Comms Dealer

So the stunning news about UK unemployment provided an apt close to 2013. Within just three months of Mark Carney's forward guidance linking bank rate rises to unemployment, the gap to his trigger point has halved as unemployment fell from 7.8% to 7.4% over the last quarter, writes Clive Jefferys, JMA Network.

With unemployment at its lowest point since 2009, this news was no surprise to the recruitment industry and I get the satisfaction again of saying, I told you so!

However, most employment gains have been at the lower end of the market, and in white collar professions there has been little change. The shortage of skilled workers in IT, manufacturing and of course telecoms, is a direct result of the lack of training and investment made in people over the long years of the recession.

It's no accident that apprenticeship schemes have gained massively in popularity with employers over the last 12 months - good news for young people and those seeking retraining.

However, the skills gap is widening in the middle of most businesses. New recruits are being brought in for basic training and senior staffers are on hand to steward the business and impart some knowledge to the lower echelons. However the greatest number of unfilled telecoms vacancies are in the £25,000-£35,000 salary range, so where are the experienced people you need for despatch, billings, support, or the sales team?

Results from recruitment advertising have hit a 25 year low. 95% of applications seem to come from people so ill qualified for the role, that we can only suppose they are using failed job applications to justify their benefits claim.

So how are people solving their employment needs? I cannot answer this without being self-serving. The answer is simply to use recruitment agencies, as only we can draw the depth and breadth of candidates or vacancies to balance the equation.

It's precisely because we recruit for a multitude of companies that job seekers are drawn to us, and their first call usually produce several good job options.

Equally, our clients benefit from the candidates drawn to other employers' jobs, and then our expertise to spot a good cross match makes its impact. Sounds simple and it is, you just need to put in a hundred man hours in the middle to secure each placement!

Recruitment isn't complicated, unless you make it so!

Swift Managed Services has advanced its channel growth strategy with the appointment of Jonathan Sheridan as Channel Director.

Swift works with partners across the IT and telecoms sectors and Sheridan is central to the company's plan to boost partner numbers this year.

He brings much experience within the reseller community and aims to form white labelled Managed Services partnerships that offer Microsoft Lync design and implementation, IT support and data storage and back-up expertise.

Sheridan said: "I am excited to be joining the team at Swift, their growth over the last few years means that now the reseller channel can have a partnership with us to offer a comprehensive IT service to their existing telephony customers.

"This in turn gives them the capability of capturing more of their spend and adding recurring revenues to their businesses."

Mobile airtime provider Daisy Distribution in partnership with BlackBerry is to host an interactive event to promote the new evolution of BlackBerry products and solutions for its Partners next month.??

The 'Evolving Solutions' event is to be held at Whittlebury Hall & Spa on 23rd January 2014, providing an opportunity for Partners to learn about, discuss and engage with the evolving solutions and services offered by Daisy Distribution and BlackBerry and to develop the new revenue stream opportunities that can add real value to Partners' businesses.
 
Mike Gibson, BlackBerry Senior Director, Enterprise UK and Ireland, will be the keynote speaker, delivering a BlackBerry business update as well as sharing BlackBerry's vision of collaborative relationships and the future of evolving end-to-end solutions.
 
A series of interactive workshops will also run for attendees, presenting content including  customer engagement, enterprise mobility management, cloud services, technical end-to-end support and devices. Workshops will not only present the new solutions available in 2014, but they will also teach the skills needed to build long-term profitable relationships with customers.
 
Mike Gibson, BlackBerry Senior Director, Enterprise UK and Ireland, said: "This visionary event, hosted in partnership with Daisy Distribution, will provide the perfect opportunity to introduce Partners to the new and exciting BlackBerry products which will be launched in 2014.
 
"We are happy to have joined forces with an experienced provider to the mobile distribution channel for the event and hope that all those who attend benefit from the collaboration." 
 
Julien Parven, Marketing Director of Daisy Distribution said: "We hope that everyone who attends gains something worthwhile from it and can use it to develop additional revenues and margins.
 
"This is an exciting time for Daisy Distribution and we want to share our experiences with our partners. The event will provide the opportunity to network with other partners as well as learning skills needed to improve productivity."

IT Europa has released more details of the 7th Annual European ISV Convention which will be staged at the Lancaster London Hotel on 26 March 2014.

It also revealed the identity of some of the companies that have already signed up to support the event as sponsors.

Under the overall umbrella of Innovation, Intelligence and Integration - driving better business outcomes, the conference will feature sessions on key issues set to drive application development in Europe over the coming year.

Many of the leading platform technology companies and distributors who are driving application development in the European market have already signed up to sponsor and participate in the convention.

These include: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Ingram Micro, Jaspersoft, SafeNet, and Avnet. ISVWorld, the world's most comprehensive database of software products and vendors, has also signed up to support the convention as a partner.

