Comms Dealer

Sean Taylor, Managing Director of Content Guru and Radius Communications, is on a journey that was perhaps mapped out for him years ago.

Taylor's choice of career in telecoms is characterised by a strong sense of inevitability. After all, following his father's footsteps is a natural step for anyone to take. And perhaps, with an equally compelling sense of destiny, Taylor will realise his ambition to build one of the world's biggest providers of cloud communications services and make the most of an opportunity equal to the one that slipped away from his father in the early days.

"My dad got me interested in telecoms," explained Taylor. "Witnessing some of the highs and lows that he experienced got me off to a flying start with my own career. One good example was when he was a director at Air Call Communications. In the 1980s it had the only UK public radio network, running in-car mobile phones and paging networks. It was the predecessor to today's big mobile network operators and experienced massive growth. He was confident it would win one of the two cellular licences. The first went to BT but the second went to Racal, now Vodafone. The party was over."

But the Radius Communications party is just beginning. Formed last year the firm is part of a small group with two sister companies. And Radius' strapline - from the centre to the edge - neatly sums up its proposition and purpose. "As an example, if you have a cloud PBX service and there's an issue on the phone, on a desktop PC, on a LAN or a WAN, in a carrier's network or at the cloud data centre, the customer doesn't care - it's just a service problem," noted Taylor. "We bundle all those elements so that customers have a seamless service experience."

He co-founded Redwood Technologies 20 years ago as a manufacturer of comms systems, predominantly for telcos, providing services such as IP telephony, unified communications and contact centres, and has rolled out to over 50 countries. "We've punched above our weight in terms of customer wins with major banks, major government bodies and multi-national corporations in the fold," added Taylor.

Eight years ago he founded Content Guru, a cloud services provider that leverages Redwood's technology. "We integrate our storm platforms into tier-one carrier networks, usually working on a partnership basis," explained Taylor. "Today we have infrastructure in the UK, Ireland and the Benelux, and we are rolling out into the USA with Germany and Asia to follow."

Radius enables customers to purchase end-to-end cloud services based on storm. It also takes care of other elements such as data networks and desktop integration software. All three businesses use an indirect model with a range of partners such as Vodafone, KPN and Panasonic. The company has offices in the UK, USA and the Netherlands and a presence in Malaysia and Germany. Turnover is around £20 million and with strong growth on the cards Taylor's aim is to reach £300-400 million over the next five-seven years.

"We like a challenge," he enthused. "Cloud is booming and if we believe the experts there will be 50 per cent penetration in some sectors over the next two-four years. We need to ensure that we're the de-facto choice for cloud services such as cloud contact centre and communications integration. That will involve establishing full global coverage for our storm platforms, acquiring more partners and some acquisition work to give us the base of people that we need to cope with demand. We currently run cloud services in over 30 countries but aim to operate more in-country platforms to bring our costs down further and ensure that we're compliant in areas such as data protection."

There's a saying, pointed out Taylor, that 'the pioneers are the ones with arrows in their backs'. "We spent the first five years with Content Guru trying to convince customers that cloud was a viable way to run services," he added. "Over the past three years customers have come to us wanting advice about how we can deploy cloud to help them. We formed Radius because the timing is right. Cloud is growing strongly and customers want to be able to consume it in an easy way. That's what Radius offers."

Growth opportunities are everywhere. Whether it's basic product requirements such as replacing ISDN circuits with SIP trunks, or more complex cloud contact centre and communications integration projects, everything is in a growth phase, believes Taylor. "We're also beginning to see businesses gain financial benefits from social networking, either helping them to drive down costs or generate more sales," Taylor commented. "We're putting more focus into this area as part of our cloud contact centre strategy."

He's also looking to work with organisations that understand the difference between a partner and a supplier. That means they have to understand that everyone in the value chain needs to earn money. They also need to share the same principles based on working fast and hard for the customer. "The days of marking up a product and passing it on are numbered," Taylor added. "Customers expect value from anyone involved in the supply chain. They can also easily find the types of services that they need. Twenty years ago you'd have to know which trade show to go to. Today a search engine takes care of the job. That means organisations need to really understand their customers' business needs and become much more flexible in their service offerings."

