Comms Dealer

NetPay Group has extended its zone of influence into Ireland where it will provide businesses with merchant payment services through its partner channel.

In April 2013 the Irish Government introduced The National Payments Plan (NPP), a three year initiative that aims to make annual savings of up to one billion euro by doubling the number of electronic payments by 2015.

According to NetPay Group MD Carl Churchill the company is well placed to drive the shift away from cash and cheque payments.

"To help Ireland achieve its NPP goal of doubling electronic payments by 2015 we are offering a competitive service through our partners in a market where merchants are commonly seriously overcharged by the incumbent providers," he stated.

Retailers in Ireland are increasingly refusing to take credit or debit card payments under 10 euro due to the rising costs of card payment fees, however embracing initiatives such as 'low value payments' isn't an issue with NetPay which provides discounts to merchants on card processing fees, explained Churchill.

"The card payment industry in Ireland has traditionally been dominated by High Street banks and larger independent payment service providers," he added.

"NetPay is now offering merchants a competitive alternative, with reporting and transaction analytics that can enable them to improve on their consumer experience as well as reducing their costs."

NetPay is gearing up for a partner recruitment campaign that he hopes will 'kick-start' Irish merchant opportunities.

Nimans has reported double digit sales growth in 2013 across Unify, Samsung, Panasonic, NEC, Aastra and its own exclusive iQ PBX solution.

"Increase was across all the brands as a feel good factor returned to the market," explained Head of Category Sales, Paul Burn. "In recent years it's been pretty flat but 2013 was a year to remember as upward momentum made a welcome return.

"Some brands performed better than others but overall there was a general rise in sales across our whole portfolio which is encouraging. A general upturn in confidence in the market coupled with an improving economic outlook all helped."

Nimans is anticipating further strong growth this year, buoyed by its status as sole UK distributor for Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications).

"The death of the PBX has been grossly exaggerated," Burn added. "All the market indications point towards further growth this year and Nimans is ideally placed to help our customers capture a bigger share of sales. We've got dedicated business units and all the services resellers need to grow and prosper - from technical support to leasing and network connectivity.

"We will continue to expand our Unify team and are making further investments throughout the business that will further enhance the levels of support we provide to customers."

Here, Andrew McMillan, Principal at Engaging Service, addresses the issue of customer complaints and how through an organisation's culture and attitude towards customer experience they can be seen as a blessing or a curse.

We've all heard that a happy customer will tell x number of people whereas an unhappy customer will tell many more about their experience. After all, everyone loves a good story. Complaints are dangerous and can severely damage your reputation. However, it is also true that a serious complaint, resolved quickly and generously, is far more likely to create a strong advocate for your business than a customer who was completely satisfied with their experience.

That may seem counter intuitive, but if you stop to think about this, it makes perfect sense. The satisfied customer never expected anything else except to be satisfied, while the complaining customer gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how agile, caring and responsive you can be in a crisis. This has enormous capacity to build confidence and trust in the relationship. I used to see this time after time when I was responsible for the escalated complaints at John Lewis, with many of the most complimentary customer letters and emails resulting from a complaint being well handled. I'm not suggesting that you should 'engineer' a percentage of failure in your business to improve its reputation, just that complaints can be embraced rather than feared.

So, how do you create that mind-set? Those of you who have been reading the previous pieces may recall that my approach to shaping business culture starts with a definition of the behaviour that culture is to be based on. One of my favourite examples is from Ritz Carlton hotels in the US who define their customer experience as Welcome, Wanted, Remembered, Cared for. You should treat complaints in exactly the same way and, by doing that, the approach I have described over the past months can also be used to shape your complaint management.

The first step is to ensure you are very clear about your product or service and what it will and will not do. It sounds obvious, but prevention is better than cure. So many complaints I see within the various sectors I work with are as a consequence of poor customer communication at the time of the sale, sometimes due to over selling. Secondly, apologise, whether you think you are at fault or not. Businesses often seem to see an apology as an admission of failure. It isn't, you are simply apologising because the customer has become dissatisfied. An apology as a first response, irrespective of how justified you think the complaint is, can do so much to diffuse the situation at the outset.

Now you should go on to empathise with the customer. How would you feel if this happened to you? This can be an understandable challenge for frontline employees who are dealing with repeated complaint customers. However, remember this might be the first time the customer has encountered this problem and they will perceive the businesses' response on their own terms. Consequently, what really matters in this situation is what the customer, not you, considers to be fair.

That may sound harsh, but if you really want to build reputation through positive complaint handling the customer's perception of your response is more important than the reality of whether you presented a fair solution or not. And, of course, they hold all the cards as they have the option to never trade with you again and tell all their friends to avoid your business too.

