Comms Dealer

On toll fraud, VanillaIP's stance is unequivocal. "It's time for service providers and Tier 1s to take responsibility rather than passing the buck to resellers and their clients," stated CEO Dave Dadds. Backing up his words with actions Dadds announced that VanillaIP is introducing a Toll Fraud Guarantee. "The buck stops with us," he emphasised. "This guarantee should give great comfort to resellers that are rightly concerned about dial through fraud.

"Industry figures show this is a multi-million pound problem with single instances running into hundreds of thousands, even millions in some cases."

Dadds confirmed that VanillaIP fully supports initiatives from industry trade bodies including FCS and ITSPA, particularly around the stopping of fraudulent out payments. But ultimately, service providers and Tier 1s must grab the bull by the horns, he believes.

"Our experience in the cloud space over the last 10 years with SIP trunking and hosted PBX has shaped our view that SIP trunking will always be inherently more susceptible to fraud because there are third party 'boxes' located on site, all of which can be under the control of different parties and software revisions.

"For this reason we have excluded SIP trunking from our guarantee scheme."

The VanillaIP Guarantee is based on Uboss which enables partners to allocate daily credit limits to the end user HPBX extension.

Using near real-time rating all call traffic for both 'in Flight' and completed calls is rated to calculate spend. At 80% a warning email is sent and at 100% the extension is automatically blocked and existing calls disconnected.

"The guarantee itself is simple," explained Dadds. "The reseller will pay no more than 3x the User Daily Credit limit, or £50, whichever is the higher. This is because the reseller is in full control of credit limits.

"Cyber fraud is on the increase across many industries but when it comes to dial through fraud, much like if your credit card is cloned and money stolen, the bank will reimburse you. The buck stops with us."

Pragma is urging resellers to change their sales paradigms and encourage younger sales people to start offering customers Wi-Fi analytics as a marketing tool.

The distributor has partnered with Netherlands company So WiFi, whose guest Wi-Fi solution intelligently gathers information on visitors and provides information and data for customers to follow up on.

The solution is already finding traction in relevant vertical markets such as pubs and clubs, as reseller delegates at Pragma's partner conference last month confirmed.

"When young people walk into a pub they invariably log onto Facebook or Instagram, and often they're using a parent's device. With So Wi-Fi you get all their information," said Chris Morrisey, MD of Lily Comms.

"Most pub owners don't know how to market or use social media effectively, but with So WiFi they get a user portal so, for example, they'll know in advance when it's a person's birthday and they can send them a happy birthday message, such as 'come back to the pub to celebrate'.

"It's a different type of sale for us, but once you get your head around this it's a great opportunity, especially if you have younger or junior sales people who know and understand the power of social media."

BDR CEO Bahman Rahimi agreed: "Currently, this is not a big volume sale for us - they are usually £3-4K opportunities - so you can't necessarily send a heavyweight salesperson out to sell one of these a week, but my young son is getting amazing results selling the product.

"And we are thinking of going a step further and building on this by creating a fully managed marketing solution for clients."

Daan Donders (pictured), founder and CEO of So WiFi, which has rapidly grown a global footprint, commented: "We solve issues that many businesses have with social media and make it work for them.

"We are urging partners not to see it as a technical and complicated solution, but as a marketing tool that runs through Wi-Fi. We have achieved great traction with Pragma's channel in just a few months. We'll now get a lot bigger in the UK."

Channel distributor Pragma recognised its star performing resellers at its annual awards dinner staged after the company's partner conference at The Belfry last month.

Top winners were Focus who picked up Overall Reseller of the Year, treble winner Lily Comms and Conceptunet which won Best New Reseller of the Year for its work in securing one of the biggest enterprise wins of last year with Oxleas NHS Trust.

The full list of winners were: iPECS Innovation Awards - Sirus and Network Communications Group; New Reseller of the Year - Conceptunet; Phone-Link Reseller of the Year - Lily Comms; iCall Reseller of the Year - Lily Comms; Braxtel Contact Q Reseller of the Year - Yorkshire Telecom; SoWiFi Reseller of the Year - BDR; Pragma Reseller of the Year Awards - Cloudsource Technologies, BDR, 5G and Lily Comms; Overall Reseller of the Year - Focus.

