Comms Dealer

Network operator Venus Business Communications has unveiled its new partner portal during a launch party at London's Phoenix Club.

The portal gives Venus' resellers easy access to information, fast pricing and an expanded range of postcodes. Each reseller also has their own dedicated account manager.

"While resellers value the support their account manager provides sometimes they want to access information immediately out in the field," said Brian Iddon, Venus Business Communications Director (pictured).

"The Portal provides Venus' resellers with key information they need, quickly and easily to their mobile devices."

The project has been a year in development led by Head of Channel Sales, Estelle Motley.

Iddon added: "Our portal was well received at the launch event and we will continue to refine it as resellers provide feedback on its use in the field."

SVL Business Solutions has secured a 25% equity interest in Liquid Voice, the developer of call recording and contact centre solutions.

Peter Gough, Sales and Marketing Director of SVL Business Solutions, said: "This investment is the latest development in a long-term strategy to diversify our business and consolidate our position as a provider of contact centre and public safety control room solutions.

"Liquid Voice provides a range of solutions that complement our current portfolio. It will enable us to significantly expand our customer base across a wide range of market sectors."

SVL Business Solutions plans to set up a new division to offer the Liquid Voice range of products as well as the company's current SmartVoice range of PCI compliance, customer satisfaction and contact centre training solutions.

This will run in parallel with SVL's existing sales and support operation which will continue to focus NICE's range of high-end interaction recording and contact centre applications including robotic process optimisation, real-time solutions, WFM, quality management, customer feedback and analytics.

Chris Berry, co-founder and Managing Director of Leeds-based Liquid Voice UK, said: "We have already forged a strong working relationship with SVL's management team and are confident that together we can maximise new business opportunities and extend our presence in the contact centre, financial and public safety markets."

Andrew Barrett, co-founder of Liquid Voice and Managing Director of the New Zealand business, added: "Liquid Voice has aspirations for development into other international territories, having already built a strong presence in the APAC region, and this move reaffirms our intentions to the market."

Cloudsource Technologies has appointed Mike Hayman as Dealer Development Director to lead its new dealer channel.

The dealer channel aims to provide smaller resellers or those looking to move in to telecoms with an opportunity to offer their customers Cloudsource services under their own brand.

Cloudsource's services include telephony, mobile, IT, energy and security, and resellers gain access to a bureau billing option, network connectivity ordering, revenue share, support and training.

Hayman said: "I've spent 30 years in the telecoms industry as a dealer and so I have a good understanding of the challenges that growing resellers face and what they're looking for from a good distributor. This experience will help me to listen to their business needs and provide personalised support, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach."

Content Guru has become a global hosted partner of Verint customer engagement solutions including workforce optimisation and speech analytics.

Verint's digital first engagement management solution for government and public sector applications has been integrated with Content Guru's storm cloud platform.

John Rees, CCO, Content Guru, said: "Organizations looking to deliver a fully effective customer experience should leverage best-in-class, compatible components across every area, as only a truly joined-up experience can enhance the levels of customer engagement expected by today's consumers. This is equally true in the public sphere."

John Bourne, senior vice president, global channels and alliances at Verint, added: "Through cloud ACD and our multi-tenanted workforce and customer engagement solutions, organisations of all sizes can achieve their most important business objectives, from increasing employee and customer experiences to enhancing loyalty, and from driving revenue to lowering the cost of service delivery."

Cloud Direct has pocketed AlwaysON Group (AOG) for an undisclosed sum. Transcend (a mid-market corporate finance advisory firm based in Reading and Birmingham) acted as lead advisers to the shareholders of AOG.

AOG was owned by private equity firms Foresight Group and Mobeus Equity Partners, together with management and a group of private investors.

The deal adds £5.5m revenues to Cloud Direct and additional expertise in UC, data communication and managed data services.

Cloud Direct is a provider of cloud based managed IT service to SMEs, encompassing UC, cloud back-up, disaster recovery, hosted VOIP telephony, Office 365 and cloud hosting and infrastructure.

Martin Peck, Executive Chairman of AOG, said: "The current investors built AOG up by merging two complementary IT services business, and having completed this process, the time was right for a new owner to take the business forward."

Transcend partner Steve Bartlett commented: "This is a sector we know well, with a lot of M&A activity. Cloud Direct were an obviously strong fit with AOG and we are sure the business will flourish under their ownership."

Brett Raynes, CEO of Cloud Direct, added: "Since 2003 we've been helping organisations grow by migrating them to the cloud. Moving forward, AOG's capabilities will be critical to that as we drive better business continuity, people productivity and infrastructure.

"Their people and customers are a great asset to our business at this exciting time of high growth. We'll slowly integrate the business into the Cloud Direct clan as we continue to support organic growth with an ambitious acquisition strategy."

BT has rolled out Tollring's new iCall Suite on its Wholesale Hosted Centrex (WHC) platform.

The cloud-based iCall Suite has been deployed to customers on the WHC 2.0 version of the platform.

BT resellers and their customers can now monitor business-critical call metrics by accessing real-time reports, intuitive dashboards and visual wallboards via live tiles that are optimised for mobile devices.

Steve Best, Managing Director for BT Wholesale Products, said: "Including Tollring's call analytics on BT's Wholesale Hosted Centrex ensures businesses can access utilisation statistics to see who is calling them, when and how.