Consequently, seeing this as a battle is dangerous as you will never ever win, especially with the prevalence of social media. Try googling 'complaint' and your brand and you may get a nasty surprise. If you are managing digital media well the first result you will see is the 'contact us' link to your website. If you want a couple of early and very powerful examples of the influence of social media in complaint management search for 'United Airlines broken guitar' on youtube or 'Wendi Aarons letter' on Google, both of which went viral and caused the brands much heartache.

Finally, always thank the customer for complaining. It really is free consultancy, so do something with it. I speak to so many organisations about complaints and hear people saying 'that always happens with x product or service'. There is nothing more powerful or constructive than resolving a complaint well and then telling the customer what you have immediately done to prevent recurrence. That's great for the customer relationship, great for the businesses' reputation and also great for your future profits.•

About Andrew
Organisations that spurn their most precious responsibility to create a remarkable customer experience will lose out to rivals who react proportionately to the high value they place on winning and keeping their customers. That's according to Andrew McMillan, Principal at Engaging Service, who specialises in customer experience and employee engagement. He is best known as the architect of John Lewis' customer-driven culture and now operates as a leading business consultant. In 2012 he inspired Comms Vision delegates to create massive competitive advantage by better managing staff, customer experiences and corporate branding.

Martin Flick, CEO of Olive Communications, took up the post early this year and is already on target to double revenues to £25 million by 2014. Here's his story...

Olive represented an exciting opportunity for Flick to put to use all of the skills, experience and learnings gained in his career. In 1998 he co-formed a business that was acquired by Azzurri in 2004, and although he has no regrets about the sale Flick always wondered where he could have taken the business. "Olive has given me a chance to answer that question," stated Flick.

Post-acquisition Flick spent eight years working at Azzurri with what he describes as some of the most successful, ambitious and creative people in the industry, and he gained invaluable experience as the company went through a number of acquisitions, integrations and proposition developments. "I thoroughly enjoyed most of my time there, through the glory years and even during some of the tough times, however the opportunity to take all that I had learnt and apply that to developing the Olive business strategy at what is a very exciting time in its evolution was too good to resist," added Flick.

"What Mark Geraghty and the Olive team achieved in the preceding years was phenomenal and having worked with Mark early in his career and having remained firm friends throughout meant that I had seen Olive develop, grow and flourish with interest. The opportunity Mark gave me to join as an equity partner and be instrumental in driving the next stage of its development is exciting and a perfect fit in terms of partnership."

According to Flick, Olive has an opportunity to really stand out in the market. "Our relationship with Vodafone is stronger than ever and our ability to develop the portfolio as it integrates the recent acquisition of C&W is compelling," he added. "We have the financial stability, multi-product expertise and blank canvas from an infrastructure perspective to ride the wave of the comms revolution that is taking place."

On taking the role of CEO in February, Flick's first job was to create a plan to maximise the potential of all of the acquisitions Olive had made in the previous year. 2012 was a busy year for the Olive team which saw seven businesses acquired, due to opportunistic timing in the run up to true revenue share. "As a fresh pair of eyes I was able to help the team take a step back and consider all of the synergies available both from a revenue and capability perspective and to maximise the benefit through integration," noted Flick. "We committed that we wouldn't make any more acquisitions until we had fully integrated those we had acquired.

"Two things surprised me: Firstly, the acceptance and support I received from the Olive team was phenomenal. Within weeks they had all given me their full commitment and our long term-plan was created. This led on to the second surprise - the speed of execution of phase one. In only three months we had met all of our primary objectives had ticked all of the boxes on integrating seven customer bases and were then able to successfully make two more acquisitions, Direct Communications and Wish Holdings."

Discussions between Geraghty and Flick before he joined the company saw the pair agree to invest heavily in the business in order to take advantage of the market opportunity. "It's a very exciting time for the industry and for customers alike and we agreed we would invest to shape and develop Olive to take full advantage of market demand," added Flick.

"As a result, we have invested in people and have recruited some of the best in the industry to come and join us. We have invested in systems, processes and infrastructure to support converged product offerings, and have the ability to deliver multi product managed services to customers of varying sizes consistently across a single CRM platform. Our third investment area is in products and services that provide differentiation for us and our strategic partners. To supplement organic investment we have just made a significant acquisition in Wish which has given us scale, additional expertise and strengthened management capabilities."

Olive Communications has witnessed revenue and staff numbers grow steadily to almost £11 million turnover in its last financial year. "I set a budget this year of £13 million which we will exceed organically by about £2 million," commented Flick. "As the acquisitions took place mid-year the full effect on revenue won't be clear until the integration is fully completed and we have a full 12 months combined trading at the end of 2014, but I expect revenue to exceed £25 million."

