Comms Dealer

The managed services industry is in a healthy state, but acknowledged the challenges as it evolves further.

Not least of these is how it finds the resources to support continuing growth, and establish the new language of sales based on business change rather than technology.

Two hundred MSPs heard a series of expert presenters at the Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2016 in London on September 21st point to this coming period of change.

Mark Paine - Research Director at Gartner, talked about a global MSP business of $256bn with over 100,000 MSPs globally competing in the marketplace.

But he also highlighted research which showed that the managed services model could mean a dramatic fall in consulting business for IT companies, as well as less training. For customers this means a financial gain, but MSPs must get used to selling more services to compensate.

Pulling in figures from Gartner's own survey of CIOs, he revealed that over two-thirds of enterprise customers plan to review and change their IT sourcing in the next two years, so competition is not going to get less.

It all means working far more closely with customers, Tiffani Bova of Salesforce.com had earlier told the audience. "Only technology can help customers get where they want to go," she explained and this meant MSPs being able to understand the markets and models better: "We need to get to the future before our customers do and welcome them when they arrive." The customer should always be your "true north", she explained and that customer experience is where the next sales battle will happen. There was no longer any separation in technology terms between B2B and B2C.

For many in the audience, the interest was in learning how other MSPs successfully built their sales and business models. It was all about getting scale, and using expertise in the right places.

MSP BlueChip's MD Brian Meredith came on stage to relate how his business was growing, working with backup specialist Falconstor, and that knowledge of the solutions at a business level was key.

"The role of MSP is to also lead customers into what is possible," agreed Tony Martin, Falconstor UK&I MD.

APC by Schneider Electric used the event to launch its new channel programme for MSPs - the first time the company had planned new offerings starting with channel discussions rather than new hardware, Maeve Fox, global channel strategy manager revealed in a busy session. It now has plans to continue to roll-out further systems to allow the MSP to take wider control of features around power and cooling, allowing the introduction of planned maintenance.

There were plenty of new opportunities for MSPs revealed on the day: disaster recovery as a service set to grow ten times in next four years- StorageCraft's European Marketing Director Ellen Marie Hickey told the meeting, and this can represent a new business stream worth millions to the average MSP.

Looking forward again, international standardisation body onem2m's Ultan Mulligan said how, with other groups, it is working on one common IoT layer but diversity and different technologies means that the many devices expected to be used, and around which MSPs are starting to build applications, are working different ways- "things will get worse before they get better," he warned, but advised the MSPs where to look for advice.

In an unusual step, the event brought in the Open University, which has very close links to the UK government cybersecurity initiatives whose new business head, Simon Tindall was able to point to the high level (£1.2bn) of funding support promised for cybersecurity training, some of which is starting to come through in to the industry. In a sector where skills are in very short supply, he pointed to courses, many of them free, which were turning out thousands with some level of expertise which the industry could build on. OU cybersecurity training courses can be licensed, added to and resold, he told an interested session.

Synergi has appointed IT professional Mike Brett as Support Team Leader, bringing more than 12 years experience in Microsoft technologies to the role.
 
He will lead and develop Gateshead-based Synergi's support team as well as take on day-to-day responsibility for the delivery of IT support services to customers migrating to new cloud-based Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint and Nintex technologies.
 
As a former SharePoint developer Brett's background fits well with Synergi which is driving the regional adoption of the next generation of IT business technology tools, including Office 365 and SharePoint, together with a range of specially designed business apps.
 
Peter Joynson, MD, said: "It'll be great to have Mike on-board at this time of growth and success for the firm. He will ensure our customers have the best possible ongoing care experience and help maximise their investment in modern technology, something that he has been delivering internally within his previous role."

Ericsson is combining its Strategy and Technology functions with Ulf Ewaldsson named as Chief Strategy and Technology Officer and Head of Group Function Strategy and Technology for the Group.

Ewaldsson brings to this position more than 20 years of experience in product management, industry development and customer relationships.

Current Chief Strategy Officer Rima Qureshi was appointed Head of Region North America July 1st, 2016, and has since held dual roles.

In addition to her role as Head of Region North America, Rima Qureshi will continue to drive the strategic partnership with Cisco. Ulf Ewaldsson currently holds the position as Chief Technology Officer and Head of Group Function Technology

Both Ewaldsson and Qureshi will continue to be Executive Leadership Team members and report to Ericsson's CEO, Jan Frykhammar who says: "This move is a natural step as Rima focuses fully on driving the business development and customer relationships in one of the most advanced technology markets in the world.

"In the rapid technology development and transformation of our industry it makes perfect sense to combine technology strategy and strategy development into one process."

VIA has connected a charity's 650-plus employees based across nine locations with a platform solution that significantly boosted workforce connectivity and integrated with the existing Office 365 suite of apps.

Teach First, a registered charity that aims to address educational inequality in England and Wales, consolidated its network of UK offices by replacing a number of different conventional phone systems across multiple locations with the VIA Voice platform that also incorporates Skype for Business.

Teach First will save approximately £20,000 per annum on direct costs, including service charges, maintaining equipment and call costs.

The charity will also make significant indirect cost savings due to efficiency gains triggered by hot desking, the ability for staff to communicate better when working remotely, reduced travel, enhanced video conferencing, and greater overall workforce collaboration.
 
