Comms Dealer

Voice and data recording firm Red Box Recorders has appointed a senior sales professional with a previous proven track record within their business, to support the company's continuing aggressive growth plans.

Will Hopkins joins as Global Sales Director, returning to the company after just over a year.

Hopkins has spent the past year with Nice Systems in the role of Sales Director EMEA - Trading floors. Prior to that he was with Red Box Recorders for a number of years, joining in 2008 as Commercial Manager in the UK where he was responsible for building the reseller network and winning key accounts.

In November 2010 he moved to Singapore with his family to head up operations for Red Box in South East Asia.

Lee Jones, CEO at Red Box Recorders, said: "This is an exciting time for Red Box and we are continuing to strengthen our team so that we can maintain our phenomenal growth and take advantage of new business opportunities worldwide. Will has a strong knowledge of key global markets and he understands the quality of our solutions."

A golf event, hosted by business solution provider ProcessFlows for its channel partners, raised a total of £2,076 for the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The event, which took place at the London Golf Club, was a thank you to partners for their business and also served as a tribute to ProcessFlows' Account Manager, Andy MacGregor, who died unexpectedly last June at the age of 49 after suffering a major heart attack.

Channel Partner Manager Franca Cognata said: "We are grateful to our suppliers, namely Hyland, PrinterOn and Nuance and to the London Golf Club, for their generous contributions to the auction. In total, the day raised over £2,000, which has been donated to the British Heart Foundation."

A low risk acquisition strategy and a focus on organic growth through cross sales, new business, web sales, cloud services and wholesale have combined to drive Chess' 2013 turnover up by 23% to £44m, with an EBITDA increase of 49% to £11m and growth in gross margin to 45%.

David Pollock, Chief Executive, said: "We achieved our 2013 vision by improving the knowledge, skills and performance of our people, including the introduction of our new Academy training for all new starters."  

Steven Dracup, MD, added: "The focus we place on our people has had a major impact on the level of service we provide our customers, resulting  in 76% of our customers entering into contracts for two years or more, guaranteeing our revenue streams.

Chess' growth in revenue and gross profit was driven by its strategy of acquiring 16 customer bases in 2013, complemented by its focus on reducing churn, increasing cross sales in their existing base and improving web sales offerings for new customers.

This approach has resulted in 84% of customers sourcing two or more products from Chess and 63% with three or more.

"Our success in 2013 was rounded off when we acquired The CRM Business, the leading European partner of Microsoft Dynamics," added Dracup.

The Chess Group currently employs in excess of 250 people.

Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA Appoints Sukh Rayat as Senior Vice President, Avnet Global Computing Components (AGCC) EMEA

Avnet Technology Solutions has announced the appointment of Sukh Rayat as senior vice president, Avnet Global Computing Components (AGCC) EMEA, with immediate effect.

Rayat moves from his current position as senior vice president, Avnet Technology Solutions, north region.

Rayat is part of the Avnet Global Computing Components (AGCC) management team and is responsible for the day-to-day operations and growth of Avnet's computer components and integrated solutions offerings in the EMEA region.

The EMEA Integrated Solutions (IS) team also moves into the AGCC business. Rayat is based in Bracknell and reports directly to Jaideep Malhotra, senior vice president, AGCC, Global, with immediate effect.

Tony Madden, senior vice president, supplier business executive for Avnet Technology Solutions, Global, assumes responsibility for the strategic direction and day-to-day operations of Avnet Technology Solutions, UK. He currently works with a number of Avnet's strategic suppliers and alongside Avnet leaders around the world to identify growth opportunities.

Graeme Watt, president, Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA, stated, "Sukh brings a wealth of experience to the EMEA AGCC team, and I am sure he will be successful in accelerating the success of that integral part of the global business.

"I'd also like to welcome Tony Madden into our team. As an experienced senior executive, Tony aligns business goals with relationships locally, regionally and globally, making him a great asset to our EMEA operations."

Virtual1 has gained access to Viatel's connectivity solutions across Ireland following an extended partnership between the two companies.

High bandwidth connectivity solutions across Ireland including wavelengths and Ethernet up to 10G are available to partners.

