Comms Dealer

Virtual1 has selected Acronis Backup Cloud to power its cloud-based back-up solution called 1Backup.

The new agreement allows Virtual1's customers to access a set of data protection solutions and receive local support through established channels and existing relationships.

Acronis Backup Cloud supports physical Windows and Linux, virtual VMware, Hyper-V, Xen, RHEV, KVM, and Oracle VMs, as well as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Active Directory and mobile devices.

According to Technavio, the global cloud back-up and recovery software market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 13% from 2016-2020, making it a $5.2bn global opportunity by 2020.

"There's huge potential in the UK for cloud back-up services," said Jeff Hart, Senior Sales Director for Northern Europe at Acronis.

"There is already a good awareness and knowledge of the benefits of the cloud among businesses in this market, so plenty of opportunities."

IP Integration has been awarded Diamond status in the Avaya Edge Partner Programme, a designation that builds on the firm's status as the vendor's UK Partner of the Year 2016.

"This has been a phenomenal year," said Dave Glasgow, Sales Director at IP Integration.

Steve Rafferty, UK MD for Avaya, added: "We are always looking for ways to reimagine and transform the customer experience and partners such as IP Integration make this much simpler."

Bamboo Technology Group has entered into a new service provider agreement with Vodafone UK.

The partnership will see Bamboo incorporate Vodafone's fixed and mobile converged network, international roaming and associated services into its enterprise portfolio; and self-provision Vodafone services directly, as well as manage the billing of those services.

Bamboo MD Lorrin White said: "In recent years our focus has been on expanding and improving our supply chain to offer strength, choice and flexibility.

"Our partnership with Vodafone allows us to significantly boost our offering with the scale, innovation and efficiency of Vodafone's network and international voice and data services.

"Having these capabilities will support both our own growth plans and those of our customers, as we provide the bandwidth and communications infrastructure services they need to support and transform their operations."

Gary Hill, Head of Vodafone UK's Independent Service Provider Channel, added: "We are seeing a wave of transformation in the enterprise market as businesses absorb digital technologies into their operations to increase mobility and customer responsiveness.

"As organisations evolve new ways of working their need to keep staff confidently connected regardless of their location has never been greater.

"We are working closely with customers and our partners to support the delivery of agile infrastructure, expanded network connectivity and total communications solutions."

Commenting on the enterprise demand for agile connectivity, Nick McQuire, Vice President Enterprise at industry analyst CCS Insight, said: "The market opportunity for enterprise mobility services is sky rocketing, growing 40% annually according to our estimate, in light of new digital service models and the pressure to innovate across areas such as workforce management and customer engagement.

"Mobile network data demands are also accelerating as employees continue to demand mobile working and more and more organisations look to digitise workflows as part of their digital transformation strategies."

Adept Telecom CEO Ian Fishwick has been appointed to represent the comms industry as part of the Cabinet Office SME Panel, a group of business leaders from different industries drawn together to advise the Government on how to make it easier for SMEs to win Public Sector business.

"Over 99% of the UK's 2.5 million businesses are SMEs, defined as businesses with up to 250 employees or £40m sales," stated Fishwick.

"Historically it has been difficult for SMEs to deal with the Government, but it hopes that 33% of all Public Sector spend will be with SMEs by 2020. I cannot promise success, but I can guarantee a voice at the top table."

If you have any ideas that you would like to explore with Ian, please email: ian.fishwick@adept-telecom.co.uk

For all the challenges that the industry regularly heaps on channel companies, they have one particular strength, their capacity to respond to new circumstances by developing a strong and embedded culture that can be leveraged as a competitive advantage.

Lending force to these arguments, Gamma CEO Bob Falconer spoke of institutionalising culture so it becomes self-maintaining. "You don't shout culture to staff, you do it by example," he stated in a Comms Vision panel debate. "Some big organisations plaster culture posters all over their walls. They think they can create a culture by printing one.

"Every CEO has a duty to make the workplace great, and a duty to eliminate negativity. People hate tension and politics in the office."

Since prescribing a company culture is impossible, the scale of leadership in its development is easy to measure, and without culture, strategy is immaterial and growth inconceivable.

And according to Falconer, we'd be wise to separate the notion of strategy from majestic visions and hard wire it to the less grandiose realm of cunning plans.

