Comms Dealer

Following 45.09% international sales growth per annum over the last two financial years and international sales of over £9m in 2015-2016, LA Micro has been ranked at number 67 in The Sunday Times Lloyds SME Export Track 100.

The company has grown significantly since it began its commercial life in 2004, having quadrupled the size of its premises and tripled its workforce in the past four years achieving a forecasted turnover of £24 million in 2016-17.

LA Micro's founder and owner, David Bell, said: "We have built our reputation for the service we provide through word-of-mouth, in turn attracting more business both domestically and internationally as customers become more aware of us and what we do."

The league table ranks Britain's top 100 small and medium-sized companies with the fastest growing international sales of between £5m and £25m in their last financial year.

Exclusive Group has restructured following two key promotional appointments. Julien Antoine, currently Group Director of Global Operations, is taking the new position of VP of EMEA while Will Smith, currently Group IT Director, increases his scope to become Group CIO.

"Our long-term success has always been centred on the ability to anticipate and adapt to disruption without diluting any of our value, and these important new positions will safeguard these strengths as we scale to new levels," said Barrie Desmond, COO of Exclusive Group.

Mike Ridgway (pictured) has been appointed Commercial Director of Mobile at Elitetele.com having completed an earn-out period that followed elite's acquisition of Qualitel Voice and Data in April 2014 where he was MD.

Qualitel became Elitetele.com's mobile arm and under Ridgway's leadership generated significant growth, achieving £4.m revenue in the 14 months to July 2014, £4.3m for the year to July 2015 and £6m for the year to July 2016.

Elitetele.com COO Russell Horton stated: "Mike has successfully led growth in his division and is on track to double gross margin over the three years."

Telecoms administrators and users have been given more control over their monthly spend following the launch of a customisable alert service by Bamboo Technology Group.

"Mobile network providers typically only alert end users once they reach 80% and 100% of their usage limits respectively," stated Bamboo MD Lorrin White.

"The specific nature of the alert - such as the usage threshold which triggers the alert, how it is delivered etc - is often fixed by the network provider and cannot be configured by the customer beyond turning the alert on or off.

"Crucially, these standard alerts are only sent to the end user when they have exceeded their allowance, but not to the bill payer (the mobile administrator).

"By enabling our customers to tailor the alerts they receive to match their own needs, while ensuring the administrator is never out of the loop, Bamboo is addressing all of these elements."

The new alerts - part of Bamboo's standard service wrap - can be configured to run across the entire account, set in batches (by department or cost centre) or defined against an individual user.

"Regardless of declining costs across the industry, Bamboo continues to experience companies with unexpectedly high bills," added White.

"Endusers are often unaware of their usage levels, with many of them travelling in and outside of the EU with no administrative controls set to monitor and manage costs.

"Combine this with the trend of businesses consuming more data than ever and you can see that monitoring the individual usage of mobile users has never been more important.

"While spend management and automated barring isn't for everyone, it's a solution that is too often requested 'after the fact'.

"The launch of our alerts service is one of many new customer-centric features and builds on the significant investment we have made as a company."

Livingbridge-backed Metronet (UK) has secured an immediate foothold in London's vibrant super-fast connectivity market following the acquisition of fibre network provider Venus Business Communications. The deal follows Metronet (UK)'s £47.5m purchase of Internet infrastructure and hosting company M247 in October 2016.

The acquisition adds £7.8m revenues and advances Metronet (UK)'s ambitions to build a national platform with last mile control as well as a transit network across Europe.

The addition of Venus brings six new data centres to the Group's network that now connects to the key UK data centre locations and 14 global Internet Exchanges.

The combined entity employs 230 people across six sites including Manchester, Newcastle, London and Bucharest, and supports almost 34,000 customers across 92 countries, delivering revenues of circa £50m.

Venus was founded in 2005 by Brian Iddon and Justin Keery and serves central London and the City with high high speed fibre at up to 10 gigabit/sec.

Livingbridge first invested in Metronet (UK) in June 2014 as part of a £45m secondary buyout of the firm.

Follow on funding to support the Group's acquisition strategy and the investment in Venus has been made by the Livingbridge 5 fund.