The Viatel infrastructure provides EFM, LLU, fibre and radio access, enabling the company to connect across Ireland cost effectively, even into remote areas.

The Viatel network spans over 8,500km which connects 35 European cities, over 120 data centres and Europe's main Internet Exchanges.

Virtual1 MD Tom O'Hagan said: "This partnership with Viatel is critical to enabling us to develop and expand our business in one of our target regions.

"It will enhance the service that we can provide to our existing partners, and open up opportunities to develop new partnerships to sell across Ireland. Our partners expect us to continue to develop our services and this arrangement with Viatel shows that we mean to meet those expectations."

Azzurri has launched a Mobile Business Unit headed by newly appointed Richard White, a former Telefonica and BT executive.

The Unit brings a dedicated app development capability at Azzurri, providing Azzurri's customers with an integrated mobile offering from the devices through to the network, the platform and the applications.

"Mobile productivity is no longer about letting employees check their work email or send text messages while on the move, it is now fundamentally about enabling the always-on workforce."

"Most businesses understand that there are opportunities to enhance their customer interactions and workforce productivity through tablets and mobile applications, but they need help to adapt to this opportunity."

In the past White held senior roles at both BT and O2/Telefonica. For the last five years he was the head of Financial Markets and Enterprise Fixed Services at Telefonica, managing cross functional team relationships with some of Telefonica's largest enterprise clients spanning retail and investment banking, legal, insurance and business services verticals.

Most recently he held the role of head of sales for Telefonica's Government Smart Metering team where he led the successful bid for the Government Smart Metering project, resulting in a 15 year contract with a value of £1.5bn.

Alternative Networks has acquired Intercept IT in a £12.95m deal. Intercept recorded £9.8m of revenue for the year ended 31st May 2013 and adjusted EBITDA of £0.8m. A strong pipeline of business has been acquired while the level of contracted but unrecognised revenues exceeded £5m.

Intercept is a provider of hosted desktop solutions to the SME market, as well as desktop and server virtualisation services to enterprise business customers running on-premise IT infrastructure.
 
The acquisition enables Alternative to offer a complete cloud based-solutions to its SME customer base and the full outsourcing of customers' IT functions.

The move broadens Alternative's Managed Service offering to Enterprise customers to include its virtualised IT infrastructure.

The two founders of Intercept have resigned board positions. Gary Collins, who has technical responsibilities at Intercept, has confirmed that he will support the company as a consultant where required.

The customer bases of each of Intercept and Alternative are complementary with both businesses providing business-only services into similar verticals.

Intercept also has a low capital investment requirement, spending £0.2m in 2013. Alternative intends to migrate Intercept's IT infrastructure in due course to its own datacentres, and increase the capacity of the platform.  The acquisition is expected to result in some cost synergies.
 
In the financial year ended 31 May 2013 Intercept recorded revenue of £9.8m, a pre-tax loss of £0.3m and an EBITDA loss of £0.1m.

Edward Spurrier, Chief Executive of Alternative Networks, commented: "Our acquisition strategy remains to deliver earnings enhancing acquisitions that augment the products and services we deliver to our customers. With Intercept's twin offerings we will significantly broaden our range of IT services as well as acquire a well-established platform to deliver additional cloud services.
 
"Intercept has an exceptional pedigree in virtualising IT infrastructures, having virtualised over 5,000 servers and more than 2,000 different applications in 30 languages, realising millions of pounds worth of savings to their customers.
 
"In anticipation of a business sale, the founders developed a young and energetic management team who are well placed to take Intercept to the next level, supported by Alternative.
 
"The acquisition of Intercept will provide a further stimulus to organic growth across the Group as it presents good cross sell opportunities into our respective customer bases and is a good use of our cash resources."

Although machine-to-machine (M2M) technology is a bright spot in the rapidly maturing mobile industry, operators will not realise its full potential without strategic partnering, according to Ovum.

Forecasts from the global analyst firm show that over the next five years, M2M revenues will grow to reach $44.8bn, with more than a third coming from Asia-Pacific.

New forecasts from Ovum reveal that revenues will grow slightly more slowly than connections, reflecting the increasing competitiveness of the market and the extension of M2M into lower-value applications.