New Reseller of the Year - Conceptunet (left)

Overall Reseller of the Year - Focus (below) 

Wholesale connectivity provider Entanet has migrated its line rental billing to Elevate, the cloud-based billing system created by Strategic Imperatives.

"We built Elevate when we recognised that the industry remains largely dependent on cumbersome and inefficient systems that often affect growth and profitability," said Tim Sayer, Head of Business Development at Strategic Imperatives.

"At Elevate's heart is a clear focus on usability and simplicity. The system is increasingly being adopted by communication providers due to its real-time nature, ease of use and auto-scaling technology."

Neil Watson, Head of Service at Entanet, added: "The migration process was seamless with Imperatives' onboarding team undertaking full project management. During the process they also identified and resolved legacy revenue leakage and reporting issues."

Key vendor partners joined forces with Swallowfield-based Nuvola Distribution to host a partner update and golf event at the Forest of Arden hotel on 9th March.

Presentations from Nuvola, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, ShoreTel, Talari Networks, Ingate, NetConnect and Vurella put a spotlight on issues such as the value of a true end-to-end solution, cloud versus hybrid and CPE, margin in wallboards, contact centre and CRM integration, along with security.

Nuvola MD Michael Lloyd commented: "The morning sessions were informative and insightful, prompting fantastic feedback from our reseller partners. It was also great to welcome on board new resellers who attended the event. We have some new vendors waiting in the wings and are actively recruiting resellers. Watch this space for more information on our next customer event in the summer."

Nuvola Distribution was created in 2013 out of Nuage Communications, a channel-only services business with expertise in UC, VoIP, contact centre, WLAN, Skype for Business and mobility.

Nuage has since evolved into the services division of Nuvola which distributes UC and VoIP technologies and services.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit series of events is expanding to Amsterdam in April, assessing the impact of market trends and compliance on the MSP sector in Europe.

Expert speakers from Gartner and a leading legal firm involved in assessing the impact of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be providing keynote presentations, speaking as evidence emerges that many MSPs need to 'up their game', particularly in their sales and customer retention.

Customers are demanding more, so Bianca Granetto, Research Director at Gartner will examine new research into digital business and digital transformation market dynamics and what customers are really asking about.

Another keynote speaker, Renzo Marchini, author of Cloud Computing: A Practical Introduction to the Legal Issues, is a partner in law firm Fieldfisher's privacy and information law group which has over 20 years' experience in advising clients across different sectors and ranging from start-ups to multinationals. He has a particular focus on cloud computing, the "Internet of Things", and big data.

Finally, for those seeking guidance on the high level of merger and acquisition activity in the sector, David Reimanschneider, of M&A experts Hampleton, will look at where the smart money is going in the MSP business and what the real measures of value and time are, and when to sell.

The European Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2017 which will be staged in Amsterdam on 25th April 2017 will build on the success of the UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit which is now in its seventh year and will bring leading hardware and software vendors, hosting providers, telcos, mobile operators and web services providers involved in managed services and hosting together with channels including Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and resellers, integrators and service providers seeking to developing their managed services portfolios and sales of hosted solutions.

The European Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2017 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales.

The event has attracted a strong line up including many of Europe's leading suppliers to the MSP sector such as: Datto, SolarWinds MSP. Autotask, Kingston Technology, RingCentral, TOPdesk, ASG, Cato Networks and Kaseya.

For further information or to register please visit: HYPERLINK "http://www.mshsummit.com/amsterdam"www.mshsummit.com/amsterdam

Arrow Business Communications has boosted its annual turnover to £26m and established a presence in the business energy sector following the acquisition of London-based Pulse Business Energy.

This is Arrow's eighth acquisition in seven years and enables the firm to provide an energy, telecoms and IT consultancy and service proposition.

