Comms Dealer

Exertis and Samsung are preparing to showcase the vendor's latest version of its Call Management Solution (CMS) applications suite during events to be staged at Samsung's offices in Chertsey on 24th May and at Exertis's new National Distribution Centre (NDC) in Burnley on 1st June.

The latest version of CMS integrates with the Samsung telephone system allowing users to manage all aspects of the call reporting, call recording, real time and historic call stats and agent status and activity across the whole Samsung UC Estate.

Kelly Maynard, Samsung UC Business Manager at Exertis, said: "CMS is a key application within Samsung's portfolio and these roadshows will allow our partners to touch, feel and play with the applications in our live demonstration areas and fully understand that this isn't just a version upgrade, it's a new suite of applications engineered from the ground up."

Timico has appointed tech-driven PE specialist Neville Davis as Non-Executive Chairman.

He brings 20 years experience as a chief executive including 12 years at a quoted company, and has a strong track record in scaling and developing private equity backed companies having chaired and grown other tech businesses to in excess of £300m turnover and 1,500 employees.

The appointment follows a £50m investment in Timico by growth investors Lyceum Capital in February 2017 as part of Timico's plans for growth and to finance future selective acquisitions.

Davis also currently chairs private equity-backed IT companies, Peppermint Technology and Clifford Thames, as well as travel management company Key Travel. He is also Non-Executive Director of Kalibrate.

Previous chairmanships include SecureData, Fourth, Trustmarque (now part of Capita), Ascribe and Amor.

Ben Marnham, CEO of Timico, recently led a programme of change to reorganise the business around a single Timico brand and service model, honing its strategy and new proposition as an end-to-end Managed Cloud Service Provider in the IT and cloud space in preparation for its next stage of growth.

Marnham said: "Neville's considerable experience in managed IT and more than 20 years as a successful CEO will be a real asset to Timico."

Davis added: "I am confident that I can make a significant contribution, helping the team realise its ambition in the UK mid-market."

Simon Hitchcock, Non-Executive Director and partner at Lyceum Capital, noted: "Neville understands the dynamics and challenges of delivering on strategy in our highly competitive and driven environment."

Network operator Vaioni Wholesale has launched its Pre-Ethernet service in London enabling partners in the city to accelerate the connectivity delivery process, improve service levels and move from order to invoice more speedily.

Vaioni MD Sachin Vaish stated: "While our average delivery time for Ethernet is above the industry norm it still isn't good enough. With our Pre-Ethernet Service for London businesses we can deliver our SLA-backed product in as little as five working days."

The London Pre-Ethernet service offers flexible contracts and can be delivered as a fully managed service including data, voice and video.

"The service covers 10,000-plus postcodes across London and delivers a seamless transition to the primary service once live and can be ordered easily online via the myVaioni Procurement Platform," added Vaish. "In the coming months we will be launching several complementary National Pre-Ethernet products."

Blue Planet Networks, NV Consulting and The Cloud Networks Germany have joined forces through the Intelisys Global model to secure an initial three year contract from an international sports retailer to provide an in-store Wi-Fi service at 40 sites across Europe in a deal worth 130,000 euros with more stores in the pipeline.

Making the most of partnerships established through the Intelisys Global two-tier distribution model, Sales Partner NV Consulting was able to put together a multi-country network solution to support a Wi-Fi package from The Cloud Networks Germany and leverage Internet connectivity services from Blue Planet Networks, a new Intelisys Global supplier partner.

"This project shows how the Intelisys Global Technology Services Distributor model can bring together consultancies, resellers and suppliers to enable new market opportunities," commented Stephen Hackett, MD for Intelisys Global.

"From an initial introduction at our London Mindshare event in September, NV Consulting was able to build out its solution within just a few days, removing all the overheads and delays typically associated with pricing and specifying as this was all handled by Intelisys Global."

