had to be the exit question. "Of course it's tempting but James and I enjoy what we do and we think we still have a lot to offer the channel. So the answer is simple - we are going to be around for a few years yet." •

Skyrack Telecom's Managing Director Gavin Sweet has an impressive pedigree in pushing new technologies, not least as one of the driving forces behind the UK's first consumer ISP Freeserve. Now, he's putting his shoulder into bringing hosted comms to the masses.

All businesses now operate in an almost totally digital and IP connected world. One in which most users expect their services to be available anywhere, and one in which IT managers are looking to converge their services for manageability and security. This is particularly true for IP network convergence, that relentless shift towards simplified network management that is driving out ISDN and copper and driving in SIP/VoIP. "Businesses also want the ability to scale people and systems up and down quickly and easily, extending services into new areas and new locations to try and quickly take advantage of new revenue opportunities," said Sweet. "This makes hosted services attractive with zero maintenance, ubiquitous availability and easy scalability."

Non-hosted resellers should consider adopting a hosted comms strategy simply because customers are demanding such services, noted Sweet. "For customers with an existing IP network and broadband it's quick to install," he commented. "A good platform that incorporates device management, such as Skyrack's, ensures that phones are fully plug-and-play with no on-site programming required. And the PBX itself can easily be configured quickly and changed once the customer becomes more familiar with the service. This makes it much easier to achieve a quick sell, reduce the specification and provisioning time and get to revenue quickly."

Sweet pointed out that the revenue models offer resellers long-term residuals with good repetitive monthly margins on PBX service features as well as the calls and minutes. Nor is that all. "Innovation and integration options are broader and easier," added Sweet. "With a cloud solution based on SIP and VoIP its is easy to extend or add custom features, such as call recording and mobile integration, in a standard way that is repeatable, secure and upgrade safe."

The main issues for resellers moving into hosting revolve around selecting a supplier. "Don't be seduced by the usual suspects with the biggest advert and cheapest headline price, there are plenty of reliable smaller players out there," said Sweet. "Once resellers are offering hosted services they no longer do everything themselves. But the fact that the solution is hosted makes many aspects of implementation and support easier, and resellers are also reliant on training and support from their hosted provider when required. Resellers may also need pre-sales and sales support, so having a supportive provider that is prepared to go the extra mile with a custom feature or a special number, or to tweak the price here and there to help win a deal, goes a long way."

One of the strongest areas of the market are new and growing businesses looking for standard business PBX services at an affordable price, observed Sweet. "But as they become more sophisticated operations they will need more from their telecoms," he added. "Just choosing the cheapest most basic set of hosted services may look good when you're winning the deal, but if you can't expand the service into enterprise features you will have the same lack of scalability issues as an on-premise solution. Therefore resellers need to ensure that their providers' network is robust and reliable. They should check that the supplier is in control of their network with secure, redundant hosting facilities in a proper data centre, with diverse network and PSTN carrier relationships."

According to Sweet, Skyrack's proposition covers the bases. The company specialises in hosted voice and converged mobile services designed for the channel market with simple ordering, fast provisioning and plug-n-play activation. "The Skyrack platform offers a set of PBX features that will scale from regular office services through to advanced call centre operations and multi-site enterprises," explained Sweet. "The Skyrack Mobile-X MVNO service is built on direct integration with the mobile networks and delivers PBX features, geographic numbers and call recording to the SIM. Skyrack's SIP transit services take advantage of the voice network to provide PBX trunks and carrier connections to UK and international destinations."

For the past couple of years markets have been dominated by price sensitivity, cheaper minutes and bigger bundles, but this tide is starting to turn and other considerations are becoming important, observed Sweet, that switch customers on to hosted propositions. Clear examples of this for Skyrack are in fixed mobile converged services where it offers the Mobile-X service. "FMC and a general shift towards UC is a big feature in the market now," Sweet added. "Both of these trends are driving the move of services away from difficult to manage and impossible to evolve on-site hardware solutions into cloud and intelligent network delivery models.

"The productivity gains and working efficiencies of complete, transparent convergence between the office PBX and the mobile network are self-evident. And when it's also possible to layer on other enterprise voice services such as call centre type features or call recording these are powerful incentives that go beyond the simple price per minute."

Hosted comms is just one part of the market that is competitive and fast moving, and in today's all digital world these markets are also confused by a bewildering array of alternative communications services. "Resellers that can draw on flexible and scalable solutions in different areas will succeed," noted Sweet. "To do this they must be sure that they have a good selection of partners behind them who can help with good pricing and ongoing service innovation. This may require a range of suppliers - bigger networks who are focused on lowest price, and smaller providers who add value by innovating. If resellers look for providers who are prepared to be open and flexible with their services, not requiring or imposing exclusivity, they will be in a stronger position."

The comms industry is in the midst of an exciting time, believes Sweet, citing the rise of new 3G/GSM desk phones that use SIMs and mobile handset technology as an example of what is now possible. These devices fully support Skyrack's Mobile-X SIM and mobile PBX service enabling a wires-free PBX to be deployed. "These phones have all the portability and location-free advantages of a mobile handset but with the familiar experience and advanced PBX features of a desk phone," he commented. "We are seeing strong demand for these devices in different scenarios, sometimes as a simple way to deliver an immediate service to a customer where ISDN or SIP/broadband is delayed, and sometimes simply to allow a business to be completely flexible and not require any local infrastructure, which is often the case for temporary sites such as entertainment or construction."