Arrow MD Chris Russell stated: "We identified the energy market as a strategic opportunity a while ago but wanted to partner with a company whose ethos and values were similar to Arrow's."

Ofcom's reaction to Openreach broadband installation delays was a record £42m fine, but according to Bamboo Technology Group MD Lorrin White there remains big questions over how quickly the UK's fixed line network can be improved.

"As a provider working in the fixed line arena for nearly 20 years we are used to the complexities and moving goalposts of Openreach's compensation processes so are not surprised to learn that rules have been breached to avoid successful claims," she said.

"While the fine reflects the significant impact that late installations have on businesses and was deemed a justified figure by Ofcom, I hope it will instigate the shake-up required to avoid such rule flouting in the future.

Openreach has already agreed to meet Ofcom's demands to become a separate company - a step we wholeheartedly support and agree with - but as a telecoms provider that works with Openreach every day we only want it to succeed.

"Openreach needs to commit everything it can to significant nationwide fibre investment. To do that it needs all the resources it can get."

Serial entrepreneur and former Lanway MD Vernon Yerkess, who played a key role in selling the IT services and supply business to Chess early last June, has urged exit hungry ICT businesses not to underestimate the work involved in the sale process.

"It's emotionally exhausting and the due diligence process is really tough," said Yerkess speaking to guests at last month's exit educational seminar in London organised by M&A specialist Evolution Capital, who managed the Lanway sale.

Lifting the lid on the work involved in the sale, Yerkess told guests that the key to his successful outcome was the Strategic Review undertaken by Evolution at the outset which enabled them to match them with the right type of buyer.

"The Strategic Review was very important because it told Evolution what our business was all about and they could then position us with the right people to buy us. Based on the review they told us what they thought the business was worth - high and low - and we ended up somewhere in the middle. Evolution knew the market and this set our expectations on what we would get, the timing and the work involved. The due diligence process was the hardest challenge. It consumes your life because it's your baby you're selling.

"It was Chess' 93rd acquisition in 10 years so they knew what they were doing. The process they went through was very templated which meant in six weeks I knew everything that went on in Lanway in every nook and cranny. I knew every bill, how much the electricity cost, how much we paid each person, their length of service...everything because that's what you must do. I found out about a lot of stuff in that period!

"Eventually we completed the Shareholder Purchase Agreement - there was an issue with some of the add-backs and the balance sheet because cash in our sort of business is always up and down - but Evolution sorted it out.
"From the time Steve and I decided to sell the business to in April 2015 we got our money the following June which was about the time Evolution had predicted.

"There have been no regrets at all and the former Lanway staff are enjoying life at Chess. We thought it was a good fit because we had a good idea where they could take the business and they had done it all before!"

Yerkess will repeat his talk at the Radisson BLU Hotel in Manchester on Thursday March 30th. To attend email Debbie@evolutioncapital.com.

Any telecoms or ICT business looking to sell in the next year or so will find a willing buyer despite uncertainty over Brexit.

That's the view of Evolution Capital business advisor Nick Blong who believes the M&A market will remain healthy for the rest of 2017.

Speaking at Evolution's breakfast seminar at The Ivy in London last month, he told reseller guests that 2017 GDP forecasts from both the IMF and the Bank of England had been upgraded but a downgrade was expected for 2018.

"The IMF's economic Chief Economist Maurice Obstfeld has said that reduced output, transactional costs and restriction of labour supplies due to Brexit will present a longer-term challenge for the UK but if you look at the wider market, in a survey of Private Equity and Venture Capital Funders there is 94% confidence for the long-term future and 97% expect to deploy the same rate of funds," said Blong.

"These are the people putting money into the market which is important to sellers because there will be more buyers with more money and they will increase the amount they'll be willing to pay.

"The same survey said there is likely to be a burst of activity in some sectors, one of which was ICT. Whatever the state of the economy there is always going to be challenges and opportunities and you're always going to be in the same place as your competitors so for a good profitable business there will always be an opportunity to sell. ??"None of us can accurately predict the future, but from what we have seen 2017 looks like a good time to sell," he concluded.