Comms Dealer

A growing number of contact centres are wising up to the financial and productivity benefits of home working, according to a new survey from the UK Contact Centre Forum.

Almost 60% of contact centre operators in the survey employ home workers/agents, and 69% say it creates happier and more productive employees, while 74% believe it enables them to schedule staff more flexibly to meet expected customer contact volumes, while giving employees a better work life balance.

"Interest in contact centre home working has never been higher, and our survey clearly shows why," said Trevor Butterworth, CEO of the UK Contact Centre Forum.

"Employers responding to our survey pointed to huge benefits in terms of cost savings, productivity and enhanced employee engagement, while the vast majority of home agents are clearly happy swapping the advantages of office working for the work-life-balance benefits of home working."

Sabio has moved into acquisition mode following a multi-million pound investment from Lyceum Capital along with £30m funding to help it double in size over the next three to five years. Lyceum's investment builds on Sabio's average 25.4% annual international sales growth for the last two years. Sabio's COO Andy Roberts becomes CEO while Lee Shorten continues as Chairman.

Sabio's team of founding directors - Paul Began, Adam Faulkner, Sebastian Henkes and Kenneth Hitchen - remain invested in the business and will support the company in its next phase of growth.

"Partnering with a growth investment specialist firm makes sense for Sabio at this stage in our development as it gives us access to both the funds and expertise we need to accelerate our growth strategy," commented Roberts.

"How organisations engage with their customers has never been more critical, and there's a clear international demand for a technology specialist such as Sabio that can help businesses to close the gap between digital and traditional customer contact channels.

"It's an opportunity where Sabio can add value for our customers and, with Lyceum's support, we're looking to double our business over the next three to five years and establish Sabio as the dominant player in our market."
?"Sabio is particularly well placed to help organisations, both in the UK and internationally, as they evolve to meet the changing demands of today's increasingly mobile and socially connected customers," added Simon Hitchcock, Partner at Lyceum Capital and leader of the firm's Sabio investment team.

"Sabio is at the heart of this transition and is the kind of high quality, fast growth business that will strengthen Lyceum Capital's portfolio of technology services businesses."

The countdown to Gamma Ball Rally V has begun with 35 teams preparing to converge on Dover (14th September) for the three day event that kicks off with a 'best dressed' competition.

Overnight stops are planned in Brussels and Bonn, with a day out at the Nürburgring and a treasure hunt along the Rhine River.

The spending cap for each car is £500.

The final evening will be celebrated with a black tie gala dinner where the Auction of Promises will also take place.

Event sponsors include BroadSoft, Polycom, Akixi and Genband).

Richard Bligh, Chief Operating Officer at Gamma, said: "Now into its fifth year we're proud of the reputation the rally has built up across the channel. It's a great opportunity for our channel partners and sponsors to enjoy themselves while raising lots of money for two great charities - Action Through Enterprise and SpecialEffect. The money raised makes a huge difference to these charities."

All proceeds raised from the rally will be donated to the nominated charities, this includes team entry fees, sponsorship, auction bids and donations.

Russell Attwood, Chief Executive Officer at Unify, said: "We really enjoyed taking part in the Gamma Ball Rally last year and can't wait for this year's event. It's great to spend time with so many like-minded people, having fun and raising money for such good causes!"

Over 60 IT and business professionals joined Content Guru, Vapour Media and Spearhead Interactive for an evening of innovation at the White Cloth Gallery in Leeds to learn more about the latest advances in business communications.

Guests had the opportunity to see how WebRTC technology can be seamlessly incorporated into the contact centre to enable organisations to increase internal efficiencies through engaging more effectively with customers using enhanced web collaboration, voice-to-browser communication, and encrypted video conferencing.

Participants also had the opportunity to immerse themselves in virtual reality with Spearhead's futuristic headsets as well as texting, calling and emailing Content Guru's multi-channel drinks ordering service, storm BAR, to order a range of complimentary drinks, from local Yorkshire ales to Italian wines.

Tim Mercer, CEO of Vapour Media, who gave a keynote presentation about the emergence of new technologies on the night, commented: "We were delighted to see such a fantastic turnout at this event and to have the opportunity to work with a wide breath of technology innovators, who collectively demonstrated how emerging technologies are set to rapidly change the way businesses and consumers interact over the next few years."

