Comms Dealer

TalkTalk Business has sealed a new three-year Ethernet deal with Marston's Telecoms (a division of Marston's PLC, the pub operator and brewer) to place a significant number of Ethernet circuits in their pubs across the UK.

Marston's Telecoms first signed with TalkTalk Business as a managed Partner in 2009. Its main requirement was to cost effectively improve communications between its 2,000 individual pubs and head office, as well as provide services such as customer Wi-Fi and internet-connected gaming.

TalkTalk Business won Marston's Telecoms entire base in September 2015, and soon after successfully converted its managed estate and telephone infrastructure.

Marston's Telecoms evolved its technology offering of broadband, Ethernet, hosted VoIP, private WANs, carrier services and managed Wi-Fi to business customers and the wholesale channel, all delivered over its own carrier-grade MPLS network.

Rob Derbyshire, Head of Telecoms at Marston's Telecoms said: "Since signing with TalkTalk Business we have grown our business, taking on board the new products and innovative opportunities for our 2,000 pubs."

Alexandra Tempest, Director of Partners at TalkTalk Business: added: "TalkTalk Business is always looking at different ways to support its Partners with new products and technology, offering solutions for businesses."

Just weeks after bagging the Best Convergence Distributor accolade at the Comms National Awards Pragma has, for the second time in its four year history, been named Global Partner of the Year by Ericsson-LG at its Partner Conference staged in Bangkok, Thailand.

Pragma Marketing Director Will Morey said: "It's a fantastic recognition for Pragma but more so for our partners who have achieved remarkable growth again this year.

"Five of our partners were also recognised for their achievements at this event."

Pragma MD Tim Brooks added: "During 2016 we saw 30% growth in our business and have continued to work with and recruit some outstanding reseller partners. With a cloud proposition tailored to the needs of resellers we expect 2017 to be an even better year."

Pictured: Tim Brooks (left) and Will Morey celebrate their award win despite being narrowly beaten in the Best Dressed competition.

8x8 has lifted the lid on the next generation of its international channel programme, Channel 2.0.

The move builds on the support and partner programme launched in the UK earlier this year and is designed to enable 8x8 partners to accelerate growth by taking advantage of the industry shift from product-based on premises solutions to cloud communications.

As part of Channel 2.0, 8x8 announced several developments including partners and customers; the PartnerConnect portal (that will offer self-service and automation); enhanced sales and technical training and new partner certifications; along with expanded channel enablement offerings, including marketing support.

In addition to new global relationships 8x8 has expanded strategic partnerships into new regions including Avant, CDW and Intelisys into the UK, and Exsel Group into Scotland.

8x8 has experienced steady growth from the channel with 16 of the company's top 25 deals in fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2016) coming through the channel, which represents a 150%-plus increase from fiscal 2015.

In addition, the 8x8 global channel team has doubled over the past year with employees now in North America, Europe and Australia.

"Legacy communications systems are unable to keep pace with the constantly evolving needs of today's global and mobile workforce," said Vik Verma, CEO, 8x8.

"Retrofitting traditional on-premises systems to meet these customer requirements is a thankless and near impossible task.

"8x8, with our international partners, is driving the transformation from a product-centric to services cloud model, enabling our partners and their customers to seamlessly migrate to a more flexible, services-cloud environment."

Virtual1 has selected Acronis Backup Cloud to power its cloud-based back-up solution called 1Backup.

The new agreement allows Virtual1's customers to access a set of data protection solutions and receive local support through established channels and existing relationships.

Acronis Backup Cloud supports physical Windows and Linux, virtual VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, RHEV, KVM, and Oracle VMs, as well as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Active Directory and mobile devices.

According to Technavio, the global cloud back-up and recovery software market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 13% from 2016-2020, making it a $5.2bn global opportunity by 2020.

"There's huge potential in the UK for cloud back-up services," said Jeff Hart, Senior Sales Director for Northern Europe at Acronis.

"There is already a good awareness and knowledge of the benefits of the cloud among businesses in this market, so plenty of opportunities."

IP Integration has been awarded Diamond status in the Avaya Edge Partner Programme, a designation that builds on the firm's status as the vendor's UK Partner of the Year 2016.

"This has been a phenomenal year," said Dave Glasgow, Sales Director at IP Integration.

