Comms Dealer

Freedom Communications has received the Charitable Business Award from Watford Borough Council for its work bringing education and business initiatives to the local community.

The Watford-based company has supported and funded a number of education and employment-based projects designed to nurture local talent in the Watford and West Herts area.

The award recognises Freedom's work experience and apprenticeship programme designed to source and nurture local talent. The scheme works in collaboration with West Herts College, Watford Chamber of Commerce and Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership to give students access to real life business experience.

This year, Freedom has promoted a Watford-wide business initiative titled 'Business Win Funding' and mentored students as part of Dragon's Apprentice, a project linking education, businesses and charities. Freedom has also received praise for its work with Westfield Community Centre, Guide Posts, Watford Works and Watford Community Sports & Education Trust.

"Freedom Communications is a prime example of a company that takes responsibility for giving back to the community within which it operates. The team at Freedom has already given over 200 hours of staff time this year, including senior and director-level employees," said Jodie Noakes, Centre Manager, Westfield Children's Centre.

"At Freedom, we feel a duty to give something back to the local community and recognise the importance of nurturing local talent and developing a base of skilled professionals in the flourishing communications sector," commented Chris Luff, Sales Director, Freedom Communications. "Our commitment to local community and charity organisations is reflected at every level of the business and time is set aside to allow employees to support their chosen causes."

Manchester-based provider of white label cloud-based IT services Disty Cloud is advancing its strategy to plug a skills gap that prevents many resellers from incorporating cloud services into their portfolios.

According to Partner Manager Kamran Maqbool, during his 13 years stint in the telecoms industry he has witnessed inertia among resellers who do not respond positively to the emergence of new services and opportunities - and he claims this stick-in-the-mud attitude towards new technology can only lead to diminishing business.

"Some telecoms companies are resistant to offer new services due to a lack of knowledge and skills, so they stick to what they knew best," he said.

"But unfortunately for them, their competitors moved quicker and took advantage of growing markets which in turn killed the dinosaur telecoms companies.

"The cloud is no different. However, with the cloud market growing year-on-year and margins getting tighter in the traditional telecoms marketplace cloud solutions have come at the perfect time.

"The only downside is that cloud solutions brings with it a requirement for a new set of skills within the business."

Disty Cloud is 100% channel focused and in addition to cloud services its white label solution includes pre sales, service delivery and ongoing end user support, noted Maqbool.

Solutions include hosted Exchange, hosted Lync, hosted desktop, cloud servers and cloud backup.

"Our white labelled cloud offering enable partners to provide their customers with enterprise class solutions that complement the current portfolio and deliver a predictable recurring revenue stream," added Maqbool.

"Now our telecoms partners capitalise on opportunities that have historically been beyond their reach due to limited knowledge and a lack of skills to deliver a fully supported and maintained cloud solution."

www.distycloud.co.uk

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The DCC SerCom group of companies, which includes Micro-P, has enhanced its branding with the prefix Exertis applied to all of the organisations within the group, meaning that they now operate throughout Europe and worldwide under the single brand name, but retain, for the most part, their familiar look.

Now trading as Exertis Micro-P, the prefix is designed to reflect group-wide 'energy, drive, ambition and commitment to going the extra mile and making things happen for customer and vendor partners', said the firm in a statement.

Rather than a wholesale rebrand the company opted to qualify existing brands and more directly stay in touch with its traditional audience while also appealing to new customers as the organisation continues its expansion across key territories in the areas of technology distribution, supply chain and specialist service provision.

Exertis was established over 30 years ago and reported turnover of £1.8bn in its last financial year.

It currently partners with 350 global technology brands and 14,000-plus resellers, and has a headcount of over 1,600.

The Exertis companies are now as follows:
Exertis Advent, Exertis Gem, Exertis Micro-P, Exertis MSE in the UK;
Exertis Banque Magnétique and Exertis Comtrade in France
Exertis in Ireland;
Exertis GO Connect in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg
Exertis Supply Chain Services and Exertis Ztorm

Ethos has settled into new offices following a three year growth curve across all areas of the business.

The purpose designed site in Burntwood, Staffordshire, houses 45 staff including dedicated product and service teams who support the firm's portfolio of UC, mobile and managed print solutions for its 3,000 customers across UK and Europe.

The site also incorporates a Network Operations and Support Centre and is set up for audio and video collaboration with Ethos' London HQ. Useful transport links will ensure the new office becomes a hub for customer visits, according to Matt Hill, Director.

"The new offices provide an excellent demonstration facility," he said. "We are firm believers in practicing what we preach so all of the relevant technology we sell and support exists in our service centre and can be shown in a live real world situation."

Unemployment continues to fall in the UK - at 5.5 per cent the unemployment rate in the south east is nearly half of that in the north west and north east. From our standpoint as a recruiter it's become obvious that business is moving forward positively again, and this has created a surge in demand for telemarketers, writes JMA's Clive Jefferys.