"The term 'strategy' is misunderstood," he added. "It means 'plan', and once you have a plan it needs to be continually reviewed. In our business we have to change and adapt. Culture helps us to achieve that."

The Comms Vision debate on culture and strategy became an encounter with the day to day realities of managing people. While it is clear that culture does not beat strategy, recruitment glitches will defeat culture. "The danger is making recruitment mistakes," said Falconer. "These must be addressed quickly. If the culture is infiltrated it will be destroyed.

"Disruptive people affect the whole team and drags them down, so hire well and fire well (in the nicest way). Culture must be protected and institutionalised."

Panel debate soundbites
"Strategy and culture go hand in hand. We set out a moral compass and take people on the journey with us. Without culture it's a long hard slog."
Roy Shelton, CEO, ITS

"When culture is done properly the RoI is incredible."
Henry Warren, Innovation and Product Development Consultant

"It's critical to have a strong culture. It beats strategy all day long."
David Pollock, CEO, Chess

For resellers the lesson is stark yet positive: Neglecting the need to change could be the biggest destabiliser of their business, but embracing new models and unconventional approaches will yield massive benefits and be far more transformative in the long-term.

"The biggest issue with digitalisation is redefining traditional business models," stated Comms Vision panel debate host John Chapman. "We need to think outside the square, especially with new competitors emerging from left of field."

Resellers should take the lead in two modern-day tech revolutions, in software and computing, noted panelist Alex Tempest, Director of Partners, TalkTalk Business. "Software apps is a huge market," she said. "Some are commoditised, but they are exploding out of innovation and our market is a natural place for software to reside.

"For example, SDN provides platform innovation and intelligent networks. It enables us to go into networks and bespoke flexible solutions. Key considerations for the channel are partner choice and whether their skill sets allow them to be competitive."

Those resellers still working under the shadow of archaic and time-limited modes of operation will lose out to more nimble forward looking rivals, believes Tempest. "New players challenge conventional thinking, and they tell us how to make our industry better," she added.

"One example is the future role of robotics. So the channel needs to do some housekeeping and ask whether it trusts the innovation and disruption brought in by new entrants.

"The consumer space is also innovative, and that innovation flows into the B2B market where customers have more to consider. So we take the best of what the consumer market offers. This stretches us as an industry - disruption and innovation are two areas of growth."

The danger for resellers without a whisper of lateral thinking is to become a forgotten outpost of a crumbling 'old world' of communications. But DRD CEO Dave Dadds offered some golden nuggets of strategic direction.

"The market we are moving into is far bigger than the one we're leaving behind," he commented. "It's an exciting future, not in telephony, but software and technology such as analytics.

"We spend time looking at where we are. It used to be a case of focusing on the end product, but we need to go back and assess how we are delivering and supporting services.

"This means being more introspective, stepping back, ignoring much of the hype and working out how we can be smarter with APIs for example. The industry is exciting, but we need to get the basics right by reversing our thinking."

The future success of reseller business will also be indicated by their capacity to create market potency based on agility and simplified go-to-market models. "Voice is an application unshackled from telephony," stated David Axam, Head of Hosted, BT Wholesale. "But it's about making that app easy to use and consume. This is key. It's where the value lies.

"Furthermore, platforms constantly evolving with software updates. That's 'agility' and it's not going away. Partners need to manage this change."

Panel debate soundbites
"The more people communicate, the more relevant we are as an industry, which underlines the viability of the channel. The channel is dynamic, adaptable and changes far quicker than large organisations ever could. Our role is to support, educate and train."
David Axam, Head of Hosted, BT Wholesale

"Convergence has been happening for 20 years. I made my first Internet call in 1986. But this is the most exciting time to be alive. We have all the tools we need and a wide choice of who we can go to. The big question is where to keep all the money." 
Clayton Nash, Head of Products, CityFibre
 

Too many CEOs are held hostage by their emotional and financial investment in the status quo, according to Henry Warren, Innovation and Product Development Consultant, who knows his stuff and worked on the 2008 Barack Obama campaign.

In an address to Comms Vision delegates he urged CEOs to bring more innovation into their companies based on his 10 point game plan.