His three year business plan is to maximise the value of the ten acquisitions made in the last two years and grow organically and aggressively. "Within our three year plan we will achieve significant growth and expect to challenge the market with disruptive and intelligent solutions delivered with the support of our strategic partnerships," added Flick.

"Our culture is to build an obsession about customer service into the DNA of the business and with this personal touch enable people to work effectively and efficiently anywhere in the world. Customer service is at the core of our offering. The team likes to compare itself to a concierge style service for its connected customers. Our culture is dynamic and the team also socialise outside of the office. We are lucky to have a family-style culture at Olive, with everyone having a sense of belonging to something special."

As is the case for all growing families, space becomes an issue and Flick rates accommodation as a current pain point. "Having moved into a new HQ in February we have outgrown it already and will be expanding to a larger building early next year," he explained. "Moving twice in 12 months for any business would be painful but its testament to the hard work from our team that we will do so without fuss or disruption. We couldn't predict the growth we've seen in the past year, but have planned for the future to accommodate all of our possible requirements."

His biggest industry bugbear is that nearly every player in the market talks in their marketing collateral about delivering managed services, value propositions, differentiation and world class support in an attempt to de-commoditise their offerings, but they do not live by those principles by training and developing their sales teams to sell the added value and be bold enough to charge a premium for adding true differentiation.

"As a result, nearly all bids that we see end up being commoditised and driven to the lowest price point by customers," added Flick. "While it is important to be competitive and deliver value for money, if organisations can't be brave enough to justify their managed service costs customers will ultimately suffer in the long run as value, service and creativity will be degraded. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and I should know as we keep rare breed pigs on our Surrey smallholding!"•

Vapour Media is pumping high octane gas into the tanks of resellers on the drive towards cloud territory, according to Tim Mercer, co-founder and Director.

Mercer has no role models to speak of, his heroes operate anonymously in the Forces. And during a six year stint as a soldier himself Mercer served in the first Gulf War and toured Northern Ireland. He witnessed first-hand how the resolve of highly trained people working together can really make a difference to the world. "I take my hat off to those guys every day," he said. "They keep us safe in our beds."

It is with a similar spirit of camaraderie and mutual trust that Mercer advances his channel-centric strategy, and his ethos is paying off handsomely. "We work with resellers to build relationships that last, keeping them up to date with new and emerging technologies such as the cloud and ensuring they are fully trained on each of our products" commented Mercer.

New partners of all shapes and sizes, from the traditional telecom sector and the IT channel, are joining Vapour by the week. "We are signing up partners from a number of sectors and helping them sell data networks and cloud voice services with SaaS," added Mercer. "Our focus is to make Vapour a major player in the channel for data cloud voice and SaaS services. Our priorities revolve around customer service. We aim to deliver a quality customer experience with great pricing, focusing on customer retention and satisfaction. If we do our job right partners will want to work with us and our base will grow."

Vapour Media was founded in 2013 by Mercer, Dominic Waterson and Jason Sharp, who each saw a big opportunity in improving the way networks and voice services are provided and delivered. Backed by private equity, Vapour Media has an experienced team with the ambition and ability to grow into a significant supplier to the channel. The company is expanding quickly and expects to reach 20 staff during the next financial year.

Having left the Forces and not afraid to take calculated risks Mercer reached a cross roads in his career and naturally sought an 'exciting' opportunity. From a financial and technology prospective telecoms fitted the bill. He joined Telewest in 1999 as a Regional Sales Executive, surviving the change to NTL Telewest and again holding his own when Virgin Media came knocking. "After four years as a sales executive I was promoted to Regional Sales Manager running the Yorkshire sales team for Virgin," stated Mercer. "I did this for over eight years selling every aspect of data connectivity to SMEs and corporates, winning lucrative accounts and driving up revenues in excess of £20 million per year."

In 2010 Mercer reached another turning point in his career and decided to change direction, partly encouraged by fellow director and best friend Dom Waterson, a serial entrepreneur who has been in telecoms since 1992 and owns another successful telecoms business. "Through my own desire to start a company and Dom's constant drive to move into the data arena we decided to write a plan," explained Mercer. "We required funding to build our own MPLS network and luckily the funders where interested from day one but said we would need an experienced Financial Director. We met with Jason Sharp who was also looking for the same type of opportunity. Jason was group FD at Daisy during its fantastic buying spree and he brings a wealth of experience that keeps our feet on the ground."