Mark Sutton, IT Director at Teach First, said: "We required a solution that would allow us to modernise our telephony infrastructure, while benefitting from a joined-up approach to communications across our nine offices.

"We have already noticed that employee communications have improved, especially between different offices. These efficiency gains will lead to both direct and indirect cost savings, allowing us to focus on our vision of a day when no child's educational success is limited by their socio-economic background."
 
Alex Tebbs, Director, VIA, added: "This is a substantial contract for VIA and we are proud to have developed a UC solution that delivers value for money.

"Our management portal ensured we could phase the rollout and divert incoming calls temporarily while the new numbers were being sent out. This prevented any downtime during the installation process."

telent has launched its UCaaS solution, telentConnect, on the Crown Commercial Service's G-Cloud Framework.

Andy Gifford, Operations Director, Network Services at telent, said: "We deployed telentConnect as our UCaaS solution and it is expected to offer savings up to a third compared to traditional voice communications.

"We believe there is a need to bridge the gap between the digital and business worlds, and we are dedicated to providing solutions to organisations to assist them in implementing an effective digital strategy."

telent has been awarded places on two further new government procurement frameworks - the Network Services Framework (RM1045) and the Technology Services Framework (RM1058).

Exponential-e has introduced Cloudnet, a new self-service offering allowing enterprises to connect their business sites with their business applications.

Nuage Networks from Nokia has been selected as the partner for this new service.

"Our continued investment in automated services using SDN and NFV underpins our future growth strategy for cloud services," said Chris Christou, director of engineering at Exponential-e.

Nuage Networks founder and chief executive officer Sunil Khandekar added: "Exponential-e realises that the nature of connectivity itself is changing because of the cloud and that branch office connectivity has to be bundled with automating the cloud. That's what the Cloudnet offering is all about."

CIOs who are wedded to their legacy investments are holding back businesses from realising the benefits of UC, claims Rod Tonna-Barthet, CEO of Annodata.

"One of the major barriers to adoption is that organisations feel they have to sweat their historic investment in legacy technology," he said.

"Undoubtedly, businesses should always aim to get the best performance from their existing estates and it may be tempting to hang on to old equipment for as long as possible.

"But this is a false economy. Legacy systems can be a drain on the IT department and maintaining these can be cumbersome and expensive, impairing an organisation's growth.

"CIOs are therefore faced with the daunting task of how and when to make the transition to cloud.

"Before a decision can be made, organisations must evaluate the efficiency of their legacy technology and they must know if the systems add value to the business or if it actually impairs the agility of the organisation.

"Fortunately, companies can look to the help of suppliers for appropriate guidance on this matter. By working with a trusted cloud provider who is already invested in the process, infrastructure and support network, companies can ensure that a simple yet essential process can be migrated to a future proofed and scalable platform and provided back as true managed service from start to finish and often within existing opex budgets."

ITS Technology Group has secured a £2.4m cash boost having successfully completed a round of funding that included investments from new private shareholders and the conversion of some existing shareholder loans into equity.

CEO Roy Shelton (pictured) said: "This latest investment will fund our growth, including the expansion of the existing, new and national super and ultrafast networks currently in planning.

"The funding will allow us to push forward with our value proposition of creating networks for digitally deprived rural and urban areas. It also enables us to further develop our partner channel to provide broadband and associated services on a wholesale basis."

ITS has successfully won four concession agreements with local councils including London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Bristol City Council and most recently Nottingham City Council, as well as the build of 17 business park and community networks.

ITS was advised in this financing by Cameron Barney LLP.

Video conferencing, document sharing and screen sharing have been spotlighted by NEC and Nimans in a new 'triple play' awareness campaign.

"Collaborating with colleagues doesn't always mean being in the same room together in the same time zone. In today's working environment, employees are spread across different locations. One of the best ways to collaborate remotely with colleagues is video conferencing," said John McKindland, Nimans' Head of Solutions Sales.

"WebRTC provides cost-effective and secure video collaboration working seamlessly within an IT environment. As well as video and audio conferencing functionality, PC users can work collectively with screen share and shared documents.

"It's also ideal for live software demos and presentation slideshows. Collaborating isn't just about sharing ideas, but also learning more about making meaningful connections within a digital work place. WebRTC provides enterprise grade functionality at an SMB price point."

Maintel's H1 2016 results show Group revenues of £38.1m, up 54% from the same period in 2015 (£24.8m).

This strong financial performance was underpinned by the acquisition of Azzurri in May which contributed £15.4m to the revenue.

Adjusted profit before tax also increased by 17% to £3.9m. Recurring contracted revenue made up 75% of the overall revenue, compared to 71% from the same period in 2015.

Eddie Buxton, CEO of Maintel Group, said: "The highlight of the period was the acquisition of Azzurri which was transformational for Maintel, adding significantly to our offering both in terms of products and services, specifically in the high growth areas of managed and cloud based services.

"During this period, Maintel has successfully closed a number of large contracts and, as such, we enter the second half of the year with a strong order book as well as a full pipeline of opportunities. We are confident of delivering a profit performance for the year in line with market expectations."