However don't hold your breath waiting to recruit perfectly experienced telemarketers - they are all looking for a sales job instead!

Most telemarketing is performed by people at the start of their sales career and when they shine they will be promoted to full sales. Most sales managers reading this will remember their early days in the rabbit hutches Smiling and Dialling, and it's no less true today. You probably want to hire more telemarketers today because you've just promoted the good ones you already had.

True, there are some people who just love cold calling and don't want to do anything more complicated, but they are an absolute minority. Apart from a change of scenery there often isn't much reason to move employer as 150 dial-outs-a-day here, is the same as 150 over there, unless the new company is paying double the commission I suppose.

If you do find that diamond telemarketer he or she will cost you the best part of £30k per annum all in. However bad ones will cost you almost as much before you realise they can't hack it and you have to recruit all over again.

So here's my solution to your telemarketing conundrum:
• Offer Telemarketing jobs with the prospect of promotion into full Sales.
• Let excellent lead gen be rewarded by the opportunity to buddy up with sales mentors.
• Let them aspire to proposing and closing sales orders too.
• Call it your Bootcamp if you want, but whatever you do, if your sales model doesn't fit this then change it!

Of course there is one other solution - what I shall call The Grand Telemarketeers. They are usually 50 years old or more, with a sales career behind them, or aware that prospecting is the limit of their sales interest. These cold calling specialists can bring a good old fashioned hard work ethic and highly practiced lead creation techniques to provide a firm foundation to your sales floor.

In conclusion - look for youngsters and oldies...

Clive Jefferys is 47, still writing new business and proud of it!

David Pollock Chief Executive of Chess performed a live comedy stand-up routine on the 2nd October at Manchester's Comedy Store in front of a full house of 500 people.

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Eight powerhouses of the North West business community took to the stage in a daunting challenge raising over £125,000 for Christie's and Prostate Cancer UK.

Pollock was one of the brave business leaders to plan, prepare and perform a four-minute stand-up routine for the night of comedy, dubbed ‘Funny Business'.

He established Chess in 1993, Chairs the Prince's Trust North West Development Committee and is a founding member of the East Cheshire Hospice Corporate Alliance and Cheshire Community Foundation.

"Of all the things I've agreed to do in the name of charity, this was by far the scariest," he said.

"I've climbed mountains, cycled across tough Costa Rican terrain and dived out of planes but this was truly the most terrifying charity fundraiser I've ever completed.

"To die on stage would be slow and very, very painful. Luckily I had a great comedy mentor who persuaded me to do a couple of practise nights in a Manchester pub.

"On the big night there were a lot of nerves but once you're on stage and you hear 500 people all laugh it's a magical feeling.

"Everyone did a great job, the support we had has been fantastic. To raise over £125k is amazing, good luck to next year's contenders. If they're like me there'll be lots of sleepless nights worrying about their performance."

BT and Dolby Laboratories have launched BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice, an audio conferencing service that replicates the sound of face-to-face meetings.

BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice features a natural audio quality that makes remote conference call participants feel as if they are in the same room, enabling them to focus on the content of the conversation, without being distracted or frustrated by the limitations of standard conference call technology. This improves understanding and productivity allowing decisions to be made more quickly, saving time and money.

BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice, exclusive to BT, offers: High fidelity audio - gives outstanding sound clarity and eliminates background noises, for better understanding between call participants.

Voice separation: clear, distinct voices mean participants know who said what.

Everyone can be heard, not just the loudest, dominant talkers. This enables more natural interactions because more subtle audio cues are preserved.

BT has held more than 10,000 trial conferences of BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice generating more than a million conference minutes. Nine out of 10 participants showed a strong preference for BT's MeetMe with Dolby Voice over their normal audio conferencing product.

A new report from the University of Cambridge reveals that according to 78 per cent of participants, audio conferencing is still the most frequently used conferencing technology.

More than three quarters (77 per cent) of the companies surveyed reported the high significance of sound quality to an effective call. Findings show that poor audio makes it hard to understand who is speaking, what is being said and in what emotional tone. This in turn leads to increased fatigue levels for participants and decreased productivity.

Efficient speaker identification was felt to be crucial to a successful conference call by 61 per cent, whilst 57 per cent of participants stressed the high importance of muting background noise. Experts interviewed for the report believe that spatial audio (separating speakers' voices) addresses these problems.

Dr Anna Mieczakowski at the University of Cambridge, said: "Poor sound quality puts pressure on participants hearing and thinking capabilities and this can result in tiredness and can impair people's concentration and contributions to the meeting, as well as having a negative effective on secondary tasks such as note-taking. By improving the sound quality of a call, you will have less stressed and less tired participants, who will be in a better position to clearly communicate their views and understand those of other attendees."

Howard Dickel, CEO BT Conferencing, said: "The research from Cambridge shows that conference call users believe higher sound quality would greatly improve the efficiency of their calls. We believe this would be a major factor in speeding up decision making processes. Our partnership with Dolby will radically improve the quality and dynamics of conference calls and because of this we expect businesses and their staff to get greater value from the experience. BT will be selling this through its BT One portfolio of unified communications and collaboration solutions."