Steve Rafferty, UK MD for Avaya, added: "We are always looking for ways to reimagine and transform the customer experience and partners such as IP Integration make this much simpler."

Bamboo Technology Group has entered into a new service provider agreement with Vodafone UK.

The partnership will see Bamboo incorporate Vodafone's fixed and mobile converged network, international roaming and associated services into its enterprise portfolio; and self-provision Vodafone services directly, as well as manage the billing of those services.

Bamboo MD Lorrin White said: "In recent years our focus has been on expanding and improving our supply chain to offer strength, choice and flexibility.

"Our partnership with Vodafone allows us to significantly boost our offering with the scale, innovation and efficiency of Vodafone's network and international voice and data services.

"Having these capabilities will support both our own growth plans and those of our customers, as we provide the bandwidth and communications infrastructure services they need to support and transform their operations."

Gary Hill, Head of Vodafone UK's Independent Service Provider Channel, added: "We are seeing a wave of transformation in the enterprise market as businesses absorb digital technologies into their operations to increase mobility and customer responsiveness.

"As organisations evolve new ways of working their need to keep staff confidently connected regardless of their location has never been greater.

"We are working closely with customers and our partners to support the delivery of agile infrastructure, expanded network connectivity and total communications solutions."

Commenting on the enterprise demand for agile connectivity, Nick McQuire, Vice President Enterprise at industry analyst CCS Insight, said: "The market opportunity for enterprise mobility services is sky rocketing, growing 40% annually according to our estimate, in light of new digital service models and the pressure to innovate across areas such as workforce management and customer engagement.

"Mobile network data demands are also accelerating as employees continue to demand mobile working and more and more organisations look to digitise workflows as part of their digital transformation strategies."

Adept Telecom CEO Ian Fishwick has been appointed to represent the comms industry as part of the Cabinet Office SME Panel, a group of business leaders from different industries drawn together to advise the Government on how to make it easier for SMEs to win Public Sector business.

"Over 99% of the UK's 2.5 million businesses are SMEs, defined as businesses with up to 250 employees or £40m sales," stated Fishwick.

"Historically it has been difficult for SMEs to deal with the Government, but it hopes that 33% of all Public Sector spend will be with SMEs by 2020. I cannot promise success, but I can guarantee a voice at the top table."

If you have any ideas that you would like to explore with Ian, please email: ian.fishwick@adept-telecom.co.uk

For all the challenges that the industry regularly heaps on channel companies, they have one particular strength, their capacity to respond to new circumstances by developing a strong and embedded culture that can be leveraged as a competitive advantage.

Lending force to these arguments, Gamma CEO Bob Falconer spoke of institutionalising culture so it becomes self-maintaining. "You don't shout culture to staff, you do it by example," he stated in a Comms Vision panel debate. "Some big organisations plaster culture posters all over their walls. They think they can create a culture by printing one.

"Every CEO has a duty to make the workplace great, and a duty to eliminate negativity. People hate tension and politics in the office."

Since prescribing a company culture is impossible, the scale of leadership in its development is easy to measure, and without culture, strategy is immaterial and growth inconceivable.

And according to Falconer, we'd be wise to separate the notion of strategy from majestic visions and hard wire it to the less grandiose realm of cunning plans.

"The term 'strategy' is misunderstood," he added. "It means 'plan', and once you have a plan it needs to be continually reviewed. In our business we have to change and adapt. Culture helps us to achieve that."

The Comms Vision debate on culture and strategy became an encounter with the day to day realities of managing people. While it is clear that culture does not beat strategy, recruitment glitches will defeat culture. "The danger is making recruitment mistakes," said Falconer. "These must be addressed quickly. If the culture is infiltrated it will be destroyed.

"Disruptive people affect the whole team and drags them down, so hire well and fire well (in the nicest way). Culture must be protected and institutionalised."

Panel debate soundbites
"Strategy and culture go hand in hand. We set out a moral compass and take people on the journey with us. Without culture it's a long hard slog."
Roy Shelton, CEO, ITS

"When culture is done properly the RoI is incredible."
Henry Warren, Innovation and Product Development Consultant

"It's critical to have a strong culture. It beats strategy all day long."
David Pollock, CEO, Chess

For resellers the lesson is stark yet positive: Neglecting the need to change could be the biggest destabiliser of their business, but embracing new models and unconventional approaches will yield massive benefits and be far more transformative in the long-term.