The Vapour team have a wide variety and depth of experience that ranges from starting up businesses from scratch to working in some of the largest Plcs in the UK. "This gives us a great perspective on building a new business and what it takes to run and grow a larger organisation," commented Mercer. "We know what great looks like and what poor feels like. We focus on what we are good at, ensure we support our partners and recognise each of them and their customers as individuals."

Mercer describes Vapour's company culture as a 'hologram' of what is happening in the wider business environment and in peoples' personal lives. "This outlook applies to the products we sell, our work ethics and the flexibility in how we interact with our staff and partners," he commented. "The Vapour team have sold these type of products before, delivered them and felt the ups and downs of a client's pain, hence the reason for our focus on improving the way networks and voice services are provided and delivered to customers."

Vapour Media has grown quickly over the last year having established competitive commercials with the Tier 1 suppliers for a set of robust access, data, voice and SaaS products. "Our short-term aims are to sign up a number of key partners from the channel and support them in delivering these products to their customers," added Mercer. "We are in the process of developing a portal which will allow our partners to log in and receive instant pricing, sales and marketing support and training to enable them to confidentially sell out products. Due to steady growth in our reseller base we are now able to expand our team bringing in some great assets that will help make 2014 a successful year for Vapour."

Mercer believes that the evolving comms sector will see greater adoption of cloud and hosted telephony, and there will be more partnerships with suppliers that can manage the network access to connect customer sites while also being able to manage the voice element across the network from one network operations centre. "Too many resellers still view cloud as a potential opportunity," added Mercer. "We see it as a big risk for many of them if they don't get on board and adopt what is becoming the dominant technology. They will be left behind. Their competitors are adopting cloud and their customers are being led by consumer advances in cloud products and services such as Dropbox and Skype. They expect similar technologies at work."

To capitalise on these trends Vapour Media built its own partner agnostic data network to deliver services from the four main Tier 1 carriers, interconnecting into two data centres. "This gives us resilience and flexibility as well as more choice for the reseller and customer base," said Mercer. "Our strategy to deliver next generation voice services saw us become an early adopter of Content Guru's cloud platform. Our sales focus is purely channel driven providing the reseller with the confidence to work with us to identify opportunities within their customer base. We also white label our marketing materials and support both them and the end client through every step of the process, from ordering to delivery and ongoing support." •

Bradford-based Lily Communications Managing Director Chris Morrisey has bounced back from a serious health scare with the same high levels of energy and enthusiasm that attracted him to the telecoms industry 15 years ago.

Morrisey is a changed man. No longer seduced by beer, curry and TV he dedicates himself to a disciplined lifestyle where smoothies, salads and fitness training dominate. Such is the life changing influence of surviving a heart attack. His company, Lily Communications, has also undergone a transformation, prompted by arresting changes within the comms industry. Although not life threatening, running a business is also a case of survival of the fittest and Morrisey is limbering up for a long-term and fruitful future. "By 2018 I fully expect Lily Comms to be a multi-million pound organisation," he stated. "Everything we are doing now is geared towards us becoming recognisable and respected within the industry."

Lily Comms was founded in 2009 by Morrisey and business partner Adrian Jackson who shared a vision to build a business that other telecoms companies would aspire to emulate. "I share the highs and the lows with Adrian, bounce ideas off him, sometimes he has the right ideas, sometimes I do, but together we eventually get it right," said Morrisey.

The company now has a headcount of 23, boasts £2.2 million turnover and expects £500k growth for 2013 and £750k this year. Its 2,000 customer base is split between 90 per cent SME customers and 10 per cent corporate. And notably, growth has been spurred in no small part by a strategic change of direction.

"We have shifted our primary focus from providing outsourced engineering for other telecom companies to concentrating on our own direct customer base," noted Morrisey. "Our engineering background has served us well in terms of customer acquisition. We are able to approach companies to provide solutions based on our knowledge bank. A key focus will be on the acquisition of SME customers through our own sales team and by building partnerships with resellers of our portfolio. We are aiming to increase turnover by 100 per cent over the next two years. This is an ambitious target, but one we feel is achievable based on the course we are currently taking."

The company will continue to adapt its portfolio to align with trends in the industry, so not surprisingly VoIP, hosted and hybrid solutions are now a prominent part of the Lily Comms proposition. "We have also focused on expanding our network services customer base," explained Morrisey. "By working with our suppliers, Gamma and Pragma, we are able to offer our customers a total telecoms solution under one roof. We will launch a mobile side to the business at some point in 2014. Thirty per cent of our sales are now software-based applications that integrate with phone systems. And as customers increasingly demand more from products and services we will actively push applications alongside system sales."