Hosted technology has given Skyrack the ability to layer together standard business PBX services with advanced enterprise features, delivered to either fixed IP handsets, SIMs in mobiles, SIMs in 3G desk phones or to software clients. "We just wouldn't be able to combine delivery and innovation without operating in this way," added Sweet. "We are a channel-focused business with white label wholesale services. Our resellers who are putting together their own solutions are making good margins, perhaps 30-40 per cent while still remaining fully competitive, typically looking at a monthly ARPU upwards of £12-15 per user. This means that resellers can build solutions from different components while maintaining control of the customer relationship." •

There are some notable shifts taking place in the comms dynamic that are intensifying demand for new world services such as hosted Lync, according to Mark Whitehead, Head of Channel Sales at GCI Channel Solutions, who aims to build his partner base tenfold in three years based on a programme of education and market enablement in these new areas.

Given that hosted Lync is the talk of the town you would expect resellers to be lining up in droves to meet end user demand. But ironically, switching resellers on to the opportunity ranks as one of Whitehead's biggest challenges. That said, the seasoned channel builder is making gains. "Building reseller confidence and knowledge to sell VDI, BaaS and hosted Lync is still a challenge, but we are making headway," he said. "Nearly every new partner I speak to has been asked about hosted Lync. Those that have customers in the education sector in particular are seeing RFIs written around hosted Lync. Most are still to choose a Lync partner."

Whitehead believes that cloud service distributors are failing to educate resellers, in particular VARs, on the benefits of Lync. But he aims to steal a march and plug that knowledge gap. "We are positioned to take our partners on this journey and have made the cloud infrastructure investment on behalf of our partners."

Founded in 2000 by CEO Wayne Martin, GCI now has a £55 million turnover and employs over 200 members of staff throughout the UK. Its indirect arm, GCI Channel Solutions, was conceived in June 2013 when Whitehead was invited into the business by Managing Director John Whitty to literally build a channel. Since its official launch in October 2013 the division now has seven heads and over 30 partners on its books. "By 2016 I believe GCI Channel Solutions will have 300 active partners and provide a £2 million EBITDA contribution to Group PA," stated Whitehead.

His sales career has spanned over 25 years, beginning with a spell at telecoms company IDC Communications selling fax machines to businesses in the '80s, followed by a long period working for Chubb Alarms selling CCTV and access control solutions. "After a two year stint at a Nottingham web design agency as Sales Director I went full circle back into telecoms, working for Pipex for five years and Griffin for eight years in channel sales," said Whitehead.

When GCI advanced the idea of building a strong channel Whitehead was the natural choice, and a neat fit. "Every member of the team is enthusiastic and professional," he added. "We are all working hard to build something that is special in the channel. The majority of the team have worked together before so there is high level of trust and confidence within this seasoned channel team."

GCI has established a good reputation for its delivery of MPLS and connectivity products but its medium to long-term goals are also focused around an investment in cloud infrastructure, which Whitehead believes will be a significant part of future sales. "We are working on a series of cloud workshops to help educate partners so they can compete in this lucrative area," added Whitehead. "VARs selling single product lines are vulnerable to buyers driving margins and costs down because it is easy for them to establish a standard to benchmark. Selling the-end-to-end solution through a company like GCI Channel Solutions ensures that margins over the total project are healthy. SIs and VARs need to be selling cloud, voice and connectivity to maintain profitably and increase shareholder value."

Whitehead is aiming to add a raft of new partners to his channel base, especially those operating in telecoms, MSPs, and VARs with £1 million to £30 million turnover. His lure is a pledge to help them compete in the sales of cloud, connectivity and voice in areas that have hitherto been the preserve of large IT and telecoms service providers. "GCI Channel Solutions is also looking at mobility and the way BYOD will affect how we work in the future," added Whitehead. "We already have VDI and UK hosted Share file solutions that can be accessed by multiple devices."

Being easy to do business with is a priority for any channel supplier and GCI is no exception to the rule. However, Whitehead believes that the company has gone the extra mile with its launch of the GCI Control Panel to partners on its Beta Programme. Already proving popular, the early feedback indicates that Whitehead's aim to increase his partner base tenfold is more realistic than overtly ambitious. "The initial design brief was to give our channel partners a simple to use tool that allows them to carry out tasks in minutes, tasks that would have otherwise required pre-sales input and time consuming work," he explained. "The full launch of the GCI Control Panel will allow partners to generate quotes, order and provision services directly."

Once launched the services will include hosted Microsoft Exchange with attractive storage and pricing, and also hosted Lync with full enterprise voice functionality. "At the same time we will be launching a new Hosted Desktop solution that will be totally self-provisioned by our channel partners," added Whitehead. "This will help accelerate the adoption of cloud services and increase the stickiness of the solution."

Nor is that all: GCI is in the advanced stages of preparations for the launch of Vipex, its enterprise grade channel-only hosted telephony platform. "I believe Vipex will encourage partners who have previously been deterred from selling voice to really embrace the technology," added Whitehead. "I expect all of these new products to be a game changer for the channel. And by empowering our partners with the ability to quote, support, and provision through self-serve tools we are giving them the key to succeed in a challenging business environment. With the support of our pre-sales and channel management teams we can help them secure high margin, long-term recurring revenue contracts while giving partners the complete end-to-end experience."

Tasks that once took days can now be completed in minutes, and that, says Whitehead, is a 'great way' to improve recurring revenue. "We haven't tried to fit our existing direct products into the channel model, instead we have created brand new products that we believe our channel partners will be eager to adopt." •