The traditional method of getting the lowest wholesale rate for a minute of voice or a Mb data bandwidth and then trying to sell it on at the highest price isn't going to go away in the short-term, but, warned Taylor, that's not a medium to long-term business plan. "The smarter resellers have put serious effort into building an application portfolio but there are still far too many that haven't thought through how they can deliver real value in the future," he stated.

There's good commercial reasons for adopting a cloud strategy, noted Taylor. "Any industry sector can be approached, whether construction, finance, IT businesses, legal, leisure, retail or travel. But I would generally recommend approaching SME organisations first. Apart from the fact that there are 4.9 million registered SME businesses in the UK employing 14.4 million people, SMEs will tend to make purchasing decisions more quickly and be less troubled if you're not an international brand."•

Klaus Allion became fluent in solution selling early in his career when based in Germany, long before exporting his consultancy expertise to the UK when he took the helm at ANT Telecom as Managing Director.

While many resellers remain locked in consultancy catch-up mode, Allion's runaway success in solution selling can be traced back to a time soon after he finished studying economics in the homeland. "I then undertook a one year trainee programme at Bosch where I spent half the time in sales training including sales psychology, solution selling, general telecom and product knowhow, and the other half working in a sales region with the sales team," he explained. "I became responsible for a new product, the first ISDN system, and was tasked with developing sales in one region of Germany. This went well and we outperformed all other regions which led me into international sales with a brief to implement solution selling, the approach which made us successful in the first place."

In 2003 Paul Smith and Allion joined ANT as Managing Directors and quickly took the company from a headcount of 22 to 30-plus, and from £2.5 million in 2002 to £3.6 million in 2004 by growing the professional services revenue and also by improving ANT's ability to win projects. "In the last two years we have changed the management structure by promoting internal senior staff into Marketing and Technical Director level roles," added Allion. "We also reorganised the service team and gave more responsibility and authority to staff."

ANT Telecom's expansion plan also includes increasing the business by 30 per cent over the next three years, with 10 per cent growth year-on year until the end of 2015. "We have further established ourselves as a solution provider, especially in industries and areas where standard desk-based solutions are not sufficient and where mobile staff require a solution to meet their needs, which also improves staff safety and productivity," added Allion. "In 2013 we expanded our operations in Scotland and appointed two further members of staff to focus on our Scottish customer base."

The company is on target to hit £3.7 million turnover this financial year and expansion in Scotland will be key to achieving this objective, as will nurturing existing markets. The ANT customer base mainly comprises the industrial and manufacturing sectors including FMCG, Automotive, Pharmaceuticals, Utilities and Transport. "We have approximately 150 customers across these varied sectors, including organisations such as Bosch, Astrazeneca, Severn Trent, Network Rail, to name a few," said Allion. "We have also added more well known names to our customer list in the last couple of years including a major energy provider where we provide a lone worker communication system on wind farms, Eurotunnel where we are providing a communication solution to tunnel staff and NHS customers such as Newcastle upon Tyne Hospital Trust."

Allion has witnessed notable demand for IP Office and also growth in sales of digital mobile radio solutions from Hytera, which is another key growth area for the business especially in remote areas and among those requiring lone worker solutions. "However, we offer much more than a product sell. We aim to understand our clients' business drivers and then develop a solution that addresses those issues," commented Allion.

ANT Telecom has mastered the consultative approach, working with customers and partners on a case by case basis. "Our customers influence what we do," explained Allion. "We try and understand how they work, what is important to them, how they can improve and we act accordingly to offer forward-thinking business solutions. We focus firstly on customer service and secondly on cost and profit. For example, we send an engineer out when a fault occurs regardless of where the responsibility for the fault lies and we will aim to resolve it with urgency, sometimes battling network operators on our clients' behalf."

Technology trends that are of particular interest at the moment include the emergence of Wi-Fi enabled telephones, DMR and smarter ruggedised smartphones. Other trends to watch, noted Allion, include the increasing pressure on the NHS to improve the tracking and management of its assets, along with potential improvements in patient handling and health and safety.

"For example, changes in H&S regulations and the development of mobile communication technology have enabled us to significantly broaden our portfolio to provide solutions to suit as many of our customers' evolving business requirements," commented Allion. "Aside from these areas our target markets remain general industry and manufacturing. The growth in these areas is driven by the understanding that manufacturing is important for the UK's sustained economic recovery." •

InTechnology has scooped a managed services contract with East Lancashire Medical Services (ELMS), a social enterprise organisation.