Another important development within Lily Comms is the priority it now gives to customer focus. "We aim to instil a passion within our staff to deliver a high level of service to prospective and existing customers," added Morrisey. "We have put significant resource into improving customer services and after sales service. Customer issues have decreased dramatically over the year. On the rare occasions customers do experience issues they are dealt with swiftly and effectively."

During the past year Lily Comms has also made some key appointments in senior management. Neil Harrison joined the firm as Head of Network Services with a remit to grow the calls, lines and broadband side of the business while focusing on upselling to the existing customer base. "We also recognised the need to promote our business more effectively due to realigning our focus to direct sales as opposed to outsourced engineering," commented Morrisey. "So we brought James Waplington on board as Marketing Manager and his approach to marketing and lead generation has led to a 55 per cent increase in direct sales compared to this time last year.

"We have had to lose people along the way who did not fit in with the company's beliefs, but the workforce now is the most dedicated group of people I have worked with. We will continue to add like minded people to the team as the business grows. Whenever I interview someone I always position the company as an opportunity provider. If someone comes into the business, works hard and delivers results there will always be room for them to progress within the company."

Lily Communications' success is closely linked to its key channel partners. Pragma, the distributor for Ericsson-LG products in the UK, supplies most of Lily's hardware and software, while Gamma provides network services and hosted products. "Gamma's range of products has enabled us to offer more to our customers," added Morrisey. "In 2014 we will put further resource into selling Gamma's hosted solution, Horizon."

A handy knack for turning foresight into strategic action is just one of the attributes that contribute towards Morrisey's success. Self belief, knowledge and skill are equally important. "It is vital to always believe in what you are doing and to do it with passion, even if you make the wrong decisions," he commented. "I learned early in my career that mistakes are part and parcel of being an entrepreneur. You have to learn from those mistakes.

"I've been in telecoms since 1998 and I'm always learning new things. We're fortunate to be in an industry that is constantly changing. Still being in telecoms after 15 years and enjoying it is my greatest achievement. I've seen so many people fail, give up or fall out of love with the industry that I am extremely grateful to be successful and enjoying work as much as ever."•

The business benefits of superfast broadband are undeniable and UK coverage is moving forward apace, yet uptake among SMEs remains surprisingly low, according to Rob Lee, Marketing Director at Openreach.

He says that fibre could become one of the industry's biggest missed opportunities unless resellers connect with the evolving needs of their ADSL customers.

Many businesses operating within Openreach's fibre broadband footprint have no idea they are in a superfast fibre enabled area. Early last year 40 per cent were in the dark according to research by Openreach. The study indicates that more needs to be done to take fibre to market, and comms resellers should be at the vanguard of this push. "By the time we reach two thirds commercial fibre coverage of UK premises by the end of Spring 2014, up to 2.5 million small businesses will have access to fibre broadband via our network," stated Lee.

Openreach research also confirmed that among those companies using fibre, 70 per cent said it had opened up the potential for them to use many more applications, with just over two thirds of fibre broadband adopters pointing to improved efficiency as a result. "There is also clear evidence that when a business gets superfast broadband at one site there follows a desire to upgrade at another location," added Lee. "And businesses using ADSL-based solutions may find in time that it just doesn't offer them the bandwidth capacity to function to their full potential. The story here spells out a growing pipeline of opportunity for UK communications providers who engage with fibre broadband."

At the end of 2013 over two million premises across the UK had subscribed to superfast fibre broadband via the Openreach network. Of those, around 65,000 SMEs had taken the leap. Research also shows that once that step has been taken, few would consider going back to their old connection, with 70 per cent saying it has opened up potential for more applications; 60 per cent believing it has transformed the way they work; and over 50 per cent saying they have saved money as a result of adopting fibre broadband. "Many SMEs are finding that fibre broadband bridges the affordability gap between current ADSL and Ethernet-based solutions," added Lee. "Fibre broadband fits with their desire for more bandwidth, both upstream and downstream, and also fits within their budget."

Lee also noted that SMEs wanting to 'transform' their business, typically with two-ten people on site, have been key among the early adopters. Case studies also show that SMEs are looking at Openreach' Superfast Fibre Access (SFFA) as a way of connecting 'agile' employees and home workers.

Fibre broadband offers new ways for small businesses to connect with customers. They can use it to beef up the experience of real-time video calls and take collaborative working to a new level. They can also take advantage of hosted applications to reduce software and licensing costs. "Combine this with online data storage and SMEs can dramatically cut the cost of computer hardware as well," commented Lee. "There are benefits at the front end too. Shops for example can speed things up at the tills and even entice more Wi-Fi network-seeking customers through the doors."

