The gulf between go-getting comms resellers and their more static counterparts is widening. Most industry players accept that they need to engage in product and service diversification to prosper, and business success is naturally drawn to those, like Calteq, that press ahead with these progressive strategies, according to co-founder and Director Mike Stephenson.
Stephenson co-founded Calteq with Nigel Willets in 2003. Their intention was simple - to provide great customer service with a product offering to match. "During our previous years working for shareholders we learnt the importance of taking time to understand a client's challenges and provide a bespoke solution rather than the all too familiar 'one size fits all' approach often taken by larger corporates," noted Stephenson.
Stephenson's pre-Calteq experience enables him to deal with large customers and carriers, which has been intrinsic to Calteq's success as a provider of tailored solutions to sizeable multiple site customers using Tier 1 carriers. He first entered the comms industry in 1987 as a telemarketer for sales appointments at Solutions Telecom, a telephone system dealer. After securing a number of successful appointments he was promoted to a sales role selling systems and smart boxes using Mercury Communications. He then moved to system manufacturer Tie Communications and in 1992 joined Telia UK as Sales Manager. Breaking away from this role Stephenson co-founded IDN which floated on AIM in 2000 and was sold to Redstone Telecom in 2006. During this period Calteq was established.
Today, the company has three offices, one focused on mobile, the other data services while the head office operates as an administration centre. From these secure footholds Calteq targets large multi-site customers, in particular those using traditional voice services such as ISDN30 and are ripe for migrating to hosted and SIP solutions, supported by mobile and data products. "While it's still not for everyone, with ISDN30 heading towards end of life we want to drive this message to our customers and offer them a smooth transition," said Stephenson. "We are always looking for products that can be sold into our customer base. These currently include IoT and M2M solutions which have opened up new markets and opportunities."
To expand its product and services range Calteq purchased a small, but specialised, data company two years ago. The acquired data products and Cisco expertise allowed Calteq to offer data services to its customer base, which is now a thriving part of the business and generates almost £1.5 million annual turnover. The acquisition also enabled Calteq to approach SIP and hosted IP at a much higher level, with good success having sold 2,000 hosted seats already this year compared to 400 at the same time last year.
Calteq's focus on data solutions includes private WAN, colocation facilities and advanced data products such as Sophos firewall deployment. "With security front of mind among all of our customers we are developing our portfolio to include solutions that both alert and protect from call fraud," added Stephenson. "We have also refocused on mobiles using Vodafone and O2 and achieved a 200 per cent increase in mobile connections over the last 12 months. Combined billing and account management have been critical to this growth."
Stephenson cited one company as a good example of its broad solution portfolio in action, the Timpson Group which consists of Timpson, Max Spielmann, Snappy Snaps and others. "We provided landlines, mobiles and data connections which are currently being rolled out via a private WAN to 1,500 branches," he stated. "This has saved the customer a huge amount of money and introduced a streamlined route for new shop openings and fault reporting. The core solutions include additional support products such as conference calling, automated fraud detection, automated fault logging and comprehensive engineer support for installation of lines into all of the main supermarket chains in the UK."
To bolster its sales and support capabilities Calteq has invested significantly in up-skilling its call centre and sales channels, empowering them to sell more advanced data products and supporting solutions. This approach also feeds into the company's culture which Stephenson describes as 'innovative, supportive and hard working', and he welcomes a melting pot of new ideas. "We encourage the team to input ideas because they are our greatest strength, whether it's going the extra mile in our 24/7 customer service operation or developing solutions to protect our customers from fraud," he explained. "We also like to have fun and always reward great work."•