InTechnology is to provide a secure environment to manage urgent primary care services out of hours across its seven treatment centres and throughout its 50,000 patient interactions every year.

The contract, which continues to boost InTechnology's client base in the health sector, will see ELMS's IT infrastructure removed from under the guidance of the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and into hands of InTechnology where it will be supported as a managed service.

In addition to IT infrastructure provision, InTechnology is also providing N3 connectivity, IP telephony, managed firewalls, hosted virtual servers and SIP Trunks.

This provides ELMS with full control of all systems, enabling it to swap low value housekeeping activities for added value projects that support of both staff and patients.

ELMS is now able to mine its call statistics to identify patterns to help refine its services and ensure patients are getting the quality, speed and accuracy of care that they need and allowing ELMS to better match resources.

Craig Winters, IT and Systems Manager at ELMS, said: "We were frustrated and felt we lacked the degree of control we needed to deliver IT that both supported our staff and could drive better patient care. Previously there were restrictions on what we could do, changes were slow to happen, and there simply wasn't the agility, will or resource to help us fully capitalise on today's technology."

"The switch was remarkably empowering. The new telephone system sits on the network and we're aggressively mining the call statistics and patterns to help refine our services and ensure patients are getting the quality, speed and accuracy of care that they need.

"It's allowing us to better match resourcing to demand and with the seven treatment centres soon to be linked together, we'll be able to leverage the opportunities and efficiencies within an enlarged but fully connected unit."

ELMS needed a high availability service that provided UK-based support 24/7, 356 days a year and peace of mind that patient data would be completely secure. InTechnology Managed Services was chosen due to its technical capabilities, full track record in N3 provision and its UK data centre estate.

Comms-care has named Mark Berry as Account Director responsible for the growth of key accounts across the firm's existing clients as well as supporting its efforts to expand operations across the UK.

Comms-care's network of customers has grown rapidly to over 700 channel partners, including top tier enterprises that offer IT services to a wide range of private and public sector customers.

Berry has more than 20 years' business development and customer services experience and will be in charge of managing the important relationship between customer and partner. He will also address opportunities to grow important segments of the business, including key account growth and new services adoption.

Prior to joining Comms-care, Berry was account director at cloud and managed IT services provider Phoenix IT Group. During his time at Phoenix, he was responsible for managing enterprise clients, winning new business and ensuring the successful delivery of hardware, design and network services, as well as local and wide area network technology.

Berry said: "My experience within the IT sector will help to support Comms-care's ambitious growth plans."

Rob Darby, Sales Director, added: "Mark has extensive commercial experience across all business sectors and a solid track record in achieving impressive business results. Most importantly, he has a great can-do attitude and is willing to go the extra mile."

Mitel has unveiled its 6800i series of IP business phones, using the SIP protocol the phones are designed to offer the broadest interoperability and support both on-premise and hosted services with the best path for businesses migrating to the cloud.

"Adding the 6800i series to our portfolio further expands customer choice with interoperable phones that are designed to work with all of the leading IP call platforms," said Dave Johnson, marketing manager for Business Communications at Mitel.

This new SIP phone series comes from Mitel's recent merger with Aastra and further expands Mitel's offering of business phones and enterprise voice solutions.

The latest phones build on the 6700i series feature set, adding high-resolution colour displays and GigE interfaces for clearer image and video support.

They further enhance the phones' crystal clear audio and speakerphone performance and include a native electronic hook switch (EHS) headset port. With lower power consumption, intelligent Power over Ethernet (PoE) Class reporting and smaller packaging that includes 100 percent recycled and biodegradable material.

8x8, a provider of cloud-based unified communications, contact centre and collaboration solutions, has introduced two new Virtual Office service enhancements that support the scalability and internal communications requirements of its growing mid-market and distributed enterprise customer base.
 
8x8 Branch Office is a new Virtual Office feature that allows customers to segment their primary 8x8 cloud-based PBX to unique physical or logical branch offices, while still keeping those individual locations fully integrated into a single unified communications platform.

System administrators are able to quickly define a branch office and associate extensions from their corporate directory to that location or group.
 
