Comms Dealer

The number of UK SMEs outsourcing their IT infrastructure has risen six-fold in a year according to Node4's latest research.

The new report Responding to the IT Infrastructure Challenge shows how UK SMEs are looking to generate the maximum ROI and reliability from their IT investment.

And 60% stated that outsourced data centre provision provides them with peace of mind.

With over 31,000 SMEs in the UK, Node4 reckons this means that there are now more than 17,900 businesses that have moved some part of their IT provision off premises.

The findings also highlight that 79% of UK SMEs are experiencing frustrations with their existing IT infrastructure, with 46% of respondents highlighting that their IT infrastructure suffers from technical limitations.

Reliability was revealed to be one of the top three IT infrastructure concerns in the report, closely followed by concerns that their infrastructure is too reliant on hardware that could fail. As a result, 66% of UK SMEs cited disaster recovery and business continuity as critical for their business.

As UK SMEs respond to the challenges involved with keeping in-house IT infrastructure in working order, there is an increasing awareness of the extent to which they rely on mission-critical IT infrastructure. With profitability closely linked to IT performance, outsourcing is becoming more preferable. Shockingly, 70% of UK SMEs would grind to a halt within a day without critical IT infrastructure.

Paul Bryce, Business Development Director, Node4, commented: "The UK SME is an incredibly savvy and responsive entity. In just a single year, much has been accomplished, namely the successful deployment of IT infrastructure that leads to profitability and efficiency across the board.

"In 2015 just 18% of SMEs demonstrated concerns that their IT infrastructure fails to match the needs of the business, compared to 64% in our last report. IT continues to be a major business enabler for the SME, but with heavy reliance, comes inherent risk.

"With so many SMEs frustrated with technical limitations and the day-to-day administration of their infrastructure it's hardly surprising that local outsourcing has become a preference.

"Businesses require a tangible face to be put to their IT provision, especially when outsourcing. The data they are asking someone else to take care of is vital, which is why locality becomes important. Therefore, it's understandable that outsourcing locally provides peace of mind."

A new UC service management system will unlock mid-market opportunities for resellers according to distributor Westcon Group.

Virsae VSM Express is a cloud-based service that provides network technicians with ready access to tools that automate changes to UC environments, provision monitoring services, fix faults, configure alarm monitoring and manage workflow and reporting.

Virsae Marketing Manager Simon Nicholson said the company's mid-market push was prompted by feedback from resellers. "Resellers told us that their mid-sized customers face the same challenges as large enterprise customers," he noted.

"They both hate disruption. However, in most cases smaller businesses manage less complex UC environments, so they don't require the same depth of monitoring and management tools. VSM Express makes smart UC monitoring and service management accessible to mid-sized businesses."

Tony Nevill, Managing Director, Westcon Group, added: "As unified communications is getting more complex it is harder to detect and solve problems on a network. The VSM Express is a low cost plug and play solution and identifies the issues and connects the dots between different management tools and UC network items, using monitoring and alerts to help remedy problems before they impact system users."

Ownership and access to business critical data is becoming a hot issue that will 'run and run', according Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management for SpliceCom.

He said: "Call recordings are seen as business critical across many varied market segment, not just to meet regulatory requirements. But when you consider these recordings, who actually owns this sensitive data?

"In a traditional customer premise deployment it's a simple question to answer. The recordings and call management data reside on the customers' site along with the PBX. It's the customers'.

"But in a hosted environment where the customer is subscribing to a service on a month-by-month basis is that still the case? What about the rest of the data that might be critical to a customer's operation - call Management info and system database backups for example? Where do they reside? How easy are they to obtain? How quickly can you run searches to get the exact recording or report you require? What happens when you want to change providers for a better deal?

"And what happens if legislation requires call recordings to be kept for two, five or even ten years? How much is that going cost to keep archived whilst retaining the ability for fast and easy search and playback?

"There's no doubt that hosted telephony has got its place in the constantly evolving IP Telephony landscape, but hybrid with its mix of cloud based services with on-site hardware for added resilience just might be the answer for those who want a simple pay as they go service, but must have ownership and control of their data for legal and/or onward billing purposes."

Huawei has appointed Lord Browne of Madingley as independent non-executive chairman of its UK subsidiary, Huawei Technologies (UK).