Andrew Border, VP, Communications Business Group, Dolby, said: "Audio conferencing is an essential tool for conveniently and affordably connecting distributed and mobile workers. But current solutions suffer from technical limitations that prevent natural interactions. BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice makes conference calls sound and feel more like everyone is in the same room, which encourages participation, spontaneity, and collaboration, resulting in more productive meetings."

The new service, developed in partnership by BT and Dolby, builds on the existing capabilities of BT's MeetMe audio conferencing service, currently used by thousands of businesses worldwide. It is part of a series of new collaboration services launched by BT intended to transform the quality of business conversations and greatly improve the way people work together within and between organisations.

BT MeetMe with Dolby Voice is a subscription-based service which can be integrated with existing collaboration tools. The Dolby Voice client software is seamlessly integrated into BT MeetMe WebJoin. This software runs on standard PCs and Macs, and Dolby Voice can be delivered through a standard stereo headset. Callers can join over a standard phone line if they are unable to access the software. A mobile version for iOS and Android devices will be available shortly.

Logicalis has unveiled Student Analytics, a predictive analytics package designed to bring significant social and financial benefits to UK universities as they seek to heighten student engagement, support retention strategies and enhance satisfaction.

Logicalis' Student Analytics, powered by IBM technology, enables Universities to capture, predict and act on rich stores of information to develop more informed strategies and decisions for operational efficiency and student engagement.

Mark Starkey, Managing Director of Logicalis UK, commented: "Critical data is being captured every day by Universities that can inform better engagement and growth strategies - lecture attendance, use of library cards, student union and other facilities - they just don't know it. Student Analytics gives them the ability to identify and analyse this information - mapping student insight across attendance, engagement with services and views on participation against key metrics and risk factors for real, actionable intelligence."

One key area where institutions see a clear Return on Investment (RoI) from predictive analytics is in student retention rates; accurately predicting at-risk students and designing effective intervention and support strategies for students.

According to recent data by HEFCE upward of 8% of undergraduates drop-out in their first year of study[1]. This has a financial impact, of approximately £33k per student, as well as social implications for the individuals and the University at large. Using Student Analytics, institutions can harness everyday data to reduce these rates, by accurately identifying those students most at risk - and taking action.

Logicalis is currently working with a number of UK institutions to pilot Student Analytics and recently built a predictive model for retention, which has proved 90% accurate in identifying at-risk students. For a University with 3,000 first year undergraduates, that equates to hundreds of students proactively supported and potentially retained to continue to study and succeed.

Logicalis' Student Analytics is built on IBM SPSS technology, and can be deployed on-site or hosted in Logicalis' data centre with fully-managed and as a service consumption options available.

Starkey concluded: "Predictive analytics technology has already proved a success into student retention and engagement strategies in many American institutions and it presents a great opportunity for UK Universities on the global stage. By providing the all-important opportunity to engage and act upon the right information, at the right time, we look forward to working with many of our customers in the higher education space to make a real difference in meeting their long term objectives to maintain the highest quality experiences and a balanced budget."

South West Communications Group staff have been invited to take part in a company-wide immunisation programme to protect themselves against the flu virus this winter.

The telecommunications firm first offered its staff free flu jabs last year in an effort to keep sick days at a minimum during the colder months.

Managing director Harry Langley said: "We saw a significant fall in sick days taken due to cold and flu last winter and so it makes economic sense for us invest in this company-wide immunisation programme again to try to keep as many members of staff as healthy as possible during the winter."

South West Communications Group experienced a 59% drop in sick days compared to the previous winter.

Langley added: "Like all businesses, we want to avoid the effect lengthy absences could have on our project deployments and our customer service. We don't want to let our customers down or put stress on other members of staff who have to step in to fulfil their duties. Healthy staff tend to be happier too, so it's a win-win situation for us."

Gamma has been awarded a place on the Government Procurement Services Telephony Services Framework.

As part of the Cabinet Office's strategy to migrate the public sector from traditional telephony services to next generation solutions, the telecommunications framework allows organisations to find best value for their ICT spend through a shortlist of approved vendors.

For the framework Gamma has created a service where organisations can migrate their traditional voice services to Gamma which then ports them on to SIP based services for a low fixed monthly charge that includes local and national calls.

Gamma has more than 500 existing public sector customers - among them London boroughs, county councils, universities and healthcare trusts - who report savings of 20% or more in their call and infrastructure costs after moving to next generation services such as SIP trunking.

Bob Falconer, Gamma's CEO said: "We have demonstrated time and time again how organisations currently using traditional communications infrastructure and services can show immediate savings and productivity benefits by switching to our next generation services.

"Alternatively they may wish to retain the services they already have but make savings and improvements through a new provider. Either way our goal is to make that process as easy and as cost effective as possible."