Serial entrepreneur Russell Lux thrives on a perpetual craving for winning ever greater sales, so not for nothing is the CEO's launch of TelcoSwitch a matter of significant channel interest.
Lux is best known in the industry as an 'entrepreneur', but the badge seems insufficient as it sits on the bonnet of a highly tuned selling machine, fuelled almost insatiably by adrenaline. Lux says he became an entrepreneur 'by accident'. But the 'entrepreneur' label doesn't do full justice to his achievements to date nor his renewed drive to disrupt a significant portion of the comms market via a top of the range sales model. "Sales is in my blood, my very DNA," he stated. "Selling gives me an adrenaline kick, and the launch of TelcoSwitch has taken this drive to a new level," he stated.
Lux was bitten by the sales bug when he was at university, selling computers to fellow students. His flair for making money put him on the path to establishing one of the UK's fastest growing IT companies, LuxTech, in January 2001. "I started the company from the spare room of my London flat," he explained. "LuxTech raised its first invoice in July 2001 and clients were gained through word of mouth. We targeted sectors such as solicitors and accounts who could recommend our services to others."
The strategy quickly paid off. In its first year of trading LuxTech generated sales of £80,000, a figure that multiplied to £400,000 in the second year, and a remarkable £1.2 million in year three. By 2009 the firm was populated by 80 staff and registered a turnover of more than £7 million. Based in London and Hertfordshire LuxTech offered an outsourced solution including IT equipment, IT consultancy, telecoms solutions and project management. In 2011 LuxTech was sold to Parachute IT.
Aiming to repeat this masterstroke and intrude on the stomping ground of household industry names, last month Lux ratcheted up his channel ambitions, greased the wheels of the TelcoSwitch rolling campaign convoy and entered hosted comms territory with a laser focus on the channel, a strategy that has already prompted Lux to perform an upward revision of projected new partner numbers this year. At the start of 2016 his aim was to sign up 45 resellers by the dawn of 2017. But a flurry of sign ups has prompted Lux to hike his target to 65. In terms of users of his platform, the goal is 25,000 seats in year one.
TelcoSwitch launched in 2015 as a supplier of unified turnkey hosted telephony services to the channel, offering a product and service suite that includes CallSwitch, SimSwitch, NetSwitch and SipSwitch, all designed for large and small businesses. Lux has pinned his hopes on the 'intuitive and simple' nature of TelcoSwitch's platform and the strength of its partner programme. He believes the innovative nature of its offering has the capacity to challenge the established market players by offering users a more rounded and flexible communications platform that fits neatly with the requirements of modern businesses.
"The communications market is vibrant and growing faster than ever," observed Lux. "Organisations of all shapes, sizes and industries are waking up to the business benefits that can be gained by having an effective communication platform installed within their network. But there is a dominant player in the space, so resellers who are focused on selling telephony are invariably going head-to-head with the same platform."
The partner programme is positioned as a viable 'alternative' and structured around three key pillars - Agency, Managed and Self-Service. Furthermore, Lux is poised to launch a partner portal that will be the main access point into managing the TelcoSwitch relationship. "Here partners will be able to register leads with a deal registration page, download co-branded marketing collateral, view up-to-date pricing and participate in academy training," added Lux.
"Most importantly, partners will access the core platform and billing system along with direct links to the Wiki where queries can be answered. TelcoSwitch will support its partners with as little or as much as they need to grow revenues from selling our voice solutions."
The company also offers unlimited telephone support and dedicated training to all resellers, focusing on both the technical and sales elements of its product suit, all of which are turnkey solutions designed for SMEs, enterprises and governments worldwide, offering mobile, connectivity or hosted telephony communications. TelcoSwitch is also working on WebRTC integration for the platform.
"Digital transformation is gaining traction and for the comms channel there is a golden opportunity to deliver UC solutions that help end users deliver their objectives," commented Lux. "Businesses are looking at the cloud to enable them to take more risks and drive change within their organisations, and respond far quicker to broader market conditions.
"There is a desire for the channel to get involved in cloud solutions, and there is a strong market opportunity , but it also requires a change in mind-set to accommodate the different solutions and new customer expectations," stated Lux. "There is a significant opening for the IT channel to provide sound guidance, support and services to their customers, establishing an effective balance between on-premise and cloud-based services."•