The company also announces the appointment of two further independent non-executive directors to the Board of its UK subsidiary, Dame Helen Alexander, chairman of UBM plc and Sir Andrew Cahn, who served as chairman of Huawei UK's Advisory Board from 2011 to 2014.

The independent non-executive directors will be responsible for reviewing the performance of Huawei in the UK, where 70 per cent of employees are recruited locally, and providing counsel to the UK Management Team, as well as the standard legal obligations of directors of a UK limited liability company.

The enhanced UK Board that Lord Browne will lead has six directors - three non-executive and three executive.

Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman of the Huawei Group Board and Huawei Group Rotating CEO, said: "As a global business we are committed to adopting high standards of governance and management. As our new Chairman, Lord Browne brings invaluable experience from his many years as a global business leader and I look forward to working with him and the other non-executive directors as we seek to build on the continued success of our company."

Lord Browne said: "In a short period of time, Huawei has become a global leader in technology and one of mainland China's largest investors in the UK. I have worked in China and with Chinese businesses for the past 40 years, and continue to be impressed by the corporate sector's ambition and potential."

Dame Helen added: "We live in a digital age in which technology and innovation are more and more critical in the development of companies and economies. Connectivity represents an incredible part of this and Huawei is a world leader in connecting people and their communities."

BlinkPipe has added new developments to its video conferencing solution including a Presentation PC for sharing documents and a dual display stand, as well as a camera boardroom upgrade pack, software and licence enhancements, advanced hardware warranties and increased service and consultancy support.

Based on 'lip sync' technology - fusing voice over the phone and video over the Internet - users plug a BlinkPipe camera into a TV and a traditional meeting room audio conference unit, and HD video calls can be instantly made and received.

In addition to the room system camera, a BlinkPipe Hub cloud service delivers group video calls and screen sharing between BlinkPipe hardware, PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.

Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at BlinkPipe distributor Nimans, said: "Video Conferencing is now within the reach of all businesses, big and small," he explained. "Users simply walk in, sit down and dial. These latest product and service improvements will help resellers significantly grow their sales and penetrate deeper into their customer bases."

Alex Nancekievill, BlinkPipe Co-founder, added: "These new products and services are the next logical step, allowing resellers to create more value for their customers by tailoring solutions to individual requirements. The boardroom upgrade pack for example is an option for customers using BlinkPipe in large meeting rooms. It offers enhanced zoom, more powerful face detection, extra-long cables and a wall-mountable camera stand."

Gateshead-based telecommunications and IT infrastructure firm Advantex Network Solutions has won an undisclosed five figure contract to supply, install and support The Fat Brewer pub, hospitality training and brewing group with new cloud-based telephony services.

The firm sees big potential for this sector and aims to bring on-board more than 3,000 new hosted extensions by 2016.

At Fat Brewer, the new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system, which utilises cloud technology, will provide free inter-department calls and significantly reduce costs in line rentals and external calls.

It will also enable new extensions to be added quickly in the future as the Fat Brewer ramps-up it activities to meet growing demand for its products and services.

Christian Burns, owner of The Fat Brewer Company, said with business booming he needed the latest in advanced phone services to support growth.

"Advantex has supplied a great solution using technology that will meet our current and future needs. This will not only provide long term cost savings but ensure high quality communications are retained as the business expands."

Telephony is currently responsible for around 25% of Advantex's turnover - worth around £1m per annum. Head of communications Andy Shannon says businesses like The Fat Brewer recognise the flexibility and cost savings available using these type of systems.

"Hosted telephony is a fast growing sector and companies like ours are in the vanguard of delivering high quality, seamless services to regional and national customers.

"We have seen demand triple in the last year as more organisations look to migrate away from traditional telephone services where it take weeks to add new phone lines.

"We will be investing further in our services and products over the coming years to ensure customers can take advantage of this flexible technology."

American network security specialist ForeScout has signed value added distributor Arrow in the UK and Ireland in a move to bolster its reseller channel and expand the customer base.

This agreement comes as the extension of the existing collaboration between the two companies in the DACH region. Arrow already operates as ForeScout's VAD in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Under the terms of the deal Arrow will support the UK and Ireland channel community with ForeScout's CounterACT Security Platform. It will also offer to resellers in new markets its support in the area of technical problems, sales and marketing.