Matthew Caffrey, Partner at Livingbridge, said: "The neatly complements Metronet's existing capabilities and will enable the business to build a wireless network in London on top of Venus' core transit and last mile fibre capability.

"Metronet's national services now include connectivity applications across the wireless and fibre spectrums as well as voice, security and hosting and we are very excited about the Group's continued growth prospects."

Lee Perkins, Chief Executive at Metronet (UK), added: "Venus has the same entrepreneurial and customer-centric culture as us so I have no doubt that it will be an excellent fit with our business."

Brian Iddon, Director and Founder at Venus, noted: "I have known Lee and the team for a number of years and feel that Metronet is the perfect fit for us as we look to build on the strong momentum we have generated to date."

Sensing the mid-market shift towards cloud adoption Avaya has targeted this high growth sector with the launch of new cloud solutions and signed ScanSource as its first EU wholesale provider for cloud comms. The cloud offering, which sits under the banner 'Powered by Avaya', enables channel partners to deliver the vendor's UC, contact centre and video conferencing solutions according to the deployment requirements of end users, whether on-premises, hybrid cloud or fully hosted.

Avaya is also working with wholesale distribution partners to deliver a complete cloud solution for partners including billing, provisioning and other back-end systems.

Partners have the option to host and maintain Avaya cloud services in their own data centres and sell directly to customers, wrapping additional services around the core product.

Powered by Avaya has already been rolled out with selected Avaya channel partners in the UK.

The UK's mid-sized businesses account for one-third of private-sector turnover, and added more jobs to the economy last year than smaller businesses and FTSE 350 companies combined, according to business advisory firm BDO.

Furthermore, the European cloud market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 23.2%.

Avaya UK MD Ioan MacRae (pictured) said: "The mid-market sector is the engine room of the UK economy, but is all too-often overlooked with vendors either focusing on larger enterprise customers or providing solutions that don't deliver the scalability, resiliency, and flexibility mid-market customers are looking for."

In addressing the market ScanSource will provide reseller partners with cloud solutions Powered by IP Office.

MacRae added: "By combining with ScanSource, we can more effectively reach the indirect channel, enabling resellers to leverage our cloud-based solutions and create offerings that meet today's digital business needs."

James Vickerage, President, ScanSource Imago, added: "This partnership with Avaya will enable us to give our partners the freedom to sell cloud-based solutions to their customers."

In launching Connect Cloud to the UK market ShoreTel has also shown us that it is already moving ahead of the cloud revolution and entering the post-digital 'age of experience', according to CEO Don Joos (pictured) and EMEA Managing Director Adrian Hipkiss.

The leading role of UK partners in advancing ShoreTel's global expansion campaign was underscored last month when the vendor rolled out ShoreTel Connect Cloud and ShoreTel Connect Contact Centre for Cloud during two launch roadshows held in Manchester and London. The move signifies a big step forward in ShoreTel's transition from a maker of products to a globally focused software and services business, and follows the introduction of cloud-based solutions as a partner managed service to the UK in 2015.

ShoreTel Connect Cloud has been available to US customers for 16 months and according to Joos the time is right to take it into more theatres. "The launch is another step in the expansion of our hosted capabilities," stated Joos. "We have North America and the Australian market covered, but the launch of Connect Cloud in the UK is another starting point. From here we will expand these services into other countries."

Cloud focused resellers are well served by ShoreTel's data centre partner Rackspace and its private cloud, along with the end-to-end control exerted by ShoreTel which includes the connectivity infrastructure, thereby meeting customer demand for a framework of trust in technology and supplier partners. "Rackspace already has a global footprint and as it builds out more capability in SDWAN we get to leverage those investments," added Joos. "We also control the relationship with the carriers that come into the data centres. The QoS has absolutely improved and there are big technological advancements on the way. Furthermore, security issues are less prohibitive, that's why the mid-market is adopting up to the mass."

Joos also introduced to the UK an expanded channel approach that has been tried and tested in the US, a retail commission model based on the same service as the reseller model. According to Hipkiss, a section of ShoreTel's partners displayed a sharp appetite to sell the vendor's contract and its price to the client, so ShoreTel gave them what they wanted. "Developing this model is a strong indication of our commitment to the channel," he added.