The availability of superfast broadband closes the divide between traditional consumer connectivity and lower bandwidth Ethernet, making it more important than ever to help businesses choose the right products for the right reasons, believes Lee. "It's vital that they understand the options and think about the future carefully, especially if a resilient, dedicated Ethernet service is really where their requirements are heading," he added. "For this reason we have produced a range of materials to help CPs provide exactly that kind of advice."

Openreach is at the heart of one of the biggest network upgrades in the world. "Our Superfast Fibre Access network is roaring ahead, stated Lee. "We've already passed over 17 million homes and expect to cover around two-thirds of UK premises by the end of spring 2014, at least 18 months ahead of the original schedule. Working alongside the UK government we're also helping to reach the 'final third', those properties in rural areas that are hard to reach, or not commercially viable with private funding alone. BDUK funding, together with investment by the private sector, will ensure that 90 per cent of UK premises will be able to access fibre broadband within the next few years when all networks are taken into account."

When selling fibre broadband, noted Lee, it's worth considering the customers' circumstances first. Ask questions such as: How many employees do they have and what's their average bandwidth/usage per person? What applications and file size do they typically use? How much bandwidth is needed? What are their future business plans and what are their competitors doing? Is it likely they'll need more and more bandwidth over time as they need to service more customers in remote locations/overseas?

"Qualifying leads and prospects is an important first step in the sales process," he said. "It's also worth remembering the benefits of faster data transfer, giving more opportunities to work smarter, saving time through increased use of online and collaborative tools, video and storage options. Consider the efficiency angle too. Businesses are looking at cost savings alongside revenue growth. There could be opportunities to sell supplementary products. Is there a story on capex versus opex for end users? Think about how you can stand out from the crowd and innovate the product to tap into your target markets."•

Angus McCaffery has guided Maintel from its roots in PBX maintenance and installation to the AIM listed, multi-faceted ICT solutions provider it is today with the financial muscle to acquire companies like Datapoint.

McCaffery co-founded the business in 1991 at the start of the telecoms deregulation boom and in its early years Maintel was the de-facto provider of engineering and support services for the fast growing independent telecoms channel. Maintel has grown steadily in its 23 year history, adding B2B managed services, network services and mobile estate management to its portfolio and is now aiming to deliver even better returns for its shareholders via its ongoing acquisition programme. The £3.5 million cash deal for Datapoint is Maintel's third acquisition in four years, having bought Redstone's maintenance assets for £1.75 million in October 2010 and B2B dealer Totility for £7 million last November.

The acquisition of Datapoint's UK and Irish operations, which McCaffery describes as a 'game changer', takes Maintel's turnover to £40 million plus and an employee head count of 260 - a far cry from the handful of engineers McCaffery employed in Maintel's early days operating out of unglamorous offices in London's Battersea. Comms Dealer caught up with McCaffery last month in his favourite Turkish restaurant in upwardly mobile Southwark, a stone's throw away from Maintel's South London headquarters. Our first question to the entrepreneur was a simple one: As a Maintel founder does he consider the growth of his business to be on-plan?

"It all depends what time of year you ask that question," he said. "As we are listed on the Stock Exchange the year end numbers become the big barometer as to whether we are on plan, so speak to me in the New Year about that! In terms of the bigger picture, yes we are very much on track. We have a very good management team expertly led by our CEO Eddie Buxton, we have a very solid customer base, world class products and things are going well."

McCaffery's nose for a deal was a key factor in the Datapoint acquisition, as he explained: "Like a lot of these things I heard about it on the grapevine. I made a few calls, and before I knew it we were meeting them. We went ahead with the acquisition because it was a near perfect fit for us. The business is predominantly Avaya-based with high end contact centre skills plus ongoing relationships with the likes of Genesys and Nectar, which obviously appealed.

"Datapoint also has a solid business in Ireland with strong ties to the US and throughout Europe, and like us it is engineering and technology led and has a good reputation. It means as a group we are now one of the largest Avaya Platinum partners and one of only two in Europe accredited across the entire Avaya portfolio."

The acquisition brings into the Maintel portfolio enhanced consulting and professional expertise in Unified Communications, with particular strength in the provision of contact centre solutions. "The purchase is a key component of our strategy to diversify our revenue base and significantly increase its skills and presence in new products and services. It's also upgraded our Avaya skills, which to be fair were pretty good already," said McCaffery.