"This information is invaluable in terms of providing peak traffic flows, destinations and call behaviour and will help businesses identify customer behaviour and plan resources accordingly. For resellers, this will help them differentiate their proposition, increase competitiveness and drive new revenues."

Tony Martino, Managing Director of Tollring, added: "The functionality within iCall Suite call analytics will enable BT resellers to differentiate their services over their competition by delivering in-depth business analytics that provide a valuable understanding of their customers."

Exsel Group has won backing worth half a million pounds from private equity company Coralinn LLP.

The investment secures around 50 jobs in Glasgow and Aberdeen and will allow plans for further expansion in Edinburgh to go ahead.

Exsel MD Tom McDonald said: "As two strong Scottish businesses, it will be exciting to see what we can do together and where this investment will elevate us."

Exsel, which is headquartered at the CityPark offices in Glasgow, was ranked third among the UK's fastest-growing technology companies in Deloitte's Fast 50 last year and 19th on its Fast 500 EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) list.

Its clients include the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland, Muir Construction, Scottish Futures Trust, Celtic FC and the SFA.

Hugh Stewart OBE, managing partner at Coralinn, said it had taken a 45% stake in Exsel because it was a dynamic young company which fitted the portfolio profile for Coralinn's investments.

Stewart, who becomes Exsel's new Chairman, said: "Tom and his team have created a fast growing environment providing Scottish companies with a business model offering lower costs yet solutions across a range of tech products and services."

Two years ago Exsel employed just three people and had a turnover of £100k. That rose to £2.7m in the financial year to last March and is expected to reach more than £4m next month.

Partner companies IT@Spectrum and The One Point have taken their strategic partnership to a new level at their new £2.75m headquarters at the Bridgehead business park in East Yorkshire.

The sister businesses have created a state-of-the-art working environment where their key teams work together to offer a package of IT managed services to a combined client base of more than 1,200 organisations.

The new offices, called The View, have also been purpose-designed to enable formal and informal meetings with customers and prospective customers, enabling them to see the latest technology being used to deliver efficiency and productivity.

IT@Spectrum has more than 30 years experience providing solutions to enable businesses to print more efficiently, manage their data and information electronically and automate processes.

IT@Spectrum's client base includes blue chip businesses such as Smith & Nephew, Associated British Ports and Cranwsick.

Business telecoms provider The One Point offers IT, business telecoms, software and digital services, and was named the 02 Direct Partner of the Year at the 02 Partner Awards 2016 and is recognised in the top 5% of Microsoft Partners in the UK.

Ken Sturdy, Managing Director of office technology business at IT@Spectrum, said: "We remain two brands, but when customers 'come and see' they see our people and functions working seamlessly, side by side.
"So many questions are answered when customers visit. They see how our two businesses work together, they see the teams collaborating, they see the latest technology in action, and they see how it delivers business transformation."

Martin Lauer, Managing Director of IT services and telecoms company The One Point, added: "The new offices have opened up so many new opportunities, including for customers to come in and use our facilities.
"We're literally throwing open our doors to customers and prospective customers. We're saying 'if you want to talk to any of our staff, you can do that. If you want to just chew the fat about what's next in technology, you can do that too'.

"Over the past two years we have worked collaboratively together to ensure this was the right thing to do. Our client feedback was that it made sense and worked for them.

"Now we've gone much further by coming together under one roof and integrating the teams, because that's what makes sense for our customers. If it didn't work for the customer, by delivering a better service and greater value, we wouldn't do it."

IT support staff are spending more time on service requests and issue resolution than innovation, according to a new report that looks at how optimisation of IT operations drives digital transformation.

Published by Dimension Data, the report stated that IT operations staff are spending over 30% of their time on new service requests and supporting issue resolution, while only 15% of their time is allocated to innovation.

This represents a 25% year on year decline, and according to Dimension Data the message is clear - enterprises that don't evolve their IT business models could miss future market opportunities.

Dimension Data Group Executive for Services, Bill Padfield, said: "Savvy IT organisations understand that if they don't focus on efficiencies today could miss the greater market opportunities of the future."

Dimension Data commissioned research firm IDC. According to the report, only 20% of organisations claim they've fully automated and optimised their infrastructure, while the majority are on a path to automation, but haven't reached their goal.

Barney Taylor, Dimension Data's MD UK&I, said that some of the reasons why IT organisations are lagging behind can be attributed to budget, experience, and expertise. "Successful digital transformation requires the right mix of people, processes, and tools," he commented. "However, IT service automation platforms are expensive and time consuming to develop and successfully integrate into hybrid IT environments."

Channel marketing firm Bowan Arrow has been awarded full membership of the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) having completed a compliance audit.

Full membership enables Bowan Arrow to promote its DMA badge of accreditation in the market as a sign of compliance with the Direct Marketing Code of Practice.

Bowan Arrow Director Andy Grant has also been appointed as Vice Chair of the Responsible Marketing Committee which has been appointed by the DMA Group Board to set out its policies on the responsibilities of marketers and define what constitutes 'responsible behaviour'.

Grant said: "It is a privilege to work with the DMA leadership team and other industry peers to help guide our marketing industry in ensuring a consistency of responsibility in all marketing activities."