Comms Dealer

Adaptive Planning, specialist in cloud-based business analytics solutions, announced during its recent Worldwide Partner Summit a global expansion and rising revenue driven by its channel partners.

The company says its channel programme proved to be significant in its continued growth, especially in midmarket and enterprise sectors. In 2013, it saw a 100% year-on-year growth in the number of partners elevated to Gold status, based on revenue generation.

Adaptive also welcomed new partners into its channel programme, such as global SI providers Cap Gemini and Cognizant Technology Solutions.
Altogether in 2013 the company's 20 highest performing partners grew their sales by a combined average of 37%, it says. And the company's number of Platinum status partners grew by 17% year over year globally.

"Partners are the lifeblood of our global successs receive critical product information at the same time as our sales force. We look forward to an even stronger 2014 as we further strengthen our partnerships, both large and small," said Carolee Gearheart, vice president, Global Channels and Partners, Adaptive Planning.

GCI Channel Solutions has launched a new channel-only portal which enables resellers to quote, order, provision and support cloud products from a single control panel. In the first phase of development the portal will facilitate Hosted Lync and Hosted Exchange with additional products such as Ethernet, broadband and virtual desktops coming out of the pipeline soon.

Head of Channel Sales Mark Whitehead (pictured) stated: "The inflexibility of Microsoft Office 365 and the lack of multi-tenanted offerings in the channel has created a barrier for many resellers wanting to sell hosted solutions.

"Resellers who are not familiar with deploying these service are looking for an entry into the market without jeopardising customer relationships through their lack of knowledge.

"Our strategy is to cloud-enable these resellers through a combination of cloud focused roadshows, product training and our Partner Accreditation Programme."

A winter wonderland was the back-drop to Chess' annual Christmas Conference last month where senior board members set the scene for 2014, building on a 23% hike in turnover to £44m last year.

David Pollock, Chief Executive of Chess, stated: "2013 has been a great year for Chess, achieving our vision by continuously improving the knowledge, skills and performance of our people, including the introduction of our new Academy training for all new starters which strengthens our ability to provide great customer service."

The company rewarded staff who 'exceeded customer expectations' in 2013 with a £2,000 worldwide holiday, a £1,000 European holiday, a UK break and a pair of iPad Airs.

Nearly 80% of UK small to medium sized (SME) businesses have a positive relationship with their IT suppliers, according to independent research by data centre and communications specialist, Node4.

The survey of 250 IT decision makers in companies between 50-500 employees, revealed that 45% of SMEs are working closely together in a strategic relationship with their IT vendor and a further 34% agreed that their supplier totally understands their business and meets its needs.

This suggests IT suppliers are now becoming more focused on the real needs of their customers, helping SMEs to get the most out of the latest technologies. Half of those SMEs interviewed regularly update their IT infrastructure to take advantage of new technologies and 57% are already making use of at least some cloud services in their business.

Although these findings are in sharp relief to many people's perception of IT suppliers, there are lingering complaints. Nearly 1 in 5 SMEs felt that vendors recommend solutions that are not fit for purpose and 13% said suppliers continue to use confusing jargon. 14% said their IT suppliers are unreliable, and nearly 1 in 10 felt that their suppliers were just after their money.

"I think we can see that the IT industry and the channel has come a long way when it comes to customer service, and now the vast majority of SMEs have a much more positive experience in dealing with IT suppliers today," commented Paul Bryce, Business Development Director, Node4.

"Everyone wins when the focus is on developing long term relationships with customers, and really getting to grips with how technology can help businesses overcome the specific challenges that face them. The IT industry has managed to get itself a bit of a bad name for pushing solutions that customers really don't need, so there is still much more that can be done to improve customer service.

"However, technology like cloud services provide far more flexibility than ever before to meet the challenges businesses face in a very tailored way, and the continued rise of the cloud is good news for everyone in the IT sector."

Airtime provider Daisy Distribution in partnership with BlackBerry is set to mark this week's visionary 'Evolving Solutions' event with the launch of its first partner incentive of the new year.
 
Following a similar format to the BlackBerry accumulator incentive, registered partners must accumulate 'points' which can be earned through the sale of a BlackBerry10 device or a BES10.2 CAL - with added focus on T-Support.
 
The incentive is open to all partners, however, to reward partners attending the Evolving Solutions event, they will also be given a £50 'voucher' for T-support which can be used towards closing their first sale.
 
For every BB10 device sold, partners will generate two points; while every BES10.2 CAL sale will generate five points. Once they have reached the minimum 50 points target, cash rewards will be distributed. Partners can receive up to £1,000 should they accumulate more than 300 points during the period.
 
The promotion will run between 1st February and 30th April 2014.
 