"Branch Office is an example of how the cloud technology inherent in the 8x8 Virtual Office communications solution can be put to work to support an organisation's strategic business processes and goals," said 8x8 CEO Vik Verma.

"In this instance, rapid deployment and scalability, characteristics many of our mid-market and distributed enterprise customers choose us for, is easily achieved using our cloud-based service delivery model which also carries the added bonus of requiring very little oversight on the part of an organisation's internal IT staff."

8x8 also announced Virtual Office Switchboard Pro, a web-based multi-faceted offering that streamlines call routing and management capabilities for receptionists and other front office users.

Switchboard Pro enables the receptionist to view real-time presence of all users, corporate-wide or within a branch office, all on their computer screen. This allows them to manage multiple incoming calls, and quickly apply call treatment options such as Call Park (public, Branch, or extension), Hold, and Call Transfer to an extension or directly to voicemail, all with the click of a mouse.

Switchboard Pro also provides a platform to coordinate call coverage with other receptionists when on a break and toggle to auto attendant when no receptionist is available. Incoming calls can be answered from either the Switchboard application or from a physical handset.
 
 

Mobile phone giant Vodafone has agreed to buy Spanish cable operator Ono for £6bn. Vodafone's shares rose 3% on the news which follows the sale of its US joint venture stake to Verizon for £69bn. Ono boasts almost two million customers. Before the deal Vodafone had approximately 14 million customers in Spain. The deal is due to be completed in the third quarter of this year, subject to the usual regulatory approvals.

Vodafone Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said: "The combination of Vodafone and Ono creates a leading integrated communications provider in Spain and represents an attractive value creation opportunity for Vodafone.

"Demand for unified communications products and services has increased significantly over the last few years in Spain, and this transaction - together with our fibre-to-the-home build programme - will accelerate our ability to offer best-in-class propositions in the Spanish market."

The Chairman of the Ono Board of Directors José María Castellano Ríos added: "As part of Vodafone, Ono will continue to seize new growth opportunities and deliver the quality that our customers expect. The enlarged business is also expected to drive innovation in the Spanish telecommunications industry."

Unify has released more details on its Project Ansible platform, reporting that pre-Beta trials with users were already underway. 

After solution reviews at the beginning of this year added additional features and functionality , the company said that the time frame for  Beta trials is May, including an internal roll-out at Unify. 

After Beta trials with customers, general availability will be in October 2014 and the first version will be delivered to customers in a Software-as-A-Service (SaaS) model.

Dean Douglas, CEO of Unify, said: "Project Ansible is our answer to intensive market research that started over two years ago. Based on what users expect from their communications and collaboration behaviour, Project Ansible is the solution to take them there, enabling individuals and teams for the New Way to Work, and we're happy to be driving the conversation and playing a pivotal leading role for this industry."
 
Unify also announced a development to be delivered before the end of 2014 which will include intelligent connectors into on-premise OpenScape Voice (OSV) environments. 

By providing connectors to its communications platforms, Unify said customers will be able to consume rich enterprise voice and video services on the Project Ansible client and allow users to interwork to other voice and video endpoints connected to their existing communications platform. 

This approach will allow current customers a smooth transition to the New Way to Work, said the firm.  

Unify said a third wave of innovation on the Project Ansible development roadmap will include integration to on-premise OpenScape Business and OpenScape 4000 by mid-2015, allowing Unify customers and channel partners around the globe to consume Project Ansible, generating additional investment return on their existing platforms.

These elements allow flexibility for the customer, to choose a pure cloud service, leverage a premise-based solution, or take the best from both worlds as their needs evolve.
 
Ansible is a software offering designed to extend UC supporting recognised industry like bring your own device (BYOD), addressing the role of millennials in the workforce, their requirements of mobility and the rise of the Anywhere Worker.

Unify also confirmed that the solution will officially take the name of the continuing research and development program that created it, and be called Ansible, beginning with general availability shipments in October.
 
A Customers Advisory Council has been formed with more than 40 customers and partners participating, which is helping to shape solution requirements and provide strategic council to the Project Ansible team. Members will be among the first customers to participate in the Beta trials beginning May 2014.
 