"Through ForeScout's ControlFabric technology we can add continuous monitoring and mitigation to our existing suite of security solutions by leveraging their CounterACT platform, and in return, allow organisations secure access to business critical information regardless of time, location, or device," said David Ellis, director of strategy at Arrow ECS UK and Ireland.

John Hagerty, EMEA director for Channels at ForeScout, added: "As we continue to grow our business in the UK, our collaboration with Arrow will allow us to further strengthen and expand our position through its network of resellers and system integrators."

Westcoast has made a major move into subscription-based business as the UK and Ireland launch partner for HP's new opex-based IT purchasing model.

The distributor has joined forces with HP Financial Services to launch HP Subscription, a live pilot scheme that gives resellers an opportunity to sell HP kit and bundles that were previously cost prohibitive for many organisations.

"SMBs and other end user customers can now acquire the latest HP products, services and accessories without having to pay large upfront costs," said Paul Hamilton, Westcoast Client Director.

"HP Subscription allows resellers to benefit from increased opportunities, simplified sales processes and reduced risk, and pays the reseller in full upfront.

"This per-user monthly subscription model is designed to help businesses manage cash flow efficiently and give them affordable access to a wide range of HP products, services and bundles. And the move from capex to opex means depreciation becomes a thing of the past."

Hamilton believes the new model will also catch the eye of public sector organisations, including those in education.

Peter Howell, Partner Development Manager, HP Financial Services, added: "We are bringing a style of IT that enables end users to buy what they need as opposed to what they can afford. It also allows resellers to accelerate their revenues by creating new and affordable tailored bundles.

"We'll start by targeting the SMB/SoHo market as well as education. However, this model is a 100% scalable solution so there's great potential to open this out to HP's global markets."

Westcoast's appointment as a tier-2 CSP in Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider Programme gives resellers greater control over their relationship with customers and significantly expands cloud sales opportunities, according to the distributor's MD Alex Tatham.

Westcoast now provides direct billing, provision, management and support for Microsoft's cloud offerings, enabling partners to provide direct billing and sell combined offers and services.

"Westcoast owns the complete customer lifecycle, allowing us to sell Office 365 and Windows Intune subscriptions, as well as existing Open Licences," said Tatham.

"This means customers can take advantage of cloud services by owning the entire billing process and directly managing the support."

Tatham has witnessed increasing take-up of Office 365 through the IT channel in the UK and Ireland.

"Microsoft's CSP Program will enable all resellers to get involved in providing cloud services to their customers in a way that will enhance their own relationships to their end users," added Tatham.

"Over the coming months, resellers will see a range of different services and support options from Westcoast that are designed for channel resellers to rebrand, add to and resell."

Phil Sorgen, Corporate VP, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft, commented: "By joining the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program, partners will deepen customer relationships and expand business opportunities in the cloud."

While many resellers are focusing on increasing their sales potential they should not forget that ring fencing their customer service provision is just as important, writes Clive Jefferys of telecoms recruiter JMA Network.

In many companies the people that run back office billings and support have been overlooked during the recession years. However, they are just as vital as the flash salesman that walks in brandishing new orders and claiming his bottle of champagne.

I can vouch that a Top Three reason why good salespeople leave their job is because the company they work for can't install their orders properly.

At JMA we've seen a significant increase in client vacancies in back-of-house areas, and unexpected resignations are a common thread. So every manager and owner should take a good, hard look at their business in search of points of Staffing Vulnerability.

I bet that if you take the exercise seriously you will quickly identify certain people that are key to your continued success.

Such a person leaving can be even more damaging than losing a big customer account or a supplier hiking rates.

This is because such people are often 'force multipliers'. In other words, their skills directly influence large numbers of client accounts and many colleagues too.

If you find yourself in this situation you should next examine whether there is any skills overlap between key people. Unfortunately, given how tightly most companies have been run during the recession, there probably isn't much spare capacity.

So what's the solution? Firstly, reward your key people with accolades and a pay rise. Do it today!

Secondly, recruit an understudy. This may be an internal move or an external hire, but it's vital that you start straightaway.

Given that most professional level jobs are taking at least three months to fill, and when you consider the time it takes people to get up to speed, we are already talking about the shape of your workforce in 2016!