Achim Moehrlein, CEO of The Cloud Networks Germany, added: "Working with the Intelisys Global model gives us access to initial supplier agnostic support and advice, along with access to the consultants, technology providers and implementation specialists we needed to create a competitive proposition for our retail customer."

A channel marketing programme introduced by Atos company Unify will simplify and ease the selling of its OpenScape portfolio, according to the vendor, which also claims that the new online tool, called Triple Play, will enable resellers to intercept potential customers early in the buying cycle.

Triple Play will be integrated into Unify's Partner Programme in the UK and can also be hosted on a partner's own website.

One of the tool's big plus points, says Unify, is that it removes complexity from the buying process, replacing tech talk with straightforward information about outcomes that end users can more easily identify as relevant to their business.

"Triple Play provides end users with transparent solution choices, ensuring their collaboration and communications needs are accurately met," said Zara Pasalar, UK Channel Marketing Manager.

"For partners, Triple Play offers an opportunity to increase revenues, enhance demand generation and break into new markets."

Triple Play is based on three simple choices (platform, deployment model and payment model) that enable partners to tailor their solution in a way that chimes with a prospect's business objectives and desired outcomes, which could be reducing costs, enhancing customer satisfaction or increasing cloud capabilities.

"Triple Play provides partners with a tool that demonstrates the flexibility of our OpenScape portfolio, taking technology off the table and focusing on what matters, the desired business outcomes of their customers," added Pasalar.

The marketing tool also removes much of the hard work required of partners wanting to address new markets with UC&C solutions, presenting resellers with the required outcomes for specific public and private sector organisations, and matching the right products to meet these demands.

"The tool is unlimited in terms of business size, so for those partners wishing to capture 250-5,000 user or large enterprise opportunities they can lead with Triple Play," explained Pasalar.

"As well as the Triple Play digital tool, a complete marketing kit enables partners to reach out to prospects through social media, or target customers directly via a ready to go email campaign."

Office space within Nimans' Trafford Park Trade Counter has been commissioned to extend the distributor's training programme.

The first course housed at the new venue - a three day programme on Panasonic's NS700 and NS1000 comms platforms - attracted resellers from distant regions such as Edinburgh, Tamworth and Hull.

Head of Category Sales Paul Burn said: "Trafford Park is a conveniently located new location for reseller training and it received a thumbs-up from all those that attended."

Ingram Micro company Comms-care has launched a new set of configuration services covering a range of hardware and software for reseller partners.
 
Services will be delivered from a dedicated 4,000 square foot space in Ingram Micro's Logistics and Distribution Centre in Crick near Daventry.

Comms-care can now take delivery of hardware components and configure them at the same location for shipping, reducing the time taken to provide fully configured devices.

Mark Forster, Operations Director of Comms-care, commented: "Our key objective in launching the new configuration service is to reduce the friction involved in the whole supply chain from hardware manufacturer to end user."
 
As well as configuring hardware the engineers at the new centre can install and configure a wide range of vendor or customer specific software, including operating systems.

When partner companies IT@Spectrum and The One Point took their strategic partnership to a new level in January they did not expect the high number of businesses that would take them up on their joint invitation to 'come and see' how technology can drive growth. More than 500 people have visited in response to the invitation.

The sister businesses created a state-of-the-art working environment at their £2.75m headquarters at the Bridgehead business park in East Yorkshire, where their teams work together to offer a package of IT managed services to a combined client base of more than 1,200 organisations.

The new offices, called The View, have also been purpose-designed to enable formal and informal meetings with customers and prospective customers, enabling them to see the latest technology being used to deliver efficiency and productivity.

IT@Spectrum has more than 30 years experience providing solutions to enable businesses to print more efficiently, manage their data and information electronically and automate processes.

Business IT and telecoms provider The One Point collected the 02 Direct Partner of the Year award in 2016 and is in the top 5% of Microsoft Partners in the UK.

