DMSL, the SMB-focused distributor of connectivity and cloud solutions, has ramped up its campaign to give comms and IT dealers a leg up to the next stage of their evolution, according to Managing Director John Carter.
The comms industry has entered a phase of business development that will see the approach of customers and the business models of dealers change radically, believes Carter, who urges resellers not to dilly dally in the face of urgent action. "Selling broadband is all about getting in at the start," he stated. "Securing the customer's business is vital now. It makes resellers the supplier of their link to all the hosted and cloud-based services that are now available, and which SMBs are starting to adopt with growing enthusiasm."
The company has, for more than a decade, championed broadband as a service that would provide resellers with a stepping-stone to more business opportunities. Now it is once again stepping up efforts to recruit and engage with ICT dealers as numerous factors converge to create what Carter sees as a whole new wave of potential.
He said: "If you look at the evolution of broadband, we had a massive surge of uptake as ADSL started to become available across the UK. Suddenly, a small business really could support several users all surfing the web, accessing online services and sending and receiving emails and files all at once, at a decent price.
"The next stage was to offer services that enabled you to do more. But small businesses were not ready to put their telephony and IT services out into the cloud, and when the recession came, while some upgraded to higher speed services, most businesses did not want to add to their costs at a time when the future looked uncertain."
But that reserve has now dissipated while confidence and a hunger for growth has returned, pointed out Carter. "The mindset has changed from one where keeping costs low was all that counted, to one where gaining competitive advantage and being able to take opportunities is what matters," he commented. "At the same time, business people have started to realise that they can run their telephony, backup and disaster recovery, digital security and even their office apps more efficiently and more cost-effectively, if they use hosted services.
"Three years ago, when the industry was hyping up the cloud, SMBs did not want to know. Now they are asking about the cloud and if you, as a reseller or ICT services provider, are also their connectivity providers, you are in a prime position to provide them with cloud services as well."
The trends towards increasing mobility and remote working are also influencing this surge of activity and demand from the business community, according to Carter. "While BYOD was yet another over-hyped concept, the fact remains that more people now want and expect to be able to work on whatever device they want to use, from any location," he added. "Businesses can't ignore that. They need to provide good connectivity for all remote users. That means more bandwidth into the office and decent connections at home too. They also need to make services more available to remote workers, which is why hosted VoIP and applications are now starting to make a real breakthrough."
While customer demand is driving the market from one side, supply is ramping up to meet it on the other and this is also making a big difference. "The roll-out of fibre is coming at just the right time and has made it much more attractive to upgrade to higher speed services," noted Carter. "Businesses are not afraid to make the commitment, they can afford it and they know that they will be able to make use of the additional bandwidth, so they'll get good ROI. It is all coming together for higher speed services, the cloud and for resellers that are looking to adopt subscription and services-based models."
DMSL's role is to make it easy for dealers to provide services and win business. The company has a well-established approach and a track record in generating new opportunities and then handing them over to local resellers to fulfil the business. It's following the same approach with the new wave of broadband and hosted services as it did in the early-adoption phase of market.
"For a lot of dealers, managing that whole process from the point when the order is placed to the moment when the service is up and running is challenging," added Carter. "We take all the pain and cost out of the equation, which makes it much more profitable for partners and allows them to focus on getting out there, talking to new customers and winning more business.
"Businesses are starting to move towards online services - and where the customer must go, the dealer must follow. It's even better if the reseller can lead the customer in that direction. We are on the cusp of a new phase of development in the way IT is used and paid for and dealers need to find a way of meeting those demands. It's a big opportunity. Just as end customers can't afford to ignore the benefits, so dealers cannot afford to ignore the potential that the new wave of broadband adoption and cloud-based services presents to them."•