"The biggest issue with digitalisation is redefining traditional business models," stated Comms Vision panel debate host John Chapman. "We need to think outside the square, especially with new competitors emerging from left of field."

Resellers should take the lead in two modern-day tech revolutions, in software and computing, noted panelist Alex Tempest, Director of Partners, TalkTalk Business. "Software apps is a huge market," she said. "Some are commoditised, but they are exploding out of innovation and our market is a natural place for software to reside.

"For example, SDN provides platform innovation and intelligent networks. It enables us to go into networks and bespoke flexible solutions. Key considerations for the channel are partner choice and whether their skill sets allow them to be competitive."

Those resellers still working under the shadow of archaic and time-limited modes of operation will lose out to more nimble forward looking rivals, believes Tempest. "New players challenge conventional thinking, and they tell us how to make our industry better," she added.

"One example is the future role of robotics. So the channel needs to do some housekeeping and ask whether it trusts the innovation and disruption brought in by new entrants.

"The consumer space is also innovative, and that innovation flows into the B2B market where customers have more to consider. So we take the best of what the consumer market offers. This stretches us as an industry - disruption and innovation are two areas of growth."

The danger for resellers without a whisper of lateral thinking is to become a forgotten outpost of a crumbling 'old world' of communications. But DRD CEO Dave Dadds offered some golden nuggets of strategic direction.

"The market we are moving into is far bigger than the one we're leaving behind," he commented. "It's an exciting future, not in telephony, but software and technology such as analytics.

"We spend time looking at where we are. It used to be a case of focusing on the end product, but we need to go back and assess how we are delivering and supporting services.

"This means being more introspective, stepping back, ignoring much of the hype and working out how we can be smarter with APIs for example. The industry is exciting, but we need to get the basics right by reversing our thinking."

The future success of reseller business will also be indicated by their capacity to create market potency based on agility and simplified go-to-market models. "Voice is an application unshackled from telephony," stated David Axam, Head of Hosted, BT Wholesale. "But it's about making that app easy to use and consume. This is key. It's where the value lies.

"Furthermore, platforms constantly evolving with software updates. That's 'agility' and it's not going away. Partners need to manage this change."

Panel debate soundbites
"The more people communicate, the more relevant we are as an industry, which underlines the viability of the channel. The channel is dynamic, adaptable and changes far quicker than large organisations ever could. Our role is to support, educate and train."
David Axam, Head of Hosted, BT Wholesale

"Convergence has been happening for 20 years. I made my first Internet call in 1986. But this is the most exciting time to be alive. We have all the tools we need and a wide choice of who we can go to. The big question is where to keep all the money." 
Clayton Nash, Head of Products, CityFibre
 

Too many CEOs are held hostage by their emotional and financial investment in the status quo, according to Henry Warren, Innovation and Product Development Consultant, who knows his stuff and worked on the 2008 Barack Obama campaign.

In an address to Comms Vision delegates he urged CEOs to bring more innovation into their companies based on his 10 point game plan.

1) The story: Before innovation can be introduced a business must start with a narrative told by the CEO. All businesses will be disrupted at some point and will require the ability to innovate out of disruption based on a 'story'.

2) Leadership: Consider where you prioritise, invest and support.

3) Focus: Put a spotlight on the shape of your innovation portfolio and consider how to allocate resources. It's all about the right balance.

4) Inconceivable: People may not understand innovation. Top of the list here are CFOs. You need to educate them because any new project is likely to sit in red ink as a burden that CFOs do not want to bear. So always work collaboratively with Finance.

5) Organ rejection: The immune system may attack a foreign body. It's the same within businesses. Share ownership and get people invested in the project.

6) Agility: Agile methodologies are good at teasing out the next growth opportunity.

7) Listen: Listen to customers and those around them. The most valuable investment is to listen.

8) Communication: The bigger the company the harder it is to communicate. Creating communities is an art form and may require outside help.

9) Little guys: You will never employ the majority of smart people. There are many in smaller organisations so partnering is recommended. Be generous with your time, network and resources and the results could be incredible.

10) Teamwork: Identify the entrepreneurs, people who make things happen and bring them together.