Comms Dealer

EnGenius has commended Nimans for its work in establishing the brand in the UK wireless communications market.

Vincent Chng, Senior Business Development Manager, EnGenius, said "With the addition of the wireless data portfolio of EnGenius, Nimans now offers a full portfolio, where we expect the proportion of EnGenius in 2016 will grow enormously in the UK."

Nimans is the exclusive distribution partner of various products including the Extreme cordless telephone that offers coverage up to 2km.

Phil Collins, Head of Purchasing at Nimans, added: "EnGenius has become a growing part of our product portfolio. We look forward to an ever closer working relationship with them to offer resellers more ways to capture more business."

New Star Networks (NSN) Channel Director Ryan Kersey cracked open the bubbly to celebrate NSN's most profitable bill run since the business launched in December 2010, driving record breaking revenue and margins from the channel operation.

"The February bill run confirms the success of NSN's cloud telephony strategy and that our joined up channel marketing programme, Affinity, is delivering the goods," he enthused.

Pictured with Kersey are Ewelina Oszust (left), Office & Business Process Manager, and Katy Brown, Corporate Account Manager.

Hamilton-based Cisco partner Provista UK is forecasting sales to jump by a third this year and plans to boost staff numbers but almost 30%.

The firm celebrates its tenth anniversary this year and is targeting £7m annual revenue, up from £5.6m in 2015.

Director Stuart Little said: "Ten years ago, a few of us spotted what we believed to be a real opportunity in the market, the need for an independent firm to offer expert consultants, right through to the build, supply and maintenance of technological, network and video solutions.

"Since then it has been a decade of cautious but consistent growth, using profits to expand organically, making sure to retain the culture of our brand.

"With that careful attention and by sticking to our ethos of placing the customer at the heart of operations, we have been able to grow to the scale whereby we can deliver solutions for a client of any size, anywhere in the UK."

Provista specialises in UC, secure wireless, IP security and IP LAN and WAN networks. Its clients include Baillie Gifford, Wood Mackenzie, Canadian Natural, Scottish Parliament and Greater Glasgow NHS.

The firm currently has 30 staff and aims to expand into the north of England.

"It is a truly exciting time to be part of Provista UK, " added Little. "While we are still the underdogs compared to the household names we truly believe we have an offering that goes above and beyond.

"Our team have extensive experience in security, wireless, data and voice solutions, with particular expertise in unified IP converged environments.

"In an ever-changing industry we can't wait for what is certain to be a hugely exciting next ten years."

Provista UK was named Cisco Scottish Partner of the Year in 2015, and is aiming to achieve Cisco Gold Partner status, the highest partner level, which would make the company the only Cisco Gold partner headquartered in Scotland.

Nimans has welcomed Panasonic UC Pro to its product line up, a new software-based UC suite that complements the vendor's NS series of comms systems.

The new solution has a capacity for 2,500 users and offers video calling, presence, pop-up alerts, text messaging, group chats and calendar integration.

Paul Burn, Nimans' Head of Category Sales, said: "UC Pro is all about flexibility and mobility from one package, offering multi-device compatibility, easy to use functionality and an on-the-go capability."

8x8 has added new features to its cloud-based Virtual Contact Centre (VCC) solution, introducing the integration of management capabilities, analytics and a pre-built CRM integration tool that allows contact centre managers to configure and tailor the agent and customer experience without requiring professional services.

Darren Hakeman, SVP Product and Strategy at 8x8, said: "It is imperative that our customers remain competitive and deliver the highest levels of service to their customers, and as their business partner we are committed to pushing the envelope on innovation to make this happen.

"8x8 offers enhanced contact centre capabilities on a single cloud platform, ensuring our customers around the world have a unified global contact centre solution with state-of-the-art presence."

Swindon-based Excalibur has expanded its portfolio with the addition of a new Managed Print Service (MPS) following a partnership with Click Holdings.

