Channel industry veteran Simon Howitt has launched a new UC venture, Lapdog for Business, alongside former Outscourcery colleague Adam Cathcart.
The business aims to provide resellers addressing SMEs with a range of technologies to get the best of UC services on a pound per unit, per month basis.
?The duo believe that while the proposition of full UC using cloud services packaged with an opex pricing model is a perfect fit for SMEs, very few are making the transition.
"We're offering resellers a sell for us or sell with us model, either as a white label package or under the Lapdog brand," said Howitt.
"This allows traditional resellers to sell the whole bundle and lean on Lapdog for the expertise and experience in the aspects they currently don't have.
"As the landscape continues to evolve, this will ensure resellers protect their base of customers from competitors and at the same time prove to be more valuable to them."
Lapdog is also aiming to work with affinity partners who already have relationships and trust with SMEs and can introduce new services which in turn will bring additional revenues from their relationship.
Cathcart commented: "These relationships are valuable, but introduction partners need the help and support we can provide as they will definitely be outside their comfort zone.
"They believe UC is too disruptive and too complex to piece together and therefore don't recommend some of the solutions."
Howitt, who was Sales Director at Outsourcery and before that Yes Telecom, says Lapdog will help channel partners maximise on the 'perfect storm', namely the growth in ownership of tablets and smartphones, the acceleration of 4G penetration and the rise in popularity of business grade software such as Microsoft Office 365 and Lync enterprise voice.
"All of these factors allow remote and mobile working to become a reality," added Howitt. "By aggregating the products and services Lapdog creates an 'office in a box' solution for end users.
"By having everything on a subscription model, including leasing packages for devices, Lapdog creates a way for SMEs to access all of this without the need for capital expenditure."