Comms Dealer

The champagne was out at Fidelity Energy this week when the company secured its 50th partner contract in the comms channel just six months after launching at Comms Vision last November.

Headed up by former Gamma sales chief John Haw (pictured left), Fidelity Energy is helping to transform comms and IT resellers into utility providers by simplifying the supply of energy services and maximising on the close customer relationships they already have.

"Partner customers are crying out for someone to help them with their energy spends. In the last six months our reseller conversion rate has been phenomenal and we are now seeing real traction," said Haw.

"Our new portal enables resellers to write business even if a customer has an energy contract in place and the fact they can earn revenue share upfront is an enormous bonus."

Haw claims resellers can be earning high margin deals from energy within a month of talking to a Fidelity Energy representative and says his company is way ahead of rivals in the ICT sector.

"With our portal development, CRM systems and breadth of supplier contracts we have an 18-month lead on any other company entering this space," said Haw.

CEO Simon Payne added: "Historically, the channel was expected to find and sign clients to energy companies. We go the extra mile and bring the skill to closing the order."

Intermedia has launched two new resources for channel partners in a bid to help increase lead generation and improve lead conversion rates.

A new Marketing Automation Platform enables partners to implement a variety of month-long integrated marketing campaigns in less than five minutes, without any in-house marketing experts. The platform contains content for partners to brand as their own with pre-made templates for email, landing pages and social media etc.

The firm has also launched the Intermedia University, a new web-based courseware that provides partners with knowledge to close leads generated from the Marketing Automation Platform. It includes a library of interactive training to support partners selling Intermedia services such as Microsoft Hosted Exchange, Email Archiving and SecuriSync.

Jon Borgese, Senior Director of Channel Marketing at Intermedia, said: "We've already seen hundreds of partners register to use our new through-partner marketing automation platform. And over 1,500 partners worldwide have already used the Intermedia University. We expect to see significant growth in the partners using both of these platforms in 2016 and beyond."

The UK's 237 RNLI lifeboat stations have been thrown a connectivity lifeline by KCOM which has supplied a fully managed and upgraded WAN solution.

The project is well underway following two large bandwidth connections with resilient failover into the Poole HQ and a UK rollout of over 200 private FTTC and DSL connections including deployments in some of the most remote locations around the British coast.

IT Project Manager at the RNLI, Steve North, stated: "Lifeboat crews and volunteers input the details of lifeboat launches and then upload video footage from their rescues, which can be used for media, training and fundraising.

"A faster connection helps us to spread the word about the lifesaving work we are doing much more quickly. Investing in better technology at our lifeboat stations around the coast will help to do this."

Gary Young, Executive VP for Mid-Market and Consumer at KCOM, added: "Speed is vital in all aspects of the RNLI's work, not just in saving lives but also in raising awareness of the dangers at sea."

KCOM is now working with the RNLI to roll out plans for the Republic of Ireland which is due to be connected by autumn 2016.

TeleWare has augmented its Skype for Business proposition with the addition of compliant voice recording, IVR and enterprise class voicemail.

"This functionality can help organisations to increase productivity, support training, improve governance and help meet regulatory requirements, whilst also providing much needed differentiation for Microsoft resellers," stated CEO Steve Haworth.

TeleWare's status as a key Microsoft partner is such that it was awarded the Gold Partner Communications designation, putting it in the top 1% of Microsoft's partners in a global network of 430,000.

TeleWare also achieved its first £1m revenue month this year.

Haworth added: "TeleWare has a history of developing strategic partnerships with leading communications technology businesses.

"And we firmly believe that by focusing on R&D to foster the creativity that delivers innovative products, we can help our partners to create the differentiation they need to create growth and drive real value for their clients."

SSE Enterprise Telecoms has been selected by ISP Brightstar to deliver 100Mbps Ethernet connectivity in and around London where the majority of its customers are located, as well as outlying areas.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms' recent Project Edge network expansion meant that it was able to meet Brightstar's needs. With a network reach of 13,700km and 265 points of presence serving 250,000 metropolitan business postcodes, SSE Enterprise Telecoms' network coverage meant it could instantly service a number of Brightstar's customers.

In areas where its network does not reach, the third phase of Project Edge - Edge Plus, with its LIVEQUOTE tool - offers Brightstar an alternative.

Resellers from across the country went back to the classroom with Nimans to learn more about Unify's OpenScape Business SMB Unified Comms platform, and discover how the growing impact of UC is set to accelerate even further.

Attendees travelled from as far as Aberdeen to Nimans' Manchester headquarters for the distributor's first OpenScape Business sales training course. The day-long event ended with an exam where resellers earned official Unify certified expert status.