IT@Spectrum MD Ken Sturdy said: "We've opened our doors and welcomed in lots of people. We're showing the latest technology in action and we're practising what we preach.
It's been a revolving door, every single day people are coming in to visit us and make use of the facilities in a variety of ways.

"We always say this place is open to our customers, potential customers, suppliers and friends. Our messages is ‘come and see, you're very welcome and you might well learn something'."

The events calendar features quarterly Tech Talks focused on helping businesses to use technology to drive growth. The first of the Tech Talks series will take place at The View during Humber Business Week and will help companies to organise and utilise profitably the vast amount of data generated within their businesses.

The One Point MD Martin Lauer said: "We've developed these engagements into a calendar of one-off, monthly and quarterly events. The View has effectively become a business destination with some of the region's most influential organisations routinely making use of our offices."

Sarah Downing, Head of Marketing at the Bondholders which used The View for its latest Board meeting, said: "It's a positive move by IT@Spectrum and The One Point to make their offices available to so many visitors and reflects the forward-thinking approach they take to developing links with businesses across the region."

Pictured: Martin Lauer (left) with Ken Sturdy

TheCloud has appointed Daniel Crespi (pictured) as MD as the channel-only business prepares to raise its brand profile in the partner community.

Crespi brings 26 years industry experience working in Australia and the UK, 17 of which were senior positions in wholesale and channel, most recently as Director and shareholder of Telcoinabox.

TheCloud launched in 2012 as a provider of cloud solutions via its Revolution Cloud platform which is in its fourth iteration (released in January 2017) following a £2m-plus investment.

RevolutionCloud is an end-to-end platform owned and operated by a single party from the ISP layer through to applications and storage and hosted across four London data centres and an off-grid remote DR centre.

Founder and Director Allan Packer said: "Daniel is a significant addition to the TheCloud team and his experience will prove invaluable as we launch a suite of Revolution Cloud products. His skills perfectly match our channel-only model."

Crespi added: "If a telecoms reseller, indeed any reseller, isn't seriously considering cloud services in their offering they won't be around as convergence gathers momentum. To join the TheCloud at this time simply makes sense."

Analyst house IDC says Western European revenues for cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) systems will reach $1.5bn in 2017, an increase of 40% over 2016.

IDC says Western European spending on cognitive and AI solutions will continue to see significant investment over the next several years too, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.5% through to 2020, when revenues will be more than $4.3bn.

"IDC is seeing huge interest in cognitive applications and AI across Europe from different industry sectors, healthcare and government," said Philip Carnelley, research director for enterprise software at IDC Europe and leader of IDC's European AI Practice.

"Although only a minority of European organisations have deployed AI solutions today, a large majority are either planning to deploy or evaluating its potential.

"They are looking at use cases with clear ROI, such as predictive maintenance, fraud prevention, customer service and sales recommendation."

The three largest Western European industries to invest in cognitive and artificial intelligence systems are banking, retail and discrete manufacturing, although cross-industry applications have the largest share across all industries.

By 2020, these industries - including cross-industry applications - will account for almost half of all IT spending on cognitive and artificial intelligence systems.

The total finance sector (banking, insurance and securities) will account for 22% of cognitive spending in 2020. However, the fastest growing sectors to 2020 will be distribution and services (professional services, retail and transportation) with a CAGR of 60.8% to 2020, the public sector (education, government and healthcare providers) with a CAGR of 60.8%, and infrastructure (telecommunications and utilities) with a CAGR of 60.1%.

From a technology perspective, said IDC, the largest area of spending in Western Europe in 2017 will be cognitive applications ($516m), which includes cognitively-enabled process and industry applications that automatically learn, discover and make recommendations or predictions.

The cognitive/AI use cases that will see the greatest levels of investment in Western Europe this year are: sales process recommendation and automation systems, fraud analysis and investigation, quality management investigation and recommendation systems, automated threat intelligence and prevention, and IT automation systems.