Comms Dealer

A new video-based online learning resource aimed at increasing the effectiveness of cloud sales teams within both the UK channel and vendor community has been launched by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF).

The new tools have been developed in conjunction with business development consultancy and CIF member Larato.

The new online modules aim to help sales professionals in the channel and vendor communities increase their sales effectiveness by building on existing sales skills with information, tools and processes to enable them to secure sales in next generation information communications technologies and services.

Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF, stated: "The time is right to create an online resource aimed squarely at those individuals who are at the coal face of sales: the channel and vendor sales teams tasked with quotas, win rates and targets.

"This online resource is designed to be simple to follow, easy to understand and for time poor sales teams."

Lucy Green, Managing Director at Larato, added: "We have developed these modules to support the work the Cloud Industry Forum is undertaking. Key to this is helping individuals and organisations throughout the cloud ecosystem understand the sales process, guide them through the sales cycle and give them the tools they need to deliver business opportunities and sales."

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) has appointed Matthieu Destot as Executive Vice President for Global Sales and Marketing, while Nicolas Brunel will head-up the Communications Business Division.

Destot replaces Jan Zuurbier who continues with the company as an ALE board member.

Jack Chen, CEO, said: "These new appointments will support our efforts as ALE continues to focus its transformation strategy on expanding market reach, improving positioning in vertical sectors, and accelerating the shift to cloud-based business models."

Union Street Technologies has deployed a new hosted platform based on Microsoft's Azure public cloud for its aBILLity billing system.

The company first introduced a hosted option for its aBILLity system in 2011, prior to this the system was available only as an on-premise solution.

Its 'Cloud Hosted Billing' service proved popular and Union Street now hosts aBILLity for over half of its reseller partners, with almost all new partners opting to use the service.

Managing Director Tony Cook said: "We wanted to ensure that our hosted environment could scale effortlessly without limit as more partners chose to use our Cloud Hosted Billing service.

"Azure provides tools for monitoring applications and analysing traffic, giving us in-depth, real-time insight into how our platform is performing.

"We're able to instantly respond to increases in demand, proactively scaling up compute resource to manage capacity as required.

"We can now be certain that no matter how many partners choose to use our cloud hosted billing service, they will always have access to the resources they need to keep aBILLity running at peak performance."

The platform also offers data security. "Protecting data has never been more important, or more challenging, than it is today.

"As such we have built our platform from the ground up according to best practice for data security, delivering security levels comparable to those found in the financial sector."

David McGrath, CTO for Union Street, was instrumental in developing and deploying the new hosted platform.

He added: "The platform features a traditional three tier network with web, application and database legs.

"Communication only ever crosses a single tier and each tenant has its own dedicated security group which controls database access, file system permissions and access to the aBILLity remote app.

"The platform will only accept secure connections and multi factor authentication is available for those clients that may need an added layer of security."

3CX equipment is to be incorporated into BT's Wholesale's SIP Trunking platform, enabling resellers to connect SIP trunks using the 3CX PBX system.

Oli Barker, Head of Hosted Products at BT Wholesale and Ventures, said: "The SIP standard can often be interpreted in different ways, so interoperability testing with vendors such as 3CX is an essential part of our service to minimise interoperability issues between our customers and maintain the high quality service they expect.

"The 3CX communication system is now an authorised device for connection to the BT Wholesale SIP Trunking (WSIPT) platform."

Colt Technology Services has appointed Tom Regent as Chief Commercial Officer commencing September 19th, reporting to CEO Carl Grivner.

His remit is to lead Colt's global sales, pre-sales and marketing teams.

Regent joins Colt from BT Global Services where he held a number of senior roles, most recently acting as President, Global Banking and Financial Markets.

Prior to this he was President of Sales and Marketing, responsible for worldwide sales operations, indirect channels and marketing.

Previously, he held a number of senior roles at AT&T, including head of AT&T EMEA, AT&T's largest operation outside the US. Before that he was VP of global marketing at AT&T, VP global accounts EMEA, and chief of staff for the CEO of AT&T's global business.

Regent said: "Colt is implementing a bold new strategy to tap into the demand for mission critical high bandwidth across Europe and Asia. I am excited to be part of the team who will drive this transformation."

Paula Cogan is joining Colt as Vice President, Enterprise & Partner Sales Europe, having previously worked at Verizon Partner Solutions as Regional Vice President EMEA & LATAM, leading the wholesale business, responsible for over half a billion of sales annual revenue.