By utilising software solutions Excalibur believes it can reduce print and paper wastage by up to 25%, often achieving this without the capital expenditure typically required to fund new equipment.

Chris Hyatt, Director, Information Security at Click Holdings, said: "The new partnership is already providing a roadmap for customers to reduce the number and types of printing devices and supplies. This print hardware and process streamlining exercise would typically result in savings of between 10-20%."

Zen Internet's 20th year in business has been spotlighted by its best set of financial results to date (year ending September 2015), reporting a 7.1% jump in revenues from £50.6m to £54.2m and a rise in pre-tax profits to £3.2m.

These latest results follow a company restructure in 2014 in which Zen created three customer facing divisions - Small Business and Residential, Corporate and Mid-Market and Partnerships.

Finance Director Matt Kay said: "Zen continues to benefit from a customer-centric business model together with heavy investment in the network and an expanding product range.

"Zen has a long-term strategy of re-investing profits into the business to ensure its future growth."

In other news Zen was named one of the best companies to work for in the UK when it was ranked in 56th place in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies awards.

Last year Zen Internet's success was also recognised when it was named Services Company of the Year in the BCS and Computing UK IT Industry Awards.

Chess took second place in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work for 2016, up one position from its 2015 ranking.

According to Chess CEO and founder David Pollock the company vision has empowered its people to help the firm achieve year-on-year growth.

"Our growth creates opportunity for everyone to progress their career, to develop knowledge and skill, to gain reward and recognition and to maximise their potential," he stated.

"The growth and success of our people ensures the growth and success of our business, which is why we are so passionate about making Chess such a great place to work.

"We're lucky to work in a fast moving, dynamic, growth industry and our people really embrace the opportunities which that provides."

Chess staff benefit from health and pension plans, a share-option scheme, flexible working hours, complemented by some more other benefits such as massages, breakfast clubs, flu jabs, sponsorships for qualifications and happiness training conducted by Pollock.

"Everyone at Chess is committed to building an energetic, hard working, fun and exciting place to work that attracts, retains and inspires people to give their best."

Plantronics's UK&I channel sales chief Paul Dunne has been appointed Country Manager for the region following an eight year stint in the pure channel role.
 
The new posting includes a channel remit but expands Dunne's responsibilities to include marketing and corporate account teams.
 
He said: "We transact our business globally via the channel and in the UK and Ireland we're fortunate to have a large and loyal partner community with a deep understanding of our business.

"As a result I'll still have a lot of involvement with the channel in my new role, and by taking on responsibility for marketing and corporate account teams we'll have a more integrated approach that sees each function working together."
 

Up to 80% of enterprises see cloud as integral to the broader IT strategy, and according to the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) the driving force behind the move to the cloud is not just the head of IT or CIO, a wide range of stakeholders are now involved in the decision-making process.

According to CIF research, the head of IT or CIO is actively involved in the decision-making process in 94% of cloud migration programmes and is the final decision-maker in over half of them (54%).

However, the findings also highlight the growing influence of other personnel within the decision - some 80% of CEOs/MDs are actively involved, the CFO in 76% of cases and the head of a user department in 73% of cloud migrations.
 
"These figures suggest that CEOs and department heads are now taking an active role in IT procurement decisions," stated Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF.

"This can come as no shock as the move to cloud is invariably a business driven decision and one that, in some cases, involves additional investment to support cloud-based applications.
 
"A significant proportion (69%) of cloud users report that they were required to make additional investments to complete their migrations. Just over half made additional investment in hardware and 47% in software. That said, 64% of those asked stated that they were satisfied with their chosen method for migrating, with only 5 per cent stating they were unsatisfied.

"Cloud services are having a direct and profound impact on the way that IT departments operate, the type of work that it engages in and the relationships with the rest of the organisation.

"Rather than eclipsing the IT function, as is often thought to be the case, the research demonstrates that the majority of IT departments remain very much in control and that, for many, Cloud is paving the way for more productive and strategic work."