The Connect Cloud launch was both pragmatic in terms of its timing and market focus and popular among partners with an eye to augment their portfolio and make the most of this new tool in the vendor's kit bag. It will help them to fulfil an upsurge in demand from customers (especially in the mid-market) who want to revise and modernise their communications strategy, a task made easier by the joined up nature of ShoreTel's primary comms solution Connect. "Connect has a single code base," explained Hipkiss. "It enables us to offer three alternative deployment methodologies - on-site, hybrid and cloud. Partners in the UK have strongly adopted the Connect on-site solution, they have invested in skills, training and marketing. Their investment is immediately transferable because of the single code base and the single set of features and functionality."

The appetite for Connect Cloud among ShoreTel partners was swiftly exposed by the roadshows. "Our partner community is showing great interest in Cloud Connect and already we have strong engagement following high attendances at the launch events," commented Hipkiss. "Some partners wanted to sign up pre-launch and on the spot, one partner even sold a Connect Cloud solution before the official UK roll out. This is a reflection of the reality in the market and the confidence partners have in our ability to deliver. We also have strong relationships with US-based cloud services distributors and they see an opportunity in the UK. It will be natural for us to extend those relationships."

A combination of ShoreTel's Cloud Connect launch and the firm's long-time presence in the mid-market has made the forecast a positive one for resellers and SIs. "The sweet spot for us is companies with less than 5,000 employees," stated Joos. "This is not a technical limitation, but a focus area from a go-to-market perspective. That's where the majority of companies sit, and that's where ShoreTel operates. As the mid-market advances into hosted, it moves towards ShoreTel."

The vendor's single code base displays coherency not just in technology but also strategy and leadership, a combination that breathes life into Joos's brand of business transformation which has advanced ShoreTel's revenues to a much wider recurring profile, notably in hosted. "In our September Q2 we passed an important inflection point where hosted revenue became greater than product revenue on a quarterly basis," he stated. "Hosted was 42 per cent of total revenue, but adding-in the support agreements, which are also recurring, takes us to 61 per cent. The transformation of our business is all about moving to the recurring revenue model and I expect that to continue accelerating. There is no looking back."

ShoreTel's dramatic forward advance needs a closer look to gain an understanding of what is driving growth and its trajectory towards becoming a cloud-based software business. "In terms of growth, I expect to see a step function every six months, whether that's more partners coming on board, new logos from a hosted perspective, or some of our existing installed base converting to hosted," explained Joos. "I see growth in two areas. One is the adoption that's occurring from a UK perspective, and there is an opportunity to attract more partners now that we have both delivery models, including those 'born in the cloud'. Our SaaS solution has open APIs, so I see SIs coming to us who, from a hosted standpoint, want to integrate services into a solution for their customers. We have already witnessed this in the American and Australian markets."

The rise of cloud services and their likely impact on the comms landscape is no longer debated. Talk of the cloud has passed from the realm of 'what if and when' to that of everyday discourse among not just the industry but also end user decision makers. The world is going that way, and so is ShoreTel. "The change in buying behaviour has been building and rapid acceleration is happening now," noted Joos. "For decision makers, the time frame required for a return on their investment has changed. It used to be three to five years, now it's 18 to 24 months. They know technology is changing beyond recognition, and they want the continual flexibility of a hosted offering to ensure they keep pace with change. That's a big shift."

As the cloud revolution marches on, a process of adjustment is required by business leaders to rethink and realign their strategy. "Many organisations are evaluating their operations and identifying functions that can be outsourced," added Joos. "Security and QoS have dramatically improved, so companies are more receptive to outsourcing as a way to focus on core competencies. Their challenge is how to embed UC, flexible working and team working etc to improve the customer experience while becoming operationally efficient. Another driver is the high level of M&A activity. As companies merge the cost savings and synergies they look for include cost-effectively unifying disparate systems."

Migration to the cloud is a widely accepted feature of the digital revolution, hastening the decline of on-premise hardware in fixed places of work. And as the edifice of conventional communications collapses all around us, traditional vendors unable to leave their past behind them are becoming disempowered. Not ShoreTel. In its journey from being a product company towards a software and services one, ShoreTel is on the back stage.

