Comms Dealer

A UK-wide locker network designed to offer an end-to-end delivery service for field engineers has significantly improved their operational performance, according to Bybox, provider the solution.

Thousands of lockers are located at sites ranging from petrol stations and supermarkets to sports grounds and fire stations. And Bybox claims that on average there is a locker within three miles of an engineer, meaning that waiting at home for spare parts to arrive or travelling to depots to pick them up is a thing of the past.

ByBox specialises in delivering items pre 8am and delivers 20 million items a year with 20,000 engineers using the platform daily.

The firm is well established in the telecoms sector and for many years has distributed parts that are required, often at short notice, around the clock and in remote locations to help engineers maintain networks 365 days-a-year.
  
"Once a delivery has been made into a locker, engineers receive a text or email alert advising them that their goods are ready for collection," stated a spokesperson.
 
Engineers can order parts up to 11pm for delivery the next morning. The first time pre 8am delivery success rate is 99.77% and 96% of deliveries are in lockers pre 6am.

"This increases scheduling flexibility and significantly reduces the number of inefficient same-day deliveries made by alternate, less efficient transport systems," added the spokesperson.

"It also reduces the number of repeat visits to sites as engineers receive all the parts needed to complete their day's jobs at one convenient location pre 8am."
 
ByBox also operates a network of Forward Stock Locations around the UK and Europe that are accessible 24 hours a day for engineers who require parts urgently outside of normal hours.
 
Urgently required parts can be dispatched 24 hours a day from the nearest Forward Stock Location (FSL), either direct to site or to the nearest locker or, alternatively, be held at the FSL for collection by an engineer.
 
ByBox' electronic lockers (iBoxes) can also be used as mini Forward Stock Locations. Fast moving and emergency parts can also be stored within a dedicated iBox door close to likely demand. All stock is visible over the web so field based staff can confirm if a required item is available before visiting the locker.
 
The iBoxes are accessed via card or code and are available with a variety of door sizes and columns that can handle anything from large parts to small accessories. The lock boxes, which are accessed by key, also have a large capacity, with the biggest doors having a 1.188 cubic m3 capacity.
 
In addition to the UK, ByBox has networks in the Republic of Ireland, France and the Benelux. Not only can it manage the distribution of items, but it can also look after the warehousing, inventory, returns, repair and provide engineering resource.

Through its subsidiary echo it can supply a bespoke range of tech and logistical support services consisting of outsourced low-level engineering through to high end technical repairs on demand on a range of electronic items. Additionally, its in house repair centre can manage the testing, repair and return of any faulty items such as GSM phones and cell fax equipment.
 
ByBox' offering is underpinned by its supply chain system Thinventory, which increases the visibility of new kit from OEMs and suppliers and provides complete visibility over the entire supply chain. The system has a full track and trace facility via the website providing total transparency across the supply chain 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making it simple to locate any urgently-requested part and move it to where it is required. 
 
The level of visibility provided allows companies to run lean inventories as they know exactly where their stock is, and can move it to where it is needed. Savings associated can be considerable; some companies have leaned out their inventory so much by using the locker network that they have managed to reduce the size of their warehouses, cut running costs and freed up capital.
 
The Thinventory system also simplifies the returns process enabling engineers to use the locker network in reverse to return faulty, unused or decommissioned parts. Once an engineer has placed a part in a locker and attached a returns label, the tracking software automatically redirects it back to the manufacturer; leading to a reduction in new purchases. The system also accelerates the reverse logistics loop to comply with OEM Return Merchandise Authorisation processes and increase warranty claims.
 
 

Mobile analysts Juniper Research estimates that the number of smartphone shipments reached 230 million in Q2 2013, representing a y-o-y growth of almost 50% from Q2 2012 and q-o-q growth of nearly 13%.

Samsung increased its smartphone market share by shipping an estimated 72 million smartphones and accounting for approximately 31% of all smartphone shipments in the quarter.

Juniper noted that e?Even though Samsung posted another record quarter in terms of device shipments, the South Korean company admitted slowing sales of their high-end smartphones including the Galaxy S4, with quarterly growth driven by mid-low end smartphones.

Samsung is estimated to have shipped 20 million Galaxy S4 in the first two months after its April 2013 launch, but subsequent sales are believed to have tailed off.??Likewise, says Juniper, Apple boasted iPhone sales showing steady y-o-y growth - up by 20% to more than 31 million - but saw y-o-y profits fall for the second successive quarter.

Apple was also the only leading vendor to experience a q-o-q decline in smartphone sales, down 17% from the previous quarter: as a result its share of smartphones slipped from 18% in Q1 2013 to 14% in Q2.??With Apple confirming that new products are in the pipeline, Juniper Research still believes Apple needs to bring out an innovative device.

Even though a cut-price model attractive to the emerging markets would help overall sales, Apple's background in innovation at the premium end of the market means that it must bring a 'game changing' device into the market to maintain its competitive edge.