"Over the years the European ISV Convention has become established as the main forum at which leading European ISVs can meet at director-level and discuss key issues amongst their peers and with leading vendors, platform technology providers and distributors," commented Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"Software development is critical to the success of Europe. The challenge for Europe's software industry is to ensure that it harnesses the power of new technologies and innovation in such areas as data analysis and integration to deliver better value for the businesses it serves."

Sennheiser Communications has launched a series of promotions intended to help maximise sales for its reseller partners.

These promotions are available until 31 March and include offers of free headsets, as well as other accessories such as handset lifters and cabling when purchasing headsets.

Resellers purchasing any multi-award winning DW series wireless handset will qualify for a free Handset Lifter (HSL 10) or an Electronic Hook Switch cable.

There is also a promotion of a free standard bottom cable with any Sennheiser wired headset. Also, for every ten Sennheiser wired headsets purchased a free Culture series SC 30 USB headset sample is offered for unified communication applications.

The Culture series free sample can be used to make conference calls via the soft phone app on a PC and is optimised for integration with Microsoft Lync.

Coms plc has launched of a new subsidiary, Coms Media Ltd, following the acquisition of the media, design and animation specialist companies Clicks Media Studios
and Darkside Animations.

The move strengthens Coms' abilities to produce new content in its established markets of cloud based solutions, hosted telephony, broadband and mobile, business infrastructure, smart buildings and IT support services.

And the fir is to make its in-house creative capability available for customers. Among the services that can offered are CGi (Computer Generated imagery), augmented reality (AR), branding, video production, media services, radio and TV advertising expertise, digital applications, merchandise implementation and presentation production.

Dave Breith, CEO of Coms, commented: "The establishment of this subsidiary certainly offers us more dynamic, complementary services to use for clients and wider industry.

"With a strong brand already in place, this guarantees our growing marketing team access to the very skills in order to produce the first class content that has proven to differentiate many market sectors, including IT and telecoms."

Staff from Nimans showed their festive spirit by getting on the ball and taking part in a charity Santa dash around the home of Manchester United FC.

Five members of the Nimans 'team', including Sue Niman, the wife of Chairman Julian, took part in a 2km run outside Old Trafford to raise hundreds of pounds for a local school. Nimans doubled their fundraising exploits.

Sue Niman, Scott Davies, Chris Widocks and Rebecca Wilson (pictured) along with Callum Brookes were dressed for success.

Matt Donaldson has been promoted to the position of Sales Director of Channel Telecom , moving up the ranks from Channel Manager. He now assumes overall responsibility for all channel sales.

Donaldson has had a distinguished career in telecom channel sales and in 2012 he won a Channel Sales Person of Year.

Clifford Norton, Managing Director, said: "Matt's strong commitment , can-do attitude and willingness to always go the extra mile for our channel partners exemplify what Channel Telecom is all about."

Channel Telecom doubled its partners base last year revenues are predicted to exceed £6 million for the current fiscal year. The company is taking on new staff for account management and customer support and anticipates moving to larger premises in the near future.

Kent-based True Telecom is to expand into new offices early this year and embark on a staff recruitment drive that will triple the company's current headcount of 100.

The move forms part of True Telecom's strategy to open a further five UK offices and take on approximately 100,000 new customers over the next two years.

The fast growing telephone, broadband and mobile service provider reported significant growth in its first year of trading, with growth driven by its offering of competitive tariffs.

The company acts as a telecoms aggregator and aims to offer business and residential customers savings on line rental and calls. The firm also offers mobile, broadband, SIP trunking and telecoms systems. True Telecom also offers a wholesale package.

Stuart Griffiths, CEO, said: "Our business plan focuses on recruiting new staff members to strengthen our sales and support teams in order grow our business sustainably, alongside our existing online marketing and social media.

"Our growth and expansion into a second office can be attributed to the understanding of our customer needs, transparent pricing structure and the ease of transfer from our competitors."

London-based cloud and data centre specialist Pro-Net has joined forces with three European IT powerhouses to enable resellers and Internet Service Providers to set up their own hosted VoIP platform.

The joint venture between Centile, the French developer of SIP-based UC platforms, snom, the German IP endpoint hardware manufacturer, and UK network giant Vodafone aims to extend the Virtual Network Operator model so resellers can create their own VoIP Platform as a Service (PaaS) without the risks and costs of self development.

The service will be launched to the channel at an event at snom"s headquarters in Manchester on January 22nd.

Pro-Net has 18 years of ISP infrastructure management experience and MD Danial Subhani believes the partnership his company has forged will help resellers take their communications services to a new level.

"At Manchester we will be jointly demonstrating how a pre-integrated end-to-end solution will shorten a reseller"s time to market including hosting, VISP/VNO, UC platform and telecom interconnect at a fraction of the cost of alternatives," claimed Subhani.

"This will give partners the chance to add value to service provision, own their customer and position their own brand rather than just reselling services from other operators.

"Resellers can start with a minimal investment with our pay as you grow model."

Also presenting at the PaaS educational event will be Michelle Smith from the Manchester SuperConnected Cities Programme.