Comms Dealer

Westcoast has signed a distribution agreement with Juniper Networks that enables it to offer the full range of Juniper's networking portfolio including data centre, firewall and mobility solutions.

Westcoast MD Alex Tatham said: "Having Juniper on board as a vendor brings us a huge opportunity for growth and fits with our strategy around hybrid IT solutions as well as bolstering our security offering."

Westcoast has invested in its enterprise capability over the last 12 months, creating a new field-based Enterprise sales team that works with partners on joint business planning, sales enablement, co-marketing and other bespoke services.

The distributor also set up a dedicated internal sales team focusing on partners with established or developing solutions businesses.

Councils run the risk of productivity and efficiency losses if they fail to update their printing fleets, according to Annodata which has observed that local authorities moving to the cloud rarely included print in their migration strategy.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request was issued to 79 local authorities throughout England to determine the adoption of cloud-based solutions in the public sector. The results reveal that while 58% of councils are using the cloud to some extent, only 6% have implemented any form of cloud-based printing.

Rod Tonna-Barthet, CEO at Annodata, commented: "Cloud has a great deal to offer the UK's public sector due its ability to improve efficiencies, drive cost savings and increase flexibility.

"Although there seems to be mounting interest among councils in the cloud delivery model for certain aspects of the IT estate, the findings reveal that there are still great strides to be made when it comes to migrating the print estates over to a cloud-based environment.

"The printed page is, undoubtedly, still an integral element for the day-to-day functions of England's councils, but with inefficient printer estates that often consist of many different devices, these organisations may very well be leaving themselves open to a deficiency in cost-savings and productivity."

TalkTalk Business today announced the results of its first survey into the UK business adoption of IP Voice services.

The research, carried out with Censuswide, into the attitudes of 1,000 decision makers within UK businesses found that 96% of companies that had adopted services such as Hosted Voice or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking had reduced their total telephony costs.

Ahead of the switch-off of traditional ISDN telephony (i.e. telephone lines which run independently of internet connections) in 2025, TalkTalk Business' research found that key motivations for companies making the switch were down to reducing costs, having greater flexibility, and being able to provide futureproof unified communications.

Reducing costs was the biggest draw, with 55% saying they switched to IP Voice to reduce telephony costs across their business. For the 96% of businesses that made a saving by switching, the business case from a purely cost-based point of view was a no-brainer. Those that had made the switch reported saving 35% on total telephony costs versus their old ISDN lines. 1 in 4 firms said that making the switch had cut their telephony costs in half.

Cost savings are far from the only motivation for businesses making the switch to Hosted Voice and SIP, however. Flexibility both within the organisation and for future business growth were important considerations when adopting these cloud based telephony solutions. 24% reported adopting SIP to enable more flexible working opportunities within their business, while 31% said they had adopted the technology in order to expand their company to new locations more efficiently.

Unlike ISDN, SIP also allows businesses to quickly add or remove additional lines, which has proved popular amongst the 48% of UK businesses that reported paying for telephone lines that they only use for part of the year.

Finally, the research found that businesses were adopting IP Voice services to improve efficiency now and future proof for new technologies in the future. 20% of those surveyed said that they had adopted it to 'stay ahead of the curve' and 32% to create better unified communications.

Technologies such as SIP, by being more reliable, can also help businesses prepare for the future by reducing the possibility of costly telephony outages. Censuswide's research found that the average business loses £24,621 for every hour their phone systems are down, with the average loss of communications lasting eight hours.

Despite the urgent need to start replacing ISDN, over one quarter of UK businesses are still not aware of the upcoming switch-off in a few years' time. Similar to the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, or when television moved from analogue to digital, organisations need to start preparing now. By moving to IP Voice, organisations can avoid unnecessary disruption and start taking advantage of savings and scalability right away.

Guy Miller, Director of Next Generation Voice at TalkTalk Business commented: "IP Voice products like SIP Trunking and Hosted Voice are essential for businesses looking to not only reduce telephony costs, but also adopt more modern approaches to work, such as those offered by collaboration and unified communications tools.

"Organisations that have made the switch to IP Voice (including Hosted Voice in addition to SIP) have more than justified the business case they made when it comes to reducing costs. Moreover, they've also deployed reliable systems that will reduce the chance of costly outages and provide them with futureproof technology, ready for the workforce of tomorrow."

Bath-based Cloud Direct has bagged its fifth IT business in 20 months, snapping up Microsoft CSP Connect Support Services.

The deal follows Cloud Direct's acquisition of AlwaysOn in January and adds 300 more customers to its base along with Microsoft skills in Azure, Office 365 and hosted desktop.

Previous acquisitions include Redblade in July 2016, ihotdesk in December 2015 and Datel Business Systems in June 2015.

Brett Raynes, founder and CEO of Cloud Direct, said: "We've been helping businesses move to the cloud since 2003 and continue to invest in cloud services that help small to mid-size organisations become more competitive, productive and agile, mainly through our expertise in cloud migration and management

"Connect Support Services brings great people with a great ethos, enabling us to drive better business continuity, people productivity and infrastructure for customers."

Nimans Business Manager Scott Baron and best pal Craig Hoyland walked 34 miles from soccer ground Anfield in Liverpool to Manchester's Old Trafford stadium in aid of Beating Bowel Cancer and the Blue Apple Heroes war veterans' charities.

