Playing close to the wind of developments in ICT as they happen is not in VSL Director Adrian Auld's business plan, but that's not to say he doesn't get the full measure of new technology to give customers exactly what they want when they want it. By keeping both ears to the ground, he has mastered the art of listening as a strategy.
The task for any good sales person is to listen attentively to their prospects, which can be instructive, helping them to take on the character of a trusted adviser. Much has been made of practicing a consultative approach, and from the basic act of listening the conversation becomes customer led. It's a simple philosophy that has served Auld well.
"The biggest influence on our development has always been the messages coming from our customers," stated Auld. "We do not always lead the charge on the introduction of new ideas, but if a customer pushes us in a certain direction we will go there. Getting into hosted because it seemed like a good idea was not on the agenda, but coming up with hosted services to satisfy the requests and needs of our customers most definitely was."
VSL's future outlook is predicated on putting basic principles back at the centre of business activity. "VSL will continue to listen to customers and move in a complementary direction," added Auld. "Currently, this means improving the completeness of our end-to-end provisioning. Once this is in place there will be a platform to sell other applications, perhaps including non-voice solutions."
Auld's part-reactionary response to market dynamics fits with his methodical growth strategy and sensible planning. "VSL has adopted a conservative approach to expansion," noted Auld. "All growth has been organic, the office premises are owned and there is no debt in the business. However, we have seen a tenfold increase in turnover since our incorporation. Growth has continued at a steady rate and two new staff members were added this year."
VSL has touched over 1,300 customers in its 20 year history and most of them are still on the books. Customer type varies from owner operator businesses through SME, public (education sector) to large global businesses. The company has also committed to a 'year out scheme', every year taking a business studies student from either the University of Herts or Portsmouth.
Auld himself completed a degree in business studies at what was then Liverpool Poly. The third year entailed a placement with BICC, a global business, working in the fledgling IT department. "I realised that the sales guys coming to see us with the latest and greatest ideas were having more fun and I decided that was the career for me," he said. "In 1985 the best opportunity for a career in IT sales was in the telecoms sector, BT having just lost its monopoly position. So I joined the Norton Telecom graduate scheme. After three years at Norton Telecom followed by one year with Siemens I was ready to have a go myself."
In 1992 Auld began operations from a spare bedroom with just a mobile phone, Amstrad PC and a dot matrix printer. "I started out as a freelance salesman selling voicemail and IVR solutions for existing reseller businesses," he recalled. "There was an opportunity to sell this new technology at a premium and it was being missed by most traditional PBX vendors. The late John Massey at Callback Communications and a then youthful Tony Parish at Genesis were great supporters.
"As the business grew I developed customers of my own and then pushed the button on the next level in 1996 when VSL incorporated and took on its first engineer. Voicemail and IVR products were joined by Toshiba and Mitel with a particular leaning towards call centre solutions. The business is still owned by me although run more and more by my management team."
The focus on call centres differentiated VSL from traditional PBX vendors. "We were providing a complete solution - PBX, voicemail, IVR and reporting tools," explained Auld. "Adding a calls and lines business was also a significant change. This eventually led to a close relationship with BT Wholesale which has been transformative - the development towards becoming a provider of connectivity grew from here. VSL is now a fully fledged provider of connectivity and hosted applications."
Other developments of significance include an investment in a co-located data centre facility as well as connection to BT Wholesale services to provide Ethernet, ADSL, SIP trunking and BT hosted services. The investment in Mitel MICD enabled VSL to build bespoke hosted solutions including the provision of private cloud for key customers. "Hosted has happened and connectivity is important so we need to make sure that we can manage the whole provision end-to-end," commented Auld. "We now have the capacity to deliver a full MPLS network for our customers and to provide them with resilient applications such as voice, call centre and recording. All of this has resulted in a swing to the provision of subscription-based services, although we still sell our fair share of CPE."
VSL offers a full suite of voice applications either as local CPE or hosted. "With the benefits of Mitel's offering we can show our customers a clear migration path from bespoke tin through ISS, virtual provision to full hosted," added Auld. "We can provide basic Internet access (resilient across six ISPs) protected by the latest Cisco technology right through to the most sophisticated multi-media call centre. We have solutions that scale from two users to thousands and offer a support service to back this up. We are particularly strong in the financial sector and have traditionally done well with schools.
"We see an opportunity to add value to our hosted and CPE offerings by taking up a more pro-active role in the provision of the LAN infrastructure. We are looking at options here, again driven by feedback from our customers. Our customers are by far our most valuable and vital asset and they provide most of our marketing resource. Nothing sells better than word of mouth."