1) The story: Before innovation can be introduced a business must start with a narrative told by the CEO. All businesses will be disrupted at some point and will require the ability to innovate out of disruption based on a 'story'.

2) Leadership: Consider where you prioritise, invest and support.

3) Focus: Put a spotlight on the shape of your innovation portfolio and consider how to allocate resources. It's all about the right balance.

4) Inconceivable: People may not understand innovation. Top of the list here are CFOs. You need to educate them because any new project is likely to sit in red ink as a burden that CFOs do not want to bear. So always work collaboratively with Finance.

5) Organ rejection: The immune system may attack a foreign body. It's the same within businesses. Share ownership and get people invested in the project.

6) Agility: Agile methodologies are good at teasing out the next growth opportunity.

7) Listen: Listen to customers and those around them. The most valuable investment is to listen.

8) Communication: The bigger the company the harder it is to communicate. Creating communities is an art form and may require outside help.

9) Little guys: You will never employ the majority of smart people. There are many in smaller organisations so partnering is recommended. Be generous with your time, network and resources and the results could be incredible.

10) Teamwork: Identify the entrepreneurs, people who make things happen and bring them together.

No business plan goes unchallenged and the true test of any strategy lies in its formation which is a matter of clear adaptive leadership, according to 8x8 commissioned speaker Kevin Uphill, Chairman of business strategist Avondale.

He urged delegates to move from management to leadership, map the line of probability, explore parallel sectors, make decisions more collaboratively, and watch and listen with eyes and ears wide open.

Why? Because too many businesses are stripped of proper long-term planning according to Uphill who prescribed a remedy to bring strategy back to the boardroom table.

In a keynote address to Comms Vision delegates he praised those leaders who are determined to transform their business and defy 'default' behaviours.

"The market is accelerating and we need to deal with that pace of change through strategy, so leadership is important," he stated. "As leaders, bring the team with you, give staff 'permission' with clear roles and responsibilities. Take time out on business design, always ask why you're better than competitors and articulate that succinctly to customers."

Uphill presented plenty of evidence to show that one form of leadership does better than others - mainly by inserting clear space between day-to-day management activities to create conditions that meet the requirements of true leadership.

From this space will emanate the building blocks needed to construct a viable long-term strategy that delivers a competitive advantage in a fast changing market.

"Get into the strategy space," urged Uphill. "Many leaders avoid this move because it's uncomfortable, less certain, hands-off and doesn't feel like work.

"To take practical leadership steps we must put ourselves aside, listen and watch more carefully, and dedicate more time to competitor analysis.

"By researching our environment we can overlay the macro and micro picture which helps us to identify the line of probability which in turn determines how we can take advantage."

The market is converging, getting faster and smarter, software is nibbling at margins, and resellers will struggle to bring value if they talk to customers from a product perspective.

They must become idea businesses as opposed to product focused operations, believes Uphill. And with no clear strategy they may struggle to communicate why they are better than the alternatives.

"Look at consultancy models," he added. "What does the customer really want? How are they operating collaboratively? What silos need to be removed to create an overall technology roadmap?"

Uphill also urged delegates to consider whether they need to pursue acquisitions as part of their strategy. "The M&A sector is alive with activity because of general slow growth," he said. "There are too many businesses offering the same services with diminishing margins. Acquire companies that together will create disruption, which in turn generates shareholder value."

Obliged by some primal urge to think negatively, we default into a cocoon of 'comfort zone' security, and our very own behaviour fosters the outcomes we hope to avoid.

So says Comms Vision speaker and leading performance coach Dave Alred MBE, who would reform the entire concept of failure and even proposes that human potential has barely been tapped, and is ultimately an unknown quantity.

Alred displays a rare enthusiasm for what is possible and, if it was within his power, he would ban the word 'failure' as it is not in the human interest.

"People can perform," he said. "They will always get there in the end. If not there yet, it's not the end."

Alred's approach to performance improvement was clear from the off and he wanted no 'playing safe' from the audience. "Convention does not challenge people, nor does fear of failure. As managers and coaches we can change that," he commented.

Sticking to conventional ways will only reinforce the status quo that is a grim legacy of growing up, noted Alred. And the effects of all this will only be curbed by overturning long held assumptions about personal development.