"When I stepped into the CEO role in August 2013 we broke this transformation down into three phases - foundation, migration and acceleration," explained Joos. "The first two are done, and our acceleration phase is driven by five factors - ongoing product releases, the geographic expansion of our hosted solution, scaling the channel, mid-market adoption and our installed base migration. We have four million seats and endpoints in our installed base to be converted, and because Connect is one product the migration is easy for us."

ShoreTel's transformation is another proof point that cloud technology is in the ascendency and upending the comms market. But it doesn't stop there. The ensuing drift into the realm of 'experience' underlines that this technology is an enabler, not the headline act. Digitalisation has passed the peak, we are now heading for post-digital, an age where experience transcends the medium, which is reflected in how ShoreTel's stance is moving beyond communications towards innovation in interactions.

"We talk less about communications and more about interactions," explained Joos. "The term 'communications' has connotations of people-to-people, but people-to-machine and machine-to-machine is emerging. It's not about making communications simple, it's about how we, in our world, make these interactions simple. One example we have prototyped is a 'smart conference room'. I walk into the room, my primary device knows who I am, it knows the time of the meeting, autodials, and using beacon technology activates the projector because it knows I'm presenting. That's machine-to-machine. When I talk about innovation of the experience, we're focused on the most common use cases. Hosted is half of our direction, the other half is how we improve the overall customer experience because they are buying a service, not a product. The experience is the sexy part, and we innovate to make it simple."

The digital revolution is riding roughshod over traditional technologies and business models and requires organisations to embed a smarter way of working which is echoed in the steps taken by ShoreTel to help partners deliver modern day solutions. "When making the transition from a product company to a services business it's not enough to simply introduce new releases into the marketplace," added Hipkiss. "ShoreTel's European organisation has been realigned to make us accountable for the end-to-end experience of our partners and customers. This extends to how partners are found by potential clients, so we have planned marketing forums to help them raise their profile, focusing on digital marketing and ways to nurture relationships with customers who want to benefit from UCaaS, voice, video, mobile, conferencing, messaging and contact centre communication services."

It would be folly for channel companies to turn their back on the digital transformation that is forcing organisations in nearly all industries and sectors to reassess their place in the evolving technology and business landscape. "Standing still isn't an option, and having the ability to continually rethink and reinvent is the new standard," added Joos.•

Riverbed Technology has appointed former Intel Security's EMEA President EMEA, Andy Elder, as its new Senior Vice President (SVP) Sales in the EMEA region.

Elder, who has 25 years of industry experience across the region, will be reporting directly to Riverbed's Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer, Paul Mountford.

In his new role, he will be responsible for the company's sales strategy and go-to-market execution in the EMEA as well as accelerating "the next wave of growth across the region, the company said.

Elder joined from Intel Security where he was in charge of the company's operations across around 100 geographies and prior to that, he served as Executive Vice President of Global Licensing at Intellectual Ventures.

He also worked for 13 years at Cisco where he was Vice President of Global Sales for the sports and entertainment division.

Beta Distribution is to offer Nakivo's data protection products in the UK and Ireland.

Over 1,600 software solution providers in 117 countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle-East, and Asia-Pacific offer Nakivo data protection products to their SMB and enterprise customers.

The solution offers VMware backup, replication, backup to cloud, global deduplication, instant VM and object recovery, backup copy and screenshot verification.

Beta Distribution's appointment of Miguel Castro to the newly created role of Head of Solutions Architecture reflects the company's strengthening focus on supporting MSPs and VARs in the enterprise space.

Castro brings 13 years experience working in the IT industry and joins Beta from network storage vendor Infortrend where he was Technical Manager.

Also recruited is Chris Moore as Head of Sales for the newly opened northern sales office in Leeds.

He was previously Sales Manager at CMS Distribution where he worked for 19 years.

Ben Jackson, Director of Technology Sales at Beta, stated: "Attracting people of this calibre is testament to the fact that we have successfully developed a meaningful proposition in the enterprise arena."