?Juniper believes that Apple will soon enter the smart wearables segment and that they are one of the players best placed to deliver convergence between the two segments - mobile devices and wearable devices.

It is what they provide within the wearable market that will be the 'game changer', reckons the analyst firm.?? LG posted its highest ever smartphones sales quarter, shipping 12 million in Q2 2013, representing a y-o-y growth of an impressive 114% from Q2 2012.

Meanwhile, says Juniper, Chinese demand for low and mid end smart phones led to increased sales for vendors including Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo, with each exceeding an estimated 10 million shipments in Q2 2013.

??Nokia shipped 11.7 million smartphones in the fourth quarter and posted Lumia sales of 7.4 million compared to 5.6 million in the previous quarter. The company also shipped 4.3 million Asha smartphones in the second quarter.??BlackBerry's (previously RIM) recent results - which run to a different financial schedule - are expected to see them ship around 6.9 million smartphones in Q2 2013.

The Canadian company is believed to have sold nearly 2.8 million BlackBerry 10 devices over the past three months.

Cloud contact centre solutions provider NewVoiceMedia has appointed Georgia Thomas as Partner Marketing Manager.

Thomas will be responsible for developing the company's partner marketing relationship to and through Salesforce to secure its position as global partner of choice for cloud contact centre technology. NewVoiceMedia's ContactWorld solutions integrate with Salesforce to enable customers to quickly and easily deliver a personalised and unique customer experience.

Prior to NewVoiceMedia Thomas ran her own consultancy and has held positions at Reed Elsevier, Business Monitor International and Euromoney Institutional Investor. A member of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), she is also undertaking a part-time MBA at the London School of Marketing.

The newly-created role follows the recent appointment of Sara Smith as Partner Manager. Tim Pickard, CMO at NewVoiceMedia, commented: "With her extensive international marketing experience and tremendous enthusiasm and drive, Georgia will be invaluable in her new role with us."

Thomas added: "I'm excited about the challenge ahead and look forward to creating a partner marketing strategy that will not only strengthen our relationship with Salesforce but also develop other strategic partnerships to take us to the next level."

Phil Brown has been promoted to the role of B2B Director at Micro-P, to focus on driving forward the distributor's B2B customer, vendor and sales proposition.

Brown has been with Micro-P since 2011 as Commercial Director and since then he has driven vendor relationships and built strong, dynamic commercial teams. Using his vast channel experience, he will now focus on core IT and specialist resellers to ensure Micro-P is continuing to support their needs, enabling them to grow and develop their businesses.

Brown commented: "In this new challenge, I will ensure that Micro-P's reseller partners are fighting fit for the future. Micro-P has always been led by the principles of strong customer relationships and I will continue to ensure that we exceed our customers' needs to drive our combined growth and success."

Paul Bryan, Managing Director at Micro-P, added: "Since being with Micro-P, Phil has consistently demonstrated his ability to drive vendor strategy and relationships, enabling us to fulfil our aggressive growth plans. He's in a perfect position to take a holistic view of our proposition to the channel and prepare Micro-P and its reseller partners for future expansion."

Surrey-based IT, voice and data solutions provider siptel has helped to raise over £19,000 for two Woking charities.

The reseller sponsored the annual charity ball and silent auction held at Hoe Bridge School, in Woking in support of 'LinkAble', which provides sports, social and recreational activities for children and adults with a broad range of learning disabilities, and global children's charity 'Plan' which works with children in the world's poorest countries to help them build a better future.

Steve Rasmussen, Director at siptel, commented: "By supporting such worthy charities as LinkAble and Plan, as well as Hoe Bridge School, it is nice for siptel to feel that we are giving valuable input into the local community."

New London-based hosted VoIP provider TeslaOne has launched TeslaVoice, a fully-featured, all-inclusive hosted VoIP service for startups and established small businesses of up to 10 people

The suite is said to offer premium PBX features as standard, with no upsells or subscription additions. £25 per month is all the small business will have to pay to access a myriad of premium features including unlimited extensions, unlimited phone numbers, time-based routing, call queues, music-on-hold and many more.

TeslaOne claims to have has also succeeded in slashing call costs to mobile phones. At just 3p per minute, the company says it beats all other landline and VoIP providers in the UK on cost.

Ben Christian, Founder of TeslaOne told Comms Dealer: "It's all about making the service accessible and predictable. Many VoIP services offer a very low base rate, some as low as £5 per month.

"This looks great in their marketing but, as soon as the business starts adding essential calling features such as music-on-hold and an auto-attendant, they can easily pay over £100 each month.

"We've packed everything into one low monthly fee, allowing the start-up or small business to control their cost, predict their budgets and pay as little as possible for the privilege. There's nothing else they need to buy - we're offering the full suite of features for a flat rate."

One of the package's biggest perks is the ability to create unlimited UK phone numbers, a feature Christian has noticed huge demand for.

