Comms Dealer

The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity (The Royal Marsden) has benefited from a £1,323 cash boost following Virtual1's fund raising efforts during Q4 2014.

The Virtual1 team supported the charity in a number of ways including bucket volunteers at the ATP Tennis tournament, crowd volunteers at the London marathon and a team of volunteers at the annual Marsden March helping with catering, face painting and welcome teams.

To round off fundraising efforts, the team at Virtual1 dedicated a number of festive activities to raising funds for The Royal Marsden, including company and staff donations for each festive jumper worn on the firm's Secret Santa day.

Joanne Bell of The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity commented: "The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity would like to say a big thank you to staff from Virtual1 for all their support and fundraising throughout 2014. With their support we can continue to invest in world-class innovation at The Royal Marsden for the benefit of cancer patients everywhere."

Virtual1 CEO Tom O'Hagan added: "I'd like to thank our staff for their wonderful efforts in volunteering and fundraising for The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity over the course of the year.

"The Charity holds a special place in many people's hearts due to the fantastic work they do for cancer sufferers.

"The feedback from our employees has demonstrated just how rewarding and fulfilling it is for all of us and we will be continuing to support The Royal Marsden in 2015 with a full calendar of fundraising efforts."

Commsworld has marked its 20th year of operation with revenues approaching £10m, according to co-founder and CEO Ricky Nicol.

The Edinburgh-based company, established in 1994 as a provider of telephony services, now specialises in network, telephony and mobile communication solutions.

Nicol believes 'the best is yet to come' as his firm prepares to take advantage of the upturn in the economy and burgeoning demand for network speed, latency and resilience.

He said: "It's mind boggling when I look back at the last 20 years, but it fills me with an enormous amount of pride.

"We originally set up from a 500sq ft office and had a turnover of £300,000 in year one. Now, with our three offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen we have around 10,000sq ft with 51 staff and the products and services we sell are light years ahead.

"We have successfully diversified and continuously evolved to offer leading edge technology and that strategy has paid off.

"I believe we're now in a fantastic position to attack the big providers and gain a decent portion of market share in Scotland so I'd hope the next 20 years should be even more successful."

Staff shortages have pushed salary increases to a five year high, with the latest vacancy advertising report by Adzuna jobsite revealing an overall 5.8% increase in new starter salaries offered in 2014, driven mostly by candidate availability falling to an all-time low of 0.89 jobseekers per job.

"In theory this is great news for job hunters, however the detailed figures reveal huge variations across the UK," observed Clive Jefferys, JMA Network.

"The biggest  increases have been in the North East and South West at 11.6% and 10.89% respectively. Yet London and the SE region was second poorest at 'only' 6.05% .

"Incredibly, the worst performing region was Scotland at a measly 0.53% uplift."

Jefferys also noted that classical economics would cite the willingness of jobseekers to relocate as the chief cause of such variation, implying that the highest wage rises occur in areas that are losing the most staff.  

"However, the growing impact of immigration, specifically to the South East, home working, Internet and telesales is skewing the figures nationwide and making HR planning highly problematic for the year ahead," added Jefferys.

Four Daisy Directors have left the Group following the company's take private approach led by current CEO and now Executive Chairman Matthew Riley.

Peter Dubens, Christina Kennedy, Laurence Blackall and Ian McKenzie resigned with effect from 19th December 2014.
 
Riley commented: "I would like to thank Peter, Christina, Laurence and Ian for the contribution they have each made to Daisy's successful execution of its acquisition-led strategy since its Admission in 2009. 

"The guidance and support they have given during this period has helped to deliver shareholders 185 pence per Daisy Share under the terms of the Offer, compared to the placing price in July 2009 of 80 pence per Daisy Share, an increase of 131.3 per cent. I wish each of them every success in their future ventures."

South West Communications Group has scooped the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise 2014 SMB Growth partner award.

Peter Tebbutt, Country Leader, UK&I, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, said: "The Award acknowledges the investment swcomms has made in our product portfolio over the past 12 months and their achievement in driving business efficiency and growth for their customers.

"The company is dedicated to designing solutions that suit the needs of each of its clients, and this Award illustrates the way in which it has aligned its strategy with that of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise in order to deliver advanced solutions and integrate them seamlessly into existing infrastructure. "

Sarah Flowers, swcomms' Sales Director, added: "We have a long established relationship with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, which has seen us successfully work together to provide efficient voice and data communications solutions for a range of businesses and public sector organisations."

IT infrastructure and support services provider Onyx Group has boosted its revenues, consulting and managed service capabilities with the acquisition of Knowledge IT. Onyx has completed five significant acquisitions since 2000 and forecasts £20m turnover for financial year 2014, up 13% on the previous year.

The purchase of north east-based Knowledge IT adds a further £10m to Onyx's run rate revenue now rising to £30m-plus while increasing headcount to 170.

The acquisition forms part of Onyx's plans to become a £100m revenue IT support and services business in the next five years.