"We are positive on the vision provided by Unify's Project Ansible for the marketplace, and are encouraged by progress made on key features and capabilities," said Jerry Caron, SVP of Analysis, at Current Analysis, a leading industry analyst firm. "Project Ansible shows promise to be the kind of solution that can deliver on user expectations for ease of use and true collaboration, and deliver the required return on investment to business and technology managers."
 

Cloud-based UC, contact centre and collaboration solutions provider 8x8 has extended its global reach with the launch of a services platform in a new Hong Kong data centre facility.

Collocated in a facility owned and operated by Pacnet, the new Asia Pacific platform will provide services to 8x8's growing mid-market multi-national customers, many of which manage 'follow the sun' call centre operations.

With the addition of this new facility, 8x8 now maintains data centre infrastructure in five worldwide locations, with the opening of additional facilities planned for later this year.

"This new Asia Pacific footprint allows us to provide our customers with operations in the region with the same reliable, secure and high quality service they are accustomed to receiving from 8x8 here in the US," said 8x8 Senior Vice President of Network Operations and Support Mehdi Salour.

"These customers will gain the strategic advantage of having their communications needs served using the dynamic routing capabilities of our proprietary Geo Routing technology which utilises the shortest/best media path based upon geographic location, ensuring optimal reliability and call quality."

By Clive Jefferys, JMA Network: So the survey said - eight out of 42 countries now have fully positive employment trends, and that includes six out of seven G8s. Poor old France eh? Here in the UK, agencies have seen general placement rates increase by 12.6% and in the services sector by a whopping 30% over the last 12 months.

Business is in Hire Mode and yet in the UK we have such high employment in some form of job or another, that it's got even harder to find the right people! Economists are talking about a new shape to employment trends, so here's my fourpennyworth.

Number One on my list is the power of technology and how it has massively eroded the real worth of labour over the 27 years I have spent in work.

The average wage today has only half the buying power of when I started because IT has automated and in so many cases, totally removed the value of many jobs. I'll use my own company as an example. Compared to just five years ago, we employ only a third of the staff we used to and achieve better results. Every month our total consumption of man hours divided by the number of sales indicates it takes an average of 70 hours of legwork to yield a placement. Yet this equation doesn't even include the 24/7 operation of our software, which replaced five youngsters that used to load CVs for us. They lost their jobs to a single PC sitting in the corner of our office.

I've now become a free career councillor for all my friends and neighbours' children as they graduate from university. However, despite their degrees they are struggling to get on the career ladder. There's plenty of work as a barista or in a mobile phone shop, but long gone are the days when thousands were needed as a runner in the City or an apprentice in engineering now that so much is computer controlled.

Point Two is about how to build a real career. You have to choose something that can't be run by software. If you don't you'll either remain low paid or eventually be replaced by technology.

Whatever industry you pick, you need to know how to sell yourself to other people, something that software can never match. It's why the service sector is so big in our economy. We have near full employment because so many people are needed as delivery drivers, on supermarket checkouts, or sorting boxes somewhere. However, these are not jobs that will allow you to save enough money for a decent mortgage deposit.

Looking specifically at our sector, Point Three is about what has happened to in-house recruiters over the last year. From being a safe place in a storm, it's rapidly become a thankless task.

Even the big outsource companies are struggling as the supply of candidates has become so fragmented. Professional white collar recruitment can only be mastered by the organisations that focus 100% on finding the match.

Meanwhile in-house recruiters are run ragged by conflicting responsibilities that overlap into HR and wider company issues. Agents have the time to find the candidates and when they do, can offer more than one employer to entice their interest and turn them into an active jobseeker.
My fourth and final point is prompted by an excellent programme on the Beeb - all about London and its dominance of the economy.

The crux of the issue seems to be the size and networking potential of its population, and it pointed out that London's main competitor is now the Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds Strip. I certainly agree, as this exactly matches our own client base.

However, the marked difference between these conurbations is the quality of their transport links. Our resourcing in the North West is constantly frustrated by poor public transport links and Manchester town planners should take heed! I seriously think the strength of Central London is that everyone can pop out for a few pints and a chat with colleagues after work, and strengthen their creative potential.

So my profound advice for job seekers this month is twofold: Learn to do something that computers can't. Move to a big city where everyone can get to work easily and talk to each other on the way!