Skyrack Telecom's Managing Director Gavin Sweet has an impressive pedigree in pushing new technologies, not least as one of the driving forces behind the UK's first consumer ISP Freeserve. Now, he's putting his shoulder into bringing hosted comms to the masses.
All businesses now operate in an almost totally digital and IP connected world. One in which most users expect their services to be available anywhere, and one in which IT managers are looking to converge their services for manageability and security. This is particularly true for IP network convergence, that relentless shift towards simplified network management that is driving out ISDN and copper and driving in SIP/VoIP. "Businesses also want the ability to scale people and systems up and down quickly and easily, extending services into new areas and new locations to try and quickly take advantage of new revenue opportunities," said Sweet. "This makes hosted services attractive with zero maintenance, ubiquitous availability and easy scalability."
Non-hosted resellers should consider adopting a hosted comms strategy simply because customers are demanding such services, noted Sweet. "For customers with an existing IP network and broadband it's quick to install," he commented. "A good platform that incorporates device management, such as Skyrack's, ensures that phones are fully plug-and-play with no on-site programming required. And the PBX itself can easily be configured quickly and changed once the customer becomes more familiar with the service. This makes it much easier to achieve a quick sell, reduce the specification and provisioning time and get to revenue quickly."
Sweet pointed out that the revenue models offer resellers long-term residuals with good repetitive monthly margins on PBX service features as well as the calls and minutes. Nor is that all. "Innovation and integration options are broader and easier," added Sweet. "With a cloud solution based on SIP and VoIP its is easy to extend or add custom features, such as call recording and mobile integration, in a standard way that is repeatable, secure and upgrade safe."
The main issues for resellers moving into hosting revolve around selecting a supplier. "Don't be seduced by the usual suspects with the biggest advert and cheapest headline price, there are plenty of reliable smaller players out there," said Sweet. "Once resellers are offering hosted services they no longer do everything themselves. But the fact that the solution is hosted makes many aspects of implementation and support easier, and resellers are also reliant on training and support from their hosted provider when required. Resellers may also need pre-sales and sales support, so having a supportive provider that is prepared to go the extra mile with a custom feature or a special number, or to tweak the price here and there to help win a deal, goes a long way."
One of the strongest areas of the market are new and growing businesses looking for standard business PBX services at an affordable price, observed Sweet. "But as they become more sophisticated operations they will need more from their telecoms," he added. "Just choosing the cheapest most basic set of hosted services may look good when you're winning the deal, but if you can't expand the service into enterprise features you will have the same lack of scalability issues as an on-premise solution. Therefore resellers need to ensure that their providers' network is robust and reliable. They should check that the supplier is in control of their network with secure, redundant hosting facilities in a proper data centre, with diverse network and PSTN carrier relationships."
According to Sweet, Skyrack's proposition covers the bases. The company specialises in hosted voice and converged mobile services designed for the channel market with simple ordering, fast provisioning and plug-n-play activation. "The Skyrack platform offers a set of PBX features that will scale from regular office services through to advanced call centre operations and multi-site enterprises," explained Sweet. "The Skyrack Mobile-X MVNO service is built on direct integration with the mobile networks and delivers PBX features, geographic numbers and call recording to the SIM. Skyrack's SIP transit services take advantage of the voice network to provide PBX trunks and carrier connections to UK and international destinations."
For the past couple of years markets have been dominated by price sensitivity, cheaper minutes and bigger bundles, but this tide is starting to turn and other considerations are becoming important, observed Sweet, that switch customers on to hosted propositions. Clear examples of this for Skyrack are in fixed mobile converged services where it offers the Mobile-X service. "FMC and a general shift towards UC is a big feature in the market now," Sweet added. "Both of these trends are driving the move of services away from difficult to manage and impossible to evolve on-site hardware solutions into cloud and intelligent network delivery models.
"The productivity gains and working efficiencies of complete, transparent convergence between the office PBX and the mobile network are self-evident. And when it's also possible to layer on other enterprise voice services such as call centre type features or call recording these are powerful incentives that go beyond the simple price per minute."
Hosted comms is just one part of the market that is competitive and fast moving, and in today's all digital world these markets are also confused by a bewildering array of alternative communications services. "Resellers that can draw on flexible and scalable solutions in different areas will succeed," noted Sweet. "To do this they must be sure that they have a good selection of partners behind them who can help with good pricing and ongoing service innovation. This may require a range of suppliers - bigger networks who are focused on lowest price, and smaller providers who add value by innovating. If resellers look for providers who are prepared to be open and flexible with their services, not requiring or imposing exclusivity, they will be in a stronger position."
The comms industry is in the midst of an exciting time, believes Sweet, citing the rise of new 3G/GSM desk phones that use SIMs and mobile handset technology as an example of what is now possible. These devices fully support Skyrack's Mobile-X SIM and mobile PBX service enabling a wires-free PBX to be deployed. "These phones have all the portability and location-free advantages of a mobile handset but with the familiar experience and advanced PBX features of a desk phone," he commented. "We are seeing strong demand for these devices in different scenarios, sometimes as a simple way to deliver an immediate service to a customer where ISDN or SIP/broadband is delayed, and sometimes simply to allow a business to be completely flexible and not require any local infrastructure, which is often the case for temporary sites such as entertainment or construction."
Hosted technology has given Skyrack the ability to layer together standard business PBX services with advanced enterprise features, delivered to either fixed IP handsets, SIMs in mobiles, SIMs in 3G desk phones or to software clients. "We just wouldn't be able to combine delivery and innovation without operating in this way," added Sweet. "We are a channel-focused business with white label wholesale services. Our resellers who are putting together their own solutions are making good margins, perhaps 30-40 per cent while still remaining fully competitive, typically looking at a monthly ARPU upwards of £12-15 per user. This means that resellers can build solutions from different components while maintaining control of the customer relationship." •