Julien Parven, Marketing Director at Daisy Distribution, said: "This exciting incentive is open to all Daisy Distribution partners, but it also specifically rewards those who attend this month's 'Evolving Solutions' event. We anticipate that those who attend will be then able to use what they learn to make the very most of this incentive and deliver a greater experience to their customers."

Robert Stockford has been promoted to the role of Channel Sales Director, Jabra Business Solutions, UK & Ireland. He was previously Channel Sales Manager.

The promotion to Channel Sales Director recognises his achievements in developing Jabra's existing channel partner relationships as well as the nurturing new resellers, leading to revenue and market share growth throughout his tenure.

Stockford said: "I am thrilled to be part of an organisation that has achieved year-on-year double digit growth since joining. My team looks forward to being part of the strategy to accelerate this growth, by working with both existing and new technology partners in order to take our mutual businesses to the next level."

Nigel Dunn, Managing Director of Jabra UK & Ireland Business Solutions, added: "Rob will now have responsibility for the entire UK Business Solutions channel and this is a reflection of the outstanding year he had in 2013."

Exponential-e has launched its seventh Academy, the second such programme within six months that will see the recruitment of eight young people to trainee sales roles.

Exponential-e's growth in 2013 has led to the creation of 30-40 new vacancies in all areas of expertise, and the Academy aims to not only meet this demand but also kick-start young people's careers in technology.

The programme, which begins with assessment days in February 2014, will commence in March and see the successful recruits participate in an eight week training programme.

Exponential-e has also appointed an academy manager. The programme is designed to ensure the recruits are not only knowledgeable of innovative communications and Cloud services, but will also provide wider commercial knowledge and experience across the business.

Academy recruits are trained to enable them to sell leading ICT and network services into some of the largest businesses in the UK. Successful recruits will be trained on business technology issues and demands for secure, private networks and Cloud solutions, and fully integrated into Exponential-e's sales team.

Lee Wade, Exponential-e CEO, said: "As a successful and growing company, we are able to contribute to young people's careers from an early point and help them begin their careers in technology from a great starting point."

Union Street Technologies is hosting a customer roadshow on 20th March at Vinopolis, London's wine tasting venue located in Bankside near London Bridge.

The Union Street team plans to provide guests with demonstrations on some of the latest features in the aBILLity billing platform which recently won the 'Best Software Solution' category of the prestigious Comms National Awards for an unprecedented third year in a row.

Content for the roadshows will include details on the latest developments of aBILLity including recent upgrades to its end user customer portal WebaBILLity Pro and enhancements to the sales order processing functionality with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. There will also be an introduction to aBILLity's 'Contract Management Module', providing a wide range of functionality for managing tariffs, hardware assets and numerous other elements of a telecoms contract.

Following the demonstrations, clients will be treated to a wine tasting experience and tour of Vinopolis before a networking drink with the Union Street team.

Union Street's Managing Director Tony Cook commented: "The purpose of our Roadshow is to demonstrate how the innovative new functionality that's been added to aBILLity can be used to increase revenues, boost profitability and give our customers a competitive edge in the market. At the same time we're also looking forward to the opportunity to network with our customers and discuss ways in which we can help their businesses in a relaxed and friendly environment."

Juniper Networks has moved Gerard Allison up to vice president, partners for EMEA. He will be responsible for the structure, management and performance of Juniper Networks' channel partner and commercial business across the EMEA region, reporting to Sean Dolan, senior vice president, EMEA, Juniper Networks.

Gerard Allison was previously in a senior management role at the company as vice president of enterprise and area vice president, EMEA UK and Ireland. The partner job for EMEA was previously held by David Helfer, who was announced as Juniper Networks' vice president for worldwide channels and commercial in Q413.

"Juniper's Partner Advantage program continues to provide our partners with the tools they need to succeed. In 2014, with Juniper sales and partners working as one team, we will ensure our go-to-market structure remains strong and effective, particularly for our continued push into the security, mobility and data centre markets. Gerard is leading this evolution, across the service provider and enterprise sectors in EMEA. He is a proven, trusted leader for the team," says Sean Dolan.

Citrix has awarded Softcat the Citrix Service Provider (CSP) Partner Programme Distributor Award for its excellence in the overall desktop as a service (DaaS) approach.

According to Citrix, in 2013 Softcat delivered 100% on-time reporting and reporting accuracy and managed to sign a significant number of the new partners to the CSP programme. The company has been also recognised for expansion of its CSP partners' Citrix product selections, it says.

"We're delighted to receive this award, which demonstrates our commitment and expertise in driving growth in the Cloud and solutions for service providers. Softcat's Partner Services team has worked exceptionally hard to get us to this point, where, after 10 years of providing this particular service to this industry, we now deal with 50% of the UK's service provider hosting market," says Sam Routledge, who accepted the award on behalf of Softcat.

The award was presented at the Citrix Summit in Orlando, Florida, this month.