So, after a long history driving Maintel's sales and marketing strategies is he tempted to lead a rebrand, especially as Maintel is as much a data business as a comms business these days? "That's a good question," he said. "The jury has been out and the truth is we like both names. The likelihood is that most of the group will remain as Maintel, but we will keep a subsidiary as Datapoint and channel the contact centre and Workforce Management business through that. It would be a shame not to use the Datapoint name at all because there is a lot of heritage there. It was founded in 1968 and in the seventies it was a Fortune 500 company employing over 3,000 people."

McCaffery admits Maintel's close bonds with the channel's smaller players have loosened over the years but he says there are no plans for Maintel to become a direct only business. "Working with channel partners is in our DNA and we are probably one of the most trusted channel brands out there, but today we mainly work alongside bigger businesses like O2 and Vodafone plus large system integrators and some of the bigger resellers. Most of the smaller resellers are more independent now so we see less of those relationships but we will of course still happily work with those guys. The exciting thing for me now is working with our US, European and Asian partners. It feels like we are progressing."

Maintel has survived and thrived in a tough economic climate by sticking to its core business while not being change averse. So does McCaffery see a long-term future for premise-based equipment provision and service? "The pace of change is always slower than you think," he commented. "But some customers' needs are simple and as long as there are manufacturers making CPE kit and running a channel, and resellers can make good margins selling it, then it will not go away. It's a bit like supermarkets and plastic bags, if they really wanted to stop us using them they would stop making them.

"But you ignore change at your peril. With MS Lync and 365 driving into our space you have got to keep evolving. Cloud communications is here to stay and you need to have a strategy for it and decide what role your business plays in it as it's a broad scope. We have been in hosted solutions for a while but are still finding our niche in true cloud. We have one very interesting project in this space but its top secret!

"I am also a non-exec for Nasstar, another AIM listed business that delivers hosted desktop and Exchange. It's been a good learning curve but as with all things there is no magic bullet. You still have to sell and deliver it to an SLA and at a profit. It's not the holy grail."

McCaffery sold some of his Maintel shares in 2012 but still retains almost 20% of the holding company's stock and aims to work on the group's development over the next decade in his own, 'highly organised' way. "I have an innate desire to get up and do things. I am a morning person and I'm no good at sitting around. I am a doer, a list person bordering on OCD and over organised. It drives my wife nuts. In 10 years' time the likelihood is that Maintel will have been consolidated into a bigger group but to be honest we enjoy what we do and the business is going well, so I would like to say we will still be here, just a lot bigger and hopefully more international!" •

Few could have predicted BlackBerry's roller coaster ride following its meteoric rise to dominance a decade ago. Today, however, you don't need to be Mystic Meg to see that BlackBerry is once again on the march, this time on a mission to fully reclaim its overarching market influence, according to Mike Gibson, Director of UK Enterprise.

Heroic BlackBerry deserves more than a medal following its skirmishes in the war of the enterprise smartphone. The company has emerged, reinvented, from the heat of a hard fought battle, victorious. In a remarkable turnaround incoming Chief Executive Officer John Chen, who replaces Thorsten Heins, aims to drive innovation and electrify BlackBerry. He has brought stability to a company that was up for sale last summer, reeling from a Q2 net loss of £597 million and about to wield the axe on 4,500 jobs. But core principles remain the same and are already making their influence keenly felt in various ways, noted Gibson.

"John Chen has set out a clear mandate of going back to BlackBerry's heritage and roots to deliver enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions," affirmed Gibson. "From an enterprise perspective, my priority is to continue to build on the early success of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10) - which now has 30,000 servers installed and counting. Leveraging the strength and depth of our existing channel partnerships is fundamental to this objective; along with our focus on handsets, EMM solutions, cross-platform messaging and embedded systems. We're confident about our future in enterprise, our technology and our ability to adapt to changing market needs."

BlackBerry's strength in enterprise software and services, including BES10 and BlackBerry Technical Support Service, is the force behind a big push to develop new strategic partnerships with VARs, MSPs and SIs. "We're working to develop and grow these partnerships via our BlackBerry Partner Programme so that they can capitalise on the opportunities that our portfolio offers them," added Gibson. "With our inherent focus on mobile, our heritage and our reach, we are confident that we can continue to best serve the needs of the enterprise market in the medium and long-term."

Gibson's career began in data comms before moving into UC, including a stint at Nortel. Although his role at BlackBerry is firmly rooted in the mobile space, the focus is broadly similar to his past experience. "Software and services are at the core of our business and my previous experience has stood me in good stead, particularly with innovations such as BES10 where we've taken our previously proprietary software to create a full cross-platform solution that extends our security and management capabilities to iOS and Android devices," he said. "All of my previous roles have been characterised by a strong channel-centric approach and this came into play as BlackBerry introduced its Partner Programme to activate the IT VAR community."