Stuart Trigg, Unify's UK Distribution Account Manager, explained how UC is playing a growing influence on the global comms stage, with 80% of SMBs currently implementing or planning to implement a more cohesive comms strategy.

He explained how UC provides the opportunity to improve team collaboration, enhance customer service and increase mobility. "It's important to understand customer pain points and look at why UC could be the answer," he highlighted. "Interest is growing on a massive scale."

Configurations, networking and deployment, solution manageability, sales support and also hardware and licensing were all on the agenda supported by system demonstrations of OpenScape Business, an award-winning all-in-one UC and voice solution for up to 1,500 users.

Commsworld has multiplied by six the number of connections made up to May 1st compared to the same four month period last year, registering 13,000-plus connections, which also marks a first in the company's 21-year history having already reached a record year.

This growth has been driven by demand for VoIP services, explained Commsworld CEO Ricky Nicol: "When VoIP first appeared on the scene over a decade ago it was exciting, but it struggled against the resilience, speed and practicality of landline systems," he said.

"But thanks to the advancement of networks and cloud services they no longer need rooms full of expensive hardware.

"Voice communications remains an essential tool for business. If you want to get something done instantly you don't just send a trail of emails, you more than likely pick up the phone.

"This in itself isn't new, but what is changing is how we are now using voice communications. It is much more likely to be integrated, and the growth of telephony using Internet connections is helping businesses every day, bringing down costs and improving flexibility."

Maintel is to offer a solution that removes most of the cost and complexity associated with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) when payments are taken over the phone.

The managed services provider has partnered with Semafone, the developer of secure payment software for contact centres, retailers and merchants that take Cardholder Not Present (CNP) payments.

Customers type their own card details directly into their telephone handset, meaning that no card information is seen or heard by the contact centre agent, nor does it enter the merchant's physical or virtual data environment.

It is claimed the Semafone's technology can reduce the number of required compliance controls by up to 95%.

Maintel is offering Semafone's dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) masking technology, either hosted in the cloud as part of its SIP trunk offering, or installed within the customer's own environment.

Eddie Buxton, CEO of Maintel Group, said: "In taking advantage of Semafone's patented payment method we'll be able to ensure our partners are protecting their customers' data while meeting stringent compliance criteria."

Tim Critchley, CEO of Semafone, added: "PCI compliance has always been a critical concern for those businesses that take card payments. This is even more true today as we face increasing numbers of data breaches and the looming EU data protection regulations."

The fines for non-compliance are significant. Depending on the severity of the breach, new EU data protection regulations stipulate that fines could be up to 4% of an organisation's annual worldwide turnover or 20m euros, whichever is greater.

Dutch municipal bank Stadsbank Oost Nederland has implemented Content Guru's storm Cloud Contact Centre solution.

A not-for-profit organisation, Stadsbank provides critical financial services including debt management and loan advice, to thousands of individual clients across 22 municipalities in the Netherlands.

The company chose storm to handle the increasing volumes of customer interactions generated from the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

By leveraging storm's intelligent Automated Contact Distribution (iACD®) technology, Stadsbank has effected a 50% reduction in repeat contacts by automating routine enquiries and prioritising time-critical interactions to achieve, wherever possible, resolution on first contact.

Custom integration with Stadsbank's own financial applications enables storm to feed customer data through to customer contact agents in real-time, creating a personalised client

Han Olthof, Call Centre Manager at Stadsbank Oost Nederland, commented: "Our customers are facing a range of financial challenges, so it is vital that our contact centre connects our customers to the information they need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Since the recession our contact centre has experienced much larger volumes of interactions than we were previously used to.

"Peaks in demand made the situation worse when our previous system was unable to scale accordingly, impacting on one of the most important fundamentals of our organisation delivering a seamless and positive customer experience with the best possible outcome for all of our clients.

"storm helps us to address these problems whilst its cost-effective Operating Expenditure model is a perfect fit for our not-for-profit setup, allowing us to improve services and scalability without having to leverage capital that doesn't exist."

An EMEA partnership between Enghouse Interactive and Microsoft Skype for Business specialist MeetingZone extends the geographical reach of Enghouse's contact centre applications, including its EI Communications Centre platform.

MeetingZone CTO Steven Willert said: "The relationship Enghouse has with Microsoft is significant, in particular, Microsoft's validation and advocacy of the company."

MeetingZone operates an indirect route to market and works with other Microsoft partners to deliver Skype for Business vVoice services.

Gary Bennett, Sales Director, Enghouse Interactive, added: "As a Skype for Business service provider and applications aggregator MeetingZone has a determination to get up to speed quickly with our contact centre solutions.

"This commitment has already been demonstrated by the significant investment made in ensuring their engineering and support staff are correctly certified."