Onyx owns five data centres and six workplace recovery facilities across the UK and has a growing base of more than 200 customers.

Onyx Group CEO Neil Stephenson said: "Increasingly over the past two years customers have been asking us to manage their entire IT infrastructure, as well as providing resilient solutions to complex cloud and hosting requirements.

"The Knowledge IT team has a great reputation for delivering these services and this deal will make the Onyx propositions and reach stronger for both sets of customers."

George Sanger, MD of Knowledge IT, added: "We welcome the opportunity to share our expertise to help Onyx build on its achievements and grow the enlarged business."

Adam Holloway, Partner at Living Bridge, Onyx's private equity partner added: "Having invested in Onyx in 2011, we're delighted to see it make this strategic acquisition and are excited by the growth opportunities for the combined group."

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: If you have not already written your 2015 marketing plan here's a few starting points for your consideration. Planning: This is a vital exercise and must knit in with all the goals of your stakeholders.

Planning is key and should be firmly integrated into your business strategy and corporate ambitions. Ensure all key team members are on board with your marketing ideas.

Don't confuse: Be clear on your key messaging and ensure this message is repeated in the same fashion across as many channels and as often as your budget will allow.

Know your customers: Get a true understanding of your client's business, their key objectives and pain points. If you know this you can offer them meaningful services that will enrich their business environment and keep them coming back for more.

Be open minded: There are many more routes of communication than before. Experiment with video, SEO and social media but always ensure it is integrated with your more traditional activities.

Don't be stubborn: Give new marketing ideas a chance to establish but equally do not continue with a route that is not working for your business. Use this knowledge to create a new more successful campaign and move on.

ROI: Always a hot topic. Utilise the monitoring tools readily available for online activity. Speak to your sales team who engage directly with your clients on a daily basis. Although not automated, they have knowledge that offers invaluable insight into your campaign success and how it was received by your target audience.

BT has announced trials of a solution which could deliver superfast broadband to hard-to-access locations in cities across the UK.

The new form of Fibre-to-the-Basement technology - developed and funded by BT - will be piloted in two City of London buildings from next month.

As a result of the trial, 225 homes in the Middlesex Street Estate and around 50 SMEs based at 65 London Wall will have access to download speeds of up to 80Mbps from more than 130 different service providers for the first time. 

By integrating fibre broadband kit into a building basement or comms room, the need for street furniture, public civil engineering works and road closures will be reduced - and so will the time it takes for an installation to be carried out.

Graham Bell, Chief Information Officer of the City of London Corporation, said: "All businesses are keener than ever to be well-connected and this Fibre-to-Basement pilot is a welcome step forwards, especially for smaller SMEs who are critical to London's commercial dynamism.

"We hope the trials will lead to further expansion of fibre broadband across the Square Mile for residents and SMEs, complementing the Ethernet infrastructure already available to larger firms."

Joe Garner, CEO, Openreach, said: "City centre locations present unique challenges when it comes to upgrading consumer broadband. For example, there is less room for us to install a fibre cabinet on the pavement, and it is often harder to get permission to close roads to do the work.  We also need to secure permission from multiple landlords to run new cables across their land and properties.

"That's why we are being innovative with new technology solutions like this one. We are optimistic that this new solution will prove that fibre broadband can be installed into building basements quickly, smoothly and economically. It could also have the added benefit of being less disruptive for our customers and the general public."

Acquisition target EE has itself completed a strategic buy, snapping up distributor Mainline Communications Group to bolster its B2B channel capabilities. EE, the subject of a £12.5bn acquisition bid from BT, has been a prime mover in driving the adoption of 4G products and services in the business market.

The acquisition of Mainline enables EE to work more closely with its channel partners.

"Mainline is a responsive, efficient, and entrepreneurial distributor with excellent business practices and partnerships," said Gerry McQuade, CMO at EE.

"By acquiring Mainline, we will be able to extend their capabilities in support of our indirect B2B sales strategy."

The acquisition builds on EE's current share of 26% in Mainline, which will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of EE and will continue to operate under the Mainline brand.

"Having been a part of the EE family for some time, we are proud to have played a key role in building and supporting EE's business customer base," said Andrew Boden, MD of Mainline.

"We are excited to be entering this new chapter in our relationship with EE, and we look forward to helping EE forge even more successful relationships with its channel partners."

Excell Group has acquired the customer bases of Resource Utilities and virtual network operator Green Mobile (which offers a carbon zero service), adding significant turnover to the Group from a diversified customer base.

"The Group looks forward to delivering and supporting services to this diverse and socially responsible base of customers," said Excell's Head of Marketing Chris Attwood.

The Excell Group provides cloud-based managed services to businesses and the acquisitions advance its growth strategy and commitment to social value, building on charitable commitments already made to Teenage Cancer Trust and local charitable projects and initiatives.

"Customers will benefit from the continued offering of Resource Utilities and Green Mobile combined with Excell's support and range of cloud products and services," said Attwood.

"We will remain focused on our customers and strengthen our offerings to deliver more value."