"Why do kids learn quicker than adults?," he asked. "It's attitude. They are excited when successful, and simply try again when they fail. But adults are hard wired to the idea of failure when not matching their intentions. The human brain goes straight to the consequences of failure before celebrating success.

"We need the enthusiasm of a child. It's never too late to change and grow. If enthused correctly people will do anything. We are not even scratching the surface of human potential.

"What stops us from succeeding? Convention becomes our sanctuary and attitude protects the status quo. It takes courage to change. So fully consider conventions and assumptions and how they can block the road to progress."

Nurturing people to defy convention and perform better also challenges business leaders to enable improvement. They should be mindful of the pitfalls of conventional assessment, such as marks out of ten which stifle development. "Such methods create a mental ceiling and even slow down the journey to the top," added Alred. "There should be no limits to what we can do."

Going for success may perforce introduce a state of vulnerability because change introduces new processes, and when under pressure we may doubt what we can do and unpick procedures that should be second nature. But, believes Alred, harbouring enthusiasm and assumptions of success creates a new level of activity and a positive vibe, which in turn supports learning and development.

One of Alred's tactics when helping companies to improve their performance is to encourage people to do a seven foot standing long jump. During the process they tip towards a point of no return. This process needs to be ingrained through ongoing practice which enables the act to be done more deliberately. But when the consequence of failure is higher (for example, the same jump but between two buildings), the fear interferes with the process. "The key is to follow process and stay focused," said Alred.

Above all, he gave an intelligent indication of how to bring discipline into play and fashion a better performing business, rather than default at every turn into a sterile world of self-limiting conventions and assumptions.

"Fear of failure keeps us in the comfort zone," commented Alred. "But the Ugly Zone is where it all happens. How can we get into that area? We need to inject enthusiasm, vibe and excitement into what we do, and create a wow factor that enables us to improve and succeed."

Key points
• Effort is success, there is no such thing as failure
• Any marginal improvement is winning
• Injecting enthusiasm, vibe and excitement into what we do creates a wow factor 
• Building self esteem creates commitment
• Start assuming you will succeed and progress
• Defy convention. You'll be in the race, but never win
• Praise the commitment and attitude before the outcome

About Dave Alred MBE

Dave Alred MBE is a leading performance coach whose achievements include nurturing rugby world cup winner Jonny Wilkinson and helping Luke Donald become the world number one golfer.

Businesses must offer far more than traditional marketing techniques if they are serious about growth and strategy, according to Comms Vision speaker Allister Frost, founder and Managing Consultant at Wild Orange Media.

If marketing messages are to remain relevant to their target audiences they must extend their influence to the 'segment of one', he told delegates, and this can only be achieved by alleviating historic divisions between marketing and IT departments.

"IT needs to understand marketing and see it as an enabler for growth," he stated. "The marketing versus IT divide cannot continue. Data is key to making marketing messages hyper-relevant. This is your big opportunity."

Frost, who has spent 25 years working in big organisations such as Microsoft, now gives a helping hand to companies wanting to evolve in line with how technology is fuelling the customer experience.

"It's commonly said that we live in a Digital World where screens are cheap and offer a window into wider realities," he added. But it's not a Digital World, it's Our World and there's no reverse gear. We are irreversibly changed and hyper-informed with more access to information sources than ever before. We become welded to the technology we trust."

Hyper-connected consumers are no longer the underdog. They have to an extent disempowered businesses by taking control of 'knowledge'. And customers are intolerable to sub-standard service.

"This all means that businesses must improve," added Frost. "Organisations must learn to play the long game, create new marketing messages and build relationships that can be nurtured. Prospects must not be rushed, they should be given information on their terms - helping is the new selling."

The language of marketing is no longer a language of action and hoped-for reaction. It's interactions that count most and this dynamic has driven an evolution in content marketing. And there is a clear danger in hyping blanket messages that should sensibly be more targeted and individualised.

"Marketing is no longer a case of 'spray and pray' to see what sticks," noted Frost. "It should be laser targeted to reach specific people in a short space of time. Marketing is now about talking to an increasingly smaller group of people, and saying the right things to the right people at the right time."

This tech-fuelled reaction to customers should encourage all channel marketers to think differently. "As technology and automation moves us forward, the 'segment of one' has emerged," added Frost. "Personally tailored messages will be key."