How do you survive a credit crunch and position your business to increase revenue and customer numbers? Nathan Hill Haimes, Managing Director of Managed Communications, reckons he has the answer.

From its HQ in Nottingham, the company operates as a non network based solutions provider based on secure, high performance data and IP voice networks. "Since we launched in 2005, a 250 per cent compound annual growth rate has seen us make the top 25 rank of the fastest growing technology companies. What has made it possible is serious investment in infrastructure, processes and people," says Hill Haimes. "We have been successful because we focus on being a niche, high level service company with a target market of high spending SMEs, and also reach into the lower end of the corporate sector."

The key element of the company's success is its agility and responsiveness, stated Hill Haimes: "Financial directors want to cut costs and a lower cost, more efficient alternative to a traditional leased line structure doesn't take much agonising reappraisal from an IT department. Our advantage is that we can deliver effective solutions and do so quickly. The end users who make up most of our target audience may well be quite substantial companies but it just isn't possible for the really big networks to give them the dedicated account management that they deserve. We can.

"In practical terms, if a customer has a problem, we are on to it immediately. If a quotation is needed, we are talking within two hours. Where a big network might schedule a meeting in a week, we are able to talk in minutes, and that's the way most channel players work."

Managed Communications offers voice and hosted services as well as data packages. Like most channel players, it enjoys organic growth but its main focus is on the aggressive winning of new business. "We promote heavily via our web presence and set out our stall so that customers are approaching us with identified needs - and the confidence that we'll be able to satisfy these intelligently and cost effectively," said Hill Haimes.

The company has also opened offices in Bath and Edinburgh. "We've attracted public sector organisations and FTSE 100 clients so while our sales and customer service functions are centred on Nottingham, we need to have a wider reach and this is a process that will continue," added Hill Haimes.

Of course, every link in the supply chain must be totally secure. Managed Communications can only deliver to its customers if it can source services that are impeccably reliable. That is why it has formed a particularly strong relationship with Solution1, a communications service provider that provides ISP, managed and hosted services, voice, data and VoIP solutions from its Edinburgh base.

Solution1, as Matt Stokes, Indirect Channel Manager, explains, is a relatively new kid on the block: "We do, however, have a first class pedigree. We started as an established IT business owned by Siemens, and became independent early in 2007."

You might think that the current macro economic climate makes it a difficult time to launch a new high technology company. Stokes admits that challenges abound but believes that the technology tide is running Solution1's way. "We are able to tailor solutions that meet new demands. We are upgrading our Microsoft 2003 hosted exchange to Microsoft 2007. We are agile and innovative and so can adapt services and applications to meet the increasingly complex regulatory disciplines with which end users must comply. And we are ideally placed to develop a long term future within the hosted environment."

Hill Haimes has seen Managed Communications' client base grow significantly. "We have proved the validity of our business model to ourselves and to the market and are ready to expand our reach. We are discussing options with voice resellers who are looking for a solidly supported entry into VoIP. That's becoming essential because the way the voice channel does business is changing as current M&A activity makes clear. A reseller's business model will become increasingly predicated on network rather than hardware and our proposition is based on the delivery of a genuinely added value solution with strong recurring revenues. Reliable recurring revenues from multiple sources - maintenance is a good example - is the most logical way to sustain long term growth. We are particularly well placed to help."

Working with partners such as Solution1 enables Managed Communications to create solutions that work for its resellers and end users. And because it knows how to crunch the numbers it reckons, says Hill Haimes, ‘to tick all the boxes on a Cost Benefit Analysis'.