Total global M2M connections will more than treble from 106.4 million in 2012 to 360.9 million in 2018, at a CAGR of 22.6%.

There will be growth across all regions, but it will be fastest in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa. Revenues in Asia-Pacific will grow to almost $15bn, at a CAGR of 26.5%, between 2012 and 2018.

The most important industry verticals in 2018 will be healthcare, manufacturing, and energy & utilities, which are forecast to generate revenues of $7.9bn, $7.1bn, and $7.0bn respectively by 2018.

Ovum's M2M forecasts present a more modest and sober picture than some of those produced by other industry pundits. "This is not a forecast of the 'Internet of Things' but rather of managed and paid-for connections over public mobile networks, "says Jeremy Green, Principal Analyst, Industry Communications and Broadband at Ovum.

"For telcos there are really two opportunities: to stand back and provide the connectivity for M2M services, or to roll up their sleeves and get involved with the end-to-end provision of solutions."

The first is a smaller opportunity but is much more straightforward for telcos to address, according to Ovum. The second is much bigger, but involves new skills and competencies, and defining new kinds of relationship with systems integrators (SIs) and software development.

"If a carrier wants to play an essential part as a connectivity provider and focus just on that role, it must have healthy and robust relationships with device manufacturers and SIs," explains Green.

"If a carrier sees itself as an end-to-end provider, its partnering relations are even more critical, because it is unlikely to be heard at the CxO level within an enterprise client unless it is working with a global SI."

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has elected Pennine Telecom's MD Andrew Roberts as a Fellow of the organisation.

The fellowship is awarded only to IET members who have 'sustained high levels of achievement' and is the highest grade of membership bestowed by the professional body.

The IET has members in 127 countries and advises Parliament, Government, the EU and other agencies.

"It is a great honour to be elected as a Fellow of such a prestigious organisation, one so resolutely committed to promoting scientific and engineering endeavour and excellence," said Roberts.

"The Institution leads on professional development and standards across technical and engineering sectors, sets regulations, publishes an enormous amount of research and its expertise is frequently sought at the highest levels of government."

ANT Telecom has opened its second UK office based in Glasgow and has appointed two further members of staff.

Sheila Gilbertson has been appointed as area sales manager and Craig Murney as field project engineer for Scotland.

ANT Telecom has worked with customers in the utilities, manufacturing and distillery industries in Scotland for over 15 years, including a major UK Energy provider and a premium drinks business.

According to Klaus Allion, Managing Director, it is successes such as these, plus ANT Telecom's specific proposition for lone workers in remote geographies, that has driven the expansion.

"Lone working has a particular resonance in manufacturing arenas in Scotland such as energy, oil and gas, chemical plants and distilleries," he said.

"In these disparate environments, employees are often required to work on-site at the isolated extremes of production plants, or off-site in the seclusion of the field.

"Yet whilst physically they may appear cut off from the rest of the world, companies cannot afford for lone workers to be disconnected from the rest of the workforce, they must be available any time, any place anywhere and of course be protected at all times.

"Our lone worker solution has proven valuable to our existing clients in Scotland; we recognised its particular appeal to similar organisations and wanted to invest in the region accordingly."

Sheila Gilbertson joins ANT Telecom with over 25 years' experience working within telecommunications companies and has expert knowledge of PABX, Network Services, VOIP, Mobile and Data Products.

She will be account managing ANT Telecom's existing clients based in Scotland to maximise ANT's unique portfolio throughout the region.

She said, "I am delighted to join the ANT Telecom team to build upon the excellent work that they have already done in the region and to maintain the strong relationships they have built with their existing clients."

Craig Murney comes to ANT Telecom with 13 years experience specialising in bespoke radio telecommunications and IT systems for the British Army where he provided a high level of day to day operational support.

He will be responsible for the installation, maintenance and repair of ANT's telecommunications systems across over 40 sites covering the Scottish mainland and the Inner Hebrides islands, as well as the Republic of Ireland.

Allion added: "I am sure that their extensive experience will reinforce our existing relationships in Scotland and help us to build further long lasting ones.

"The corporate expansion plans for ANT Telecom include increasing the business by 30% over the next three years, with 10% growth year on year till the end of 2015. Our expansion in Scotland will be key to achieving this objective."