"As small businesses diversify, they need more communications channels. Our package allows for the unlimited creation of numbers for each department, office or fax machine.This allows the business to offer a direct number to key people within their company and we won't charge them any more for the privilege," he added.

Telappliant, the Internet telephony provider for UK based small to medium sized enterprises, has won the 'Best Internet Telephony' award at the 2013 Internet Service Providers' Association Awards. 

The award winners were announced in a ceremony on 11th July at the Park Lane Sheraton Hotel in London.

Entrants underwent two months of rigorous testing by ISPA's technical testing partners, Malden Electronics, and written submissions were assessed by an independent panel of industry experts.

Presenting Telappliant with the award, ISPA said: "In a very tight contest, the judges decided that Telappliant's transparency and impressive network resilience meant they were worthy winners."

Tan Aksoy, Chief Executive Officer at Telappliant, commented: "Following our 'Best Business ITSP' award from ITSPA earlier this year, we are thrilled to be awarded the 'Best Internet Telephony' by ISPA. I am particularly delighted that the judging panel commented on Telappliant's network resilience, which is an area we have invested heavily in over the last 12 months."

ShoreTel has joined the global HP AllianceOne partner programme claiming it will enable joint customers and partners to leverage two best-of-breed solutions instead of being tied into a proprietary single-vendor system.

Shoetel says the initiative will give companies the flexibility to: design, employ and manage a solid-state network and VoIP infrastructure that is flexible, adaptable and complexity-free; provide a consistent user experience with video, voice, IM and presence across a variety of architectures, platforms and device types, through HP FlexNetwork architecture; deploy UC services with increased reliability and resiliency with uninterrupted availability through the HP FlexNetwork architecture.

"ShoreTel has one goal in mind, and that is to delight our SMB and enterprise customers worldwide with robust, easy-to-use and manage solutions," said Chris Burgy, vice president of GTM strategy/planning, business development & alliances at ShoreTel.

"Best-of-breed vendors streamline the sales and implementation process, enabling companies to get up and running in record time, and we are extremely pleased to be able to jointly achieve this objective with our HP AllianceOne partnership."

The new Polycom CX5500 and CX5100 Unified Conference Stations are designed to deliver an around-the-table experience for all participants, whether they're in the room or thousands of miles away.

At the Microsoft 2013 Worldwide Partner Conference, Polycom also announced that it has received Lync 2013 qualification for its full portfolio of Polycom VVX Business Media Phones.

These announcements are said to further the partnership between the two companies, building on Polycom's portfolio of 40 video, voice and content sharing solutions that are interoperable or optimized to work with Lync today.

A.E. Natarajan, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Engineering at Polycom commented: "The strategic alliance we've built with Microsoft over the past several years continues to deliver innovative collaboration solutions that provide Polycom and Lync customers with an unrivaled experience.

"Our Lync solutions such as the new panoramic video collaboration experience, and our leading portfolio of Lync interoperable offerings, enable Polycom and Microsoft to win business from organisations seeking UC&C solutions that empower people to collaborate however, wherever and whenever they want."

Micro-P has made a key appointment to bolster the UC support and service it provides to channel customers.

Dan Burgess has joined as UC Devices Product Manager and is aiming to ensure resellers are fully equipped to deploy UC solutions and provide the professional end points to deliver the necessary call clarity demanded.

"I will be complementing a team that continues to deliver excellent results for the highly-respected technology brands that we represent," commented Burgess who is also tasked with sales and building long term vendor and reseller relations.
Micro-P's UC Devices Business Manager, James Burns, said: "Dan's appointment - combined with our growing commercial team of product specialists and BDMs - means Micro-P is in a position to educate and equip its partners with the marketing and sales tools needed for them to take the UC proposition to market."

Commenting on Dan's appointment, "Dan's appointment further demonstrates Micro-Ps commitment to creating, delivering and supporting UC solutions to the channel. Dan is ideally suited to build on the consistent success Micro-P has enjoyed in taking our core UC vendors and customers into new vertical and corporate markets.

"By introducing complimentary product sets to their existing portfolio, Micro-P delivers additional revenue streams to partners' businesses. Resellers that have and continue to adopt UC and embrace market changes, have broadened their portfolios to include vendors such as Plantronics, Polycom, Konftel and Yealink as part of their solution sale. This means end users can rationalise their supply chain by using Micro-P's resellers as a single source for all technologies."

"Commenting on his position, Dan said: "In my new role, I will be using my skills and experience to ensure that as our resellers are deploying UC solutions, they are fully equipped to provide the professional end points that are appropriate for the end user profile in order to deliver the necessary call clarity demanded. I will be complementing a team that continues to deliver excellent results for the highly-respected technology brands that we represent."

Burns added further, "Our customers continue to enjoy the luxury of being able to openly discuss a full solution proposition with our range of product specialists with the confidence that Micro-P is 100% committed to a channel only approach."