Prior to this Cogan held a number of senior roles in Verizon Enterprise Solutions and Verizon Business.

Tim Passingham is joining Colt as Vice President Wholesale Sales Europe, moving from Level 3 where he held a Senior Vice President role heading up a large team and was responsible for over half a billion dollars of annual revenue. Prior to Level 3 Tim held a number of senior roles across BT.

Gamma's Daryl Pile has been promoted to the role of Channel MD following a 13 year stint at the company, the latest phase of a 20 year career working in the comms channel in a variety of senior business development roles.

Pile said: "We've come a long way since I joined Gamma, and I'm looking forward to continuing the drive of our success and growth. There's no let-up in Gamma's plans and ideas and it's great to be a part of it."

Richard Bligh, Chief Operating Officer, added: "During his time at Gamma, Daryl has made a significant contribution to the development of the business and relationships with our channel partners."

Enghouse Interactive has signed up Koris as a new member of its EMEA partner programme.

Koris is authorised to sell, market and deploy a range of the firm's products including its flagship Enghouse Interactive Communications Centre (EICC) and Attendant Console solution, recently certified for Skype for Business 2015.

Craig McCalley, Director of Sales & Marketing, Koris, said: "We are excited about the deep alignment Enghouse has with the Microsoft product portfolio, and seeing a lot of traction in the market between the Enghouse and Microsoft solution sets."

Koris will focus on delivering the Enghouse Interactive solutions into mid-range contact centres in both the public and private sectors.

Gateshead-based Synergi IT is to roll-out Nintex workflow automation software to Northumbrian Water's 2,900 employee as part of a wider investment programme in new Microsoft Cloud, Office 365 and SharePoint services.

The move is the latest success for Synergi after investing in Nintex software and will secure long term benefits for the Pity Me-based water company, providing significant improvements in the automation of documentation and creation processes.

The software will provide Northumbrian Water with greater control and governance over its processes, reducing the volume of manual documentation work undertaken and improving data capture processes as systems become digitalised.

Nintex technology enables users to automate processes in minutes using PC-based drag-and-drop workflow tools to reduce the time involved in building, using and improving processes.

Justin Short, director of Synergi, which also has offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, said public and private sector organisations are recognising the advantages to be gained from new business process management technologies.

The market is worth over $2.7bn and predicted to grow further as more organisations digitalise their processes, according to industry analysts Gartner*.

He added: "Nintex software is part of a growing sector and we are in the vanguard of utilising this and other Microsoft technologies to deliver seamless solutions to regional and national customers like Northumbrian Water.

"We are seeing strong demand as more organisations look to migrate to these new technologies, which quickly deliver demonstrable benefits and RoI."

Ultracomms has appointed Stuart Forrest as Channel Manager and Liza Taylor as Business Development Manager.

Forrest joins from Noble Amcat where he was Channel Manager responsible for revenue growth through channel and direct sales activity, and managing existing partner relationships.

His background in customer contact technology, on and off-shore, spans more than 15 years.

Taylor joins Ultracomms from Unify where she was Business Development Manager with a focus on large clients in the finance sector.

Derwyn Jones, Chief Executive of Ultracomms, said: "With the integration of omni-channel and interaction analytics technology as well as the recent PCI DSS level 1 certification, Ultracomms has an impressive technology portfolio, backed by a talented and dedicated team. These appointments will help us sustain growth for the business."

Air-IT is set to diversify and pursue faster growth following a revamp of the management team.

Founder and MD Todd McQuilkin has moved to the CEO role while Technical Director James Healey becomes MD from 1st September.

McQuilkin said: "James has been an integral part of our journey having been by my side every step of the way.

"We've experienced significant growth, consistently reporting over 20% increase year on year and to top it off in my final year, we're expecting an increase of 30% or more."

Air-IT was established in 2005 when McQuilkin invested a £20,000 redundancy payment from his previous position as Head of IT at Femcare Nikomed.

Initially, the business operated out of residential cottages in Nuthall, Nottinghamshire, and Healey was recruited as the first member of staff in a leading technical role.

In 2013 Air-IT acquired local telecoms provider Managed Business Communications (MBC), enabling it to offer a full portfolio of IT and Communication services under one roof.

Healey added: "Having been on board since day one I have seen the company experience significant change and high growth in an industry that's fast paced and always evolving. I'm eager to continue this journey."

As CEO, McQuilkin will continue to drive Air-IT's business strategy, heading up a new venture under Air-MSP Consultancy which is aimed at helping others in the ICT service industry benefit from operational improvements.