Partners can join the BlackBerry Partner Programme at one of three levels - Strategic, Approved or Associate. Progress through the tiers is encouraged, and Strategic top tier partners receive the most benefits including full access to the Partner Programme website. Notably, training has proved to be a popular area within the portal. "Since its launch 19 months ago we have seen over 6,500 eLearning modules completed, 2,500 webinar modules attended and a total of 728 people have participated in the on-site classroom training," commented Gibson. "We also cater for the complex distribution network by tailoring content for our key distribution partners."

According to Gibson, BlackBerry's partners benefit from a constant stream of upsell opportunities that are designed to fully maximise their account penetration. "We've introduced a range of new sales incentives aimed at rewarding solutions sales, as well as a partner support package to help partners maximise revenue opportunities from support services," Gibson added.

His message is clear: BES10 is a full cross-platform solution that builds on BlackBerry's tried and trusted capabilities in security and management, and it is testament to how far the company has travelled from old perceptions of it being a 'phone maker'. "We are much more than a device company," Gibson commented. "For any organisation looking to seamlessly manage multiple mobile platforms and devices, they can do so with BES10 and benefit from the security and management capabilities that have made BlackBerry the leader in mobile enterprise for more than a decade. What's more, there is a simple upgrade path from our existing BlackBerry infrastructure to our BES10 platform without the need for a costly rip and replace."

BES10 is flexible and scalable, designed to address the needs of SMBs using Active Sync through to an organisation operating in a fully regulated environment which must conform to the strictest security criteria. "The development of BES10 exemplifies how we are continuously innovating to meet and anticipate the requirements of our customers," added Gibson. "As different mobile devices and platforms have proliferated within the workplace, we have created and delivered a full cross-platform solution that can manage and secure iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices, apps and content from one single console."

Gibson claims that BlackBerry manages more mobile devices than any other MDM vendor in the world, pointing out that over one third of FTSE 100 companies have already been installed globally along with over 60 per cent of its Fortune 500 customers. "This reflects their desire for a cross-platform enterprise mobility management solution that delivers a strong level of security, control and management at both the device and app level," he stated. "We're confident that with further innovations in this space, including the forthcoming launch of our new cloud solution, we can continue to maintain the strong position in enterprise that we have held for well over ten years."

Most organisations have a variety of devices types and platforms in the workplace today. The real challenge is how to secure and manage not just these devices but the apps and content running on them, especially in an environment where BYOD and/or consumerisation have driven IT departments to settle for workaround solutions in an attempt to make a multitude of device types and platforms 'fit for work', observed Gibson. "In their haste to adapt to this shift many organisations have opted for a more basic mobility management model just as everything is being mobilised. Consequently, they require even more sophisticated mobile management capabilities," he said.

"With a multi-device enterprise environment now the reality, the IT department has the opportunity to regain a measure of control over the management of the mobile enterprise estate. BES10 ticks all of the boxes by delivering a full cross-platform solution offering the best of our security and management capabilities."

Not surprisingly, MDM is top of the agenda for most CIOs and IT departments, not just because of BYOD but also because of the clear opportunity that mobility presents to boost productivity, customer engagement, job satisfaction and more. "We are focused on creating a platform agnostic service that goes beyond just devices to managing endpoints," stated Gibson. "As experts in mobile we are well positioned to achieve this because other mega IT vendors lack focus and competency in mobile, while smaller pure play MDM vendors lack the resources and reach."•

The battle for market share in the business smartphone market is set to hot up following a rally by BlackBerry and the roll out of a new channel campaign. BlackBerry's dominance in the enterprise mobility market has been chipped away by competitors but by going back to its roots it hopes to win back defectors.

The company has stepped up the battle to win more users with BES10 (BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10), a full cross-platform solution that builds on its heritage and capabilities in security and management.

Mike Gibson, Director of Enterprise UK, said he is positive BES10 will hold its own against competitors and that BlackBerry's strength in enterprise software and services will persuade potential partners to join forces with the company.

Key areas of focus now include handsets, EMM solutions, cross-platform messaging and embedded systems.

"We're working to develop and grow new strategic partnerships with VARs, MSPs and SIs via our BlackBerry Partner Programme," confirmed Gibson. "With our focus on mobile, our heritage and our reach, we are confident that we can continue to serve the needs of the enterprise market."

Gibson claims that BlackBerry manages more mobile devices than any other MDM vendor, pointing out that almost 30,000 BES10 servers have already been installed globally, including over one third of FTSE 100 companies and over 60% of BlackBerry's Fortune 500 customers.

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