At Comms Solutions 08 mobile phone distributor Data Select is launching a new range of products and services targeted at the traditional comms channel. We caught up with Group Managing Director George McPherson to find out more.

Few understand quite how competitive the mobile world is as George McPherson, Group MD of Data Select, the award-winning distribution wing of Phones International. Hhe has guided the company through a market marked by consolidation and collapsing margins to growth levels of around 50% year on year. It's an impressive achievement, and down to a determination to move ahead of the market and provide added value.

The success of Data Select, says McPherson, has been due to its ability to add value to everything it touches. "We started out just moving products," he explains. "But over 90% of what we sell now has value added into them. It's totally different to the IT market where most of the products are a box that just goes out of the door. For us, there's an element of value that we have to add to that box for a particular customer. That could be anything from customising a device with applications or content that are specific to that customer, through bespoke packaging, all the way up to designing a product, promoting it and launching it, as we've done recently with the JCB Tough Phone."

Data Select is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and preparing for the next decade of success by moving into a brand new, state-of-the-art 120,000 square foot warehouse in Slough. To keep the business growing at its current rates, McPherson's looking to expand his horizons once more. The convergence juggernaut which continues its glacial sweep through the telecoms world, remodelling the landscape in its wake, has prompted Data Select to launch a suite of new initiatives aimed at the traditional communications reseller looking to add mobile products to its portfolio.

At Comms Solutions 08, Data Select will be unveiling a new range of corporate products and applications from its Mobile Managed Services division to extend its reach beyond the existing partner base of mobility specialists and into a channel more accustomed to dealing with fixed line and broadband propositions. Although it's most famous for its distribution deals with high street partners like Phones 4U and Tesco, Data Select has plenty of experience in the corporate market. McPherson reckons that currently, about 75% of his business is with the SMB channel or enterprise, and he sees his customers moving in on territory traditionally held by traditional comms dealers.

"Customers are looking for a one stop shop and you can't afford to have a gap in your portfolio"

"What we see happening now is a shift towards convergence in our channels," he says. "That's driven by the products and services that are coming along. You've got the typical mobile comms dealer today that's seeing a new range of services and products that are helping him to service the SME and corporate business more effectively."

McPherson is keen to offer an opportunity to tackle this threat. "Currently, the comms market is predominantly dealing with customers on a fixed line basis," he explains. "There are opportunities therefore coming their way that they need to be made aware of, otherwise the current mobile dealers will be moving in eating their lunch. We want to talk to the data and fixed line dealers who are looking to include mobile services to their line-up," he continues, "Those are the people who recognise the opportunity that the mobile space offers. We're saying to them ‘you need to be talking to us, you need to come onto our stand at Wembley because you've seen the potential and we want partners like you.'"

It's an opening that shouldn't be missed. "The people who are a bit slow at coming forward should really be looking at the opportunities here," warns McPherson. "Because if you don't take them, someone else will. Customers are looking for a one stop shop and you can't afford to have a gap in your portfolio."

If you're still thinking that you've heard it all before, then McPherson has one word for you: Microsoft. "You cannot understate the importance of the new Windows Server launches," he reckons, particularly when it comes to the SME market. "What's driving this for us is that the manufacturer and product set that we have at the moment has started to move into the Windows space, and that's a natural space for us to move into as well."

As a result, you can expect to see a huge variety of Windows-based smartphone and laptop products on the Data Select showcase at Wembley, from partners like Sony Ericsson who have previously tried to avoid the Microsoft route. "There were about 400,000 smartphone products sold last year," says McPherson, "And that market is growing at about 50% a year. The growth rate in that sector is far higher than any other - it's gone from early adopters into corporate push email solutions which is really want everyone wants. They don't want to be tied to Blackberry, though, they want a Microsoft version that integrates more completely with the rest of the business, and with Windows Mobile 6.1 that's what they get."

McPherson's approach to marketing handsets, PDAs and laptops differs radically from the model employed by the major networks. It fits in with the new demands of customers. "In the past," he explains, "Everyone has focused on voice with data as an add-on. We're focusing on data, with voice as the added extra. We'll give you data connectivity, and if you want voice on the back of it, we can do that. But we're not leading on it, because most of all our customers will already have voice tariffs from somewhere."

With data prices under assault from competition in the business market on the one hand, and pressure in the consumer space led by the iPhone, the ability to differentiate will also be important. Every customer is unique to McPherson's team, which specialises in developing bespoke products right down to the individual level. "What is going to differentiate us from the people who've been in this market before is the value we add," he says. "It isn't just about selling a device any more, moving a box isn't going to be enough. Both the dealers and the customers want more and the services that we bolt on to the back will be quite significant."

Importantly, he concludes, Data Select is not tied into any exclusivity deals with networks or vendors, and its business strategy is to find the right product to help a partners' business. "We're absolutely technology agnostic," he says. "We look at what we think is going to be successful and drive the market, and they're the technologies we'll introduce and promote. We don't have any conflicting priorities. We don't have to service airtime or products, we can just ask ourselves what it is that the market needs, how we can introduce those products and how we can service them effectively."