Martin Taylor, CMO of Content Guru, commented: "Technological advances continue to accelerate at an unprecedented rate and here at the White Cloth Gallery we've seen some fantastic examples that are ready for businesses to use today.

"WebRTC is absolutely transformative - as everyone will see over the next few years - and we're delighted to have been able to support Vapour Media with an early demonstration of how the storm platform is already ushering in this next era of customer engagement."

Zerto has appointed Jason Cowie as its new Senior Director of Global Partner and Channel Sales.

Cowie will be responsible for managing the expansion of Zerto's channel sales team through the enablement and support of technology, resale and cloud service provider partnerships.

His addition supports the investments Zerto has made over the last year in partner resources on both the partner-facing sales and marketing teams.

Prior to joining Zerto, Cowie held executive leadership roles spanning sales, strategic alliances, product management, and business development at various companies including Virtual Instruments (acquired by Load Dynamix), Configuresoft (acquired by EMC), Drive Protected (acquired by Allied), Embotics, Microsoft, and Mission Critical Software (merged with NetIQ).

"Jason brings a wealth of channel experience to support our diverse, global partner ecosystem," said Paul Zeiter, president at Zerto. "Zerto's commitment to sell exclusively through channel partners has resulted in over 100 per cent year-over-year sales growth for four consecutive years, which is a result of attracting top talent to continue that growth pace."

Imago ScanSource has added a new range of audio communications products to its portfolio following a link up with Phoenix Audio Technologies.

The deal gives Imago ScanSource exclusive distribution rights across the UK for microphones, voice capture technology, digital signal processors (DSP), speaker phones and audio conferencing mixers.

Phoenix Audio Technologies has been established since 2004 and has a large footprint in the US market.

James Vickerage, Vice President for the UK and Ireland at Imago ScanSource, said: "The products are easy to use and the DSPs in particular allow audio within a video conference to be managed precisely, whether that's directing sound to speakers in the ceiling and walls or onto a recording device. This will give our reseller channel a great opening to start new conversations with customers."

Entatech UK has sealed a new distribution agreement with Veracity, a provider of IP video surveillance solutions.

Dave Stevinson, Entatech MD, commented: "We have worked hard to build up our networking reseller database, and the inclusion of Veracity will provide high margin opportunities for our customers.

"It will also open up a number of opportunities for Entatech as a distributor, as we will be in a position to provide large scale project attachment prospects."

Daisy and Virgin Media Business are to host an event on July 19th (The Courthouse Hotel, London) that will explain the business case for ultrafast business broadband and arm partners with the information they need to take these services to market.

Julien Parven, Marketing Director at Daisy Distribution, said: "The addition of Virgin Media Business' broadband network will allow partners to significantly broaden their broadband revenue streams.

"This event provides the opportunity to put any questions that they may have to both Virgin Media Business and Daisy Distribution, so that they have that foundation from the outset to take hold of these new services and run with them."

A UK&I distribution deal between ICON and COBS AB sees the St. Albans-based distributor ship the Swedish alarm and messaging provider's SMART1 System in Q3 2016.

Mark Shane, Sales Director at ICON, said: "ICON has been distributing DECT and Wi-Fi solutions for almost 17 years, and the SMART1 solution complements our existing offering as well as our core skill set.

"It combine DECT and Wi-Fi technology into a single device. Features include a dedicated alarm/emergency button, builtin location awareness, a top mounted display for alarms and messages, rugged design, and push-to-talk capability."

"The SMART1 solution is an opportunity for existing customers who have invested in DECT technology and want to introduce applications by using the Android platform, and new customers where messaging and location services are needed."

Sören Erlandsson, CEO of COBS AB, added: "We recognise ICON's abilities and pedigree in this area and look forward to helping them achieve our goals for the UK market."

Mitel's merger deal with Polycom is off following the Canadian vendor's refusal to match a superior proposal from private equity firm Siris Capital. Polycom will pay Mitel a $60m termination fee.

Rich McBee, President and CEO of Mitel, stated: "The agreement announced on April 15th resulted from a detailed due diligence and negotiation process that we feel accurately determined fair value for Polycom. We feel it would not be in the best interest of Mitel shareholders to adjust the existing agreement."

Under the terms of the new $2bn merger agreement outstanding shares of common stock of Polycom will be exchanged for $12.50 per share in cash at the completion of the merger.