The walk was one of 12 fund raising challenges set by Baron including cycling around Anglesey, a 10km army obstacle course and completing the Three Peaks mountain adventure.

"This year I'm going to push myself and friends to the limit," he said.

Pictured (l-r): Craig Hoyland and Scott Baron

Lyceum Capital has become the majority shareholder in Timico having invested more than £50m in the company. Lyceum Partners Simon Hitchcock and Geoff Neville join Timico as Non-Execs. Timico's founder, Tim Radford, remains on the board as a Non-Exec. The deal enables Timico to accelerate its growth plans in the IT services space and invest in systems, people and capabilities.

The war chest will also fund fund acquisitions.

Timico has reinvented itself as an end-to-end managed cloud service provider following a business restructure led by CEO Ben Marnham who joined the firm last September.

Marnham and other members of the management team have also invested in a share of the company.

"Working with Lyceum Capital is a logical next step in Timico's evolution, building on the foundations laid by Tim and the team over the last few years," said Marnham.

"Lyceum have proven expertise in our sector and we share a similar vision of Timico's future within it."

Hitchcock added: "Timico has a well defined strategy to take the business to the next stage in its development as a managed cloud service provider."

The service experienced by comms sector customers is improving, but the industry still ranks as the lowest in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index published by The Institute of Customer Service. 

The report gives the UK’s telecoms industry an overall customer satisfaction rating of 73.6 out of 100, one point higher than January 2016.

But telecoms has the highest proportion of customers experiencing a problem, 20%, compared to the UK average of 13%. 

The most common problems are quality or reliability of goods and services, reported by 46% of customers.

Customers also said they had to expend more effort in dealing with organisations than they did a year ago. 

Along with national public services, telecoms has the highest customer effort of all sectors.

Jo Causon, CEO of The Institute of Customer Service, said: "Generally speaking, it’s been a great year for customer service in the telecoms sector, with consumers telling us that businesses are improving overall experiences by getting things right first time and dealing with complaints faster and more efficiently.

"However, these factors do not necessarily translate into customer loyalty and recommendation. Just being ‘good’ is no longer good enough, and organisations should think about how they can deliver outstanding service at all times."

"Added to that, better consistency is needed across different channels. Engagement through digital methods such as email, text, apps and webchat functions have all increased in the last year, and these are the channels through which it’s most difficult for customer service staff to show empathy. 

"Organisations therefore need to make sure that their staff are highly engaged and highly skilled, as every customer interaction, regardless of the channel it’s on, counts towards business performance."

Adept has added £5m annual revenue with the acquisition of OurIT Group.

Adept CEO Ian Fishwick said: "The addition of OurIT gives us 500 IT clients in London and South East and around 50 staff based at offices in Bevis Marks, London, Chingford and St Neots.

"We can now offer IT as a service from two data centres in Milton Keynes and Maidstone. Our enhanced expertise in Microsoft, Apple and VM Ware positions us well for the future."

Adept also announced an increased bank facility of £30m (up from £15m). Advisors on the deal were Evolution Capital and Cripps.

The new and unified Dell EMC Partner Programme has gone live, aiming to reward those channels who drive new business, create service sales (inclusive of consulting, deployment, support and education services), do training and sell the full portfolio.

The new program tiers which are designed to 'elevate Dell EMC Partners over competitors' and offer ways to level-up, are Titanium, Platinum and Gold, as well as a new status level within the Titanium Tier, Titanium Black by invitation only.

While it says that two-tier is a 'key component to help our partners deliver for their customers and Dell EMC is investing to grow this business', it says it plans to consolidate the list of distribution partners in the new program, and partner more closely with key global distribution partners who are 'placing bets on the company'.

Dell EMC will therefore maintain a smaller set of local distribution partners by country.

The distribution program offers base rebates, growth accelerators based on targeted partners and lines of business and services rebates.

In addition, earned quarterly market development funds (MDF) can be spent on activities such as enablement, demand generation and headcount. 

All distribution partners that are authorised by Dell EMC will be granted status as an Authorised Distributor, which each will maintain by meeting annual minimum revenue, services penetration rates and training competencies requirements

Michael Collins, Senior Vice President, Channel, Dell EMC EMEA, said: "We are truly providing the means and the opportunity along with the recognition and profitability that our partners want and deserve. We're 'all in' with our partners and invested in their success."

Data management specialist Informatica has lifted the veil on a new global channel partner programme in a bid to extend its cloud and data management offerings to a wider range of customers and market segments.
 
The company is focused on building a strategic network of VAD and VAR channel partners via a two-tier programme designed to bring to market its Intelligent Data Platform.
 
"The move to the cloud is one of the most fundamental business model shifts of the 21st century," stated Rodney Foreman, SVP, Partner Ecosystem. "For Informatica, that means further extending our go-to-market strategy and finding ways of getting closer to our customers, through a broader number of touch points.

"Our channel programme is a crucial part of our vision for the future and will be central to our ability to grow the business and better meet the evolving needs of our customers."
 
Informatica recently announced a distribution agreement with Arrow. The company also expanded its distribution agreement with Avnet to include the United States and Canada.

Avnet is also a distributor for Informatica in EMEA, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Howard Goldberg, president of Arrow's enterprise computing solutions business in the Americas, added: "Big data, and the ability to cost-effectively analyse and monetise data, are rapidly evolving into a must-have for businesses of all types and sizes.

"We are in the era of digital transformation, and data is playing a critical role in accelerating this transformation."