Comms Dealer

Three decades in business and stronger than ever, InTechnology's opportunistic outlook will ensure that it continues to feature as a lead player on the ICT stage for many years to come, according to Sales Director Natalie Duffield.

Last year InTechnology turned over an impressive £41.7 million with a staff headcount of 243 operating out of the firm's HQ in Harrogate and a next generation data centre facility in Reading. These days the company provides managed IT solutions to an 800-strong customer base of public and private sector clients across a range of industries including healthcare, insurance and retail. But all this is a long away from its roots as a small distribution business set up by Peter Wilkinson in 1983.

"This past year has reflected our culture of evolution, having been diligently working behind the scenes to develop our service," stated Duffield, who aims to increase the proportion of channel related business from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. "We have added more resources for our partners to enable this growth strategy. And integrating our business processes with those of our partners has proved to be effective so we will continue to do this across the coming year. To date, our most successful and thriving partner relationships have been with IT support and service organisations, systems integrators and ISVs.

"The integration of business processes with those of our partners, co-managing marketing and support, will help us build on the success of these existing relationships, with recent business enhancements attracting a wider partner base. These include a gold status partnership with Virgin which has positively enhanced the resilience of our core LANnet network, with customers benefiting from enhanced business continuity. We've also boosted our business mobile offering through partnerships."

A wider acceptance of the cloud has also had a telling influence on InTechnology's evolution. Other determining factors include a growing reliance on hosted solutions, a rise in the number of mobile workers, as well as the evolving capability of smart devices prompting the need for robust BYOD plans. The cloud's cost efficiency and budget predictability has also been a particularly strong influencing factor, swaying people towards cloud services as a cost saving operation in tough economic times.

"Our mission has always been to deliver enterprise grade cloud services and our proposition for partners is no exception," commented Duffield. "We hope to enable our partners to access truly next generation cloud services, allowing them to benefit from the cost efficiency, scalability and availability that hosted solutions afford. Our strategy is one of symbiosis, fusing our capability with that of our partners so that they can provide a full range of premises and cloud-based services, while also working with those partners who use our infrastructure to create their own propositions, such as SaaS."

Other highlights include wining places on the latest iteration of the G-Cloud and Janet's new Telephony Purchasing Service, allowing the company to reach a wider customer base. InTechnology has also been busy building strengths within industry verticals including education, legal and healthcare alongside sister company Inhealthcare and InTechnology's N3 services. "A number of recent developments have also benefitted our operations," noted Duffield. "The government's Cloud First initiative and its commitment to increase expenditure with SMEs to 50 per cent has given us a greater public sector reach, with sector specific restructuring (such as the changes within the NHS) also offering a number of growth opportunities for cloud service providers."

InTechnology is also working on enhancing its business mobile offering, with the increasing mobility of the modern workforce driving businesses to deploy robust fleets of devices. "As with all of our solutions, we like to act as a single point of contact, which our recent partnership with device recycling expert TSR reflects," said Duffield. "As security is a big concern for our customers we offer Mobile Device Management, allowing customers to remotely disable and wipe lost devices. Additionally, our fixed mobile convergence offering is being continually strengthened in order to support such developments within the mobile market."

Duffield has also witnessed an increased requirement for Infrastructure as a Service, given its suitability for larger organisations requiring resilience and small start-ups needing future scalability, with the healthcare sector also driving industry growth. Recent government budget reforms are creating an opportunity for new technology and apps to be delivered remotely to reduce both costs and wasted resources.

To make the most of such opportunities Duffield always sticks to a policy of putting the customer first. "My biggest achievement is still working with long term customers," she commented. "I feel proud and privileged to have the same customer base that we've had since I started. I always enjoy the partnership side of our business and working closely with them to make sure we deliver what we say we will. It's always about putting the customer first. We define ourselves as much by how we do things as by what we do. We don't believe in quick fixes, nor do we believe in throwing technology at a problem until it resolves itself. Our culture of strong partnerships allows us to collaborate towards the understanding of issues, being able to truly deliver what we promise. Honesty, accountability and responsiveness are everything, and we never walk away from a problem."•

Already a major blip on the comms industry radar screen fast growing GCI's spot of light is set to magnify, according to CEO Wayne Martin who aims to bring a new focus to the Channel's vision.

Thinking big and squaring up to the main players is one of Martin's telling influences, which in the early days was strongly felt during an 11 year stint at Mercury Communications. Martin joined BT rival Mercury Communications in 1988 when he operated in a corporate sales environment, which proved to be fertile ground to seed an idea that was to grow into GCI. "The marketplace needed a telecoms operator offering high quality and detailed phone billing," said Martin. "No one was doing this at the time and bigger companies were falling short of the mark. I ensured that GCI's billing engine would be the difference and help us stand out in the marketplace. We would collate all mobile and fixed telephony in one place."

It was in 2000 when Martin set up GCI to provide a unified phone bill that made sense. Now, the company generates £55 million turnover, employs 200-plus staff and boasts a client list of 10,000 made up of SMBs and a number of FTSE 300 organisations spending up to £1 million a year on converged ICT and data services. GCI is also listed 75th in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and recognised by Investec as one of the UK's leading ICT suppliers ranked 19th in its HOT100.

"We have been doubling our turnover but when you reach £50 million it is much harder to make these lists because turnover has to increase by tens of millions," said Martin. "The growth required is so much higher, but my ambition for growing the business is endless. I aim to reach £100 million-plus turnover with more acquisitions bringing complementary enhancements to an already extensive portfolio. For me the recognition from competitors that we are a serious player is vital."

As you would expect, GCI has evolved significantly in recent times with a strong backer on board in the Business Growth Fund, one of the largest private equity houses globally from a cash fund perspective. The company has also matured around accreditations and the G-cloud, and this month officially launches its channel division called GCI Channel Solutions. Channel is a sharp area of focus and the combined channel team boasts more than 30 years experience which Martin says will be leveraged to the maximum. "We aim not to just do it, but to do it differently and to do it right," he stated. "By empowering our partners with the ability to quote, support, and provision through self-serve tools we are giving them the key to succeed in this business environment. With the support of our pre-sales and channel management teams we can help our partners to secure high margin, long-term recurring revenue contracts and give customers a complete end-to-end experience."

It is estimated that the Channel is securing just 25 per cent of the available cloud services revenue from their customers, as opposed to nearly 75 per cent in connectivity and voice. "Now is the time to change that by deploying a mature service through an experienced partner," Martin commented. "Our research suggests that there is a gap in the market in enabling partners to sell cloud services, and GCI Channel Solutions intends to meet that need with self-serve pricing, a provisioning tool and training from our channel and technical management teams. Connectivity and voice services are mature while still growing, but there is a clear need for channel education on how to sell and deploy cloud services. We will be offering workshops, coaching and pre-sales support to enable the channel to sell complex solutions that are normally the preserve of the larger IT service providers."

Martin intends to equip customers with network and infrastructure that allows them to become pioneers of technology and gain a competitive advantage in their markets. "Other larger businesses are already trying to imitate us in this respect," he claimed. "Our infrastructure is extensive, we own three data centres and we are of significant scale in terms of being able to negotiate competitive access deals. Furthermore, we own our own network infrastructure. We are not just another player in the market, we are pioneering and driving to become best in breed. ICT service requirements are going to push us forward in the future. The re-engineering work we have done has brought us to enterprise grade and we are also ISO and G-cloud accredited."

With acquisitions at the forefront of his mind it's no surprise to learn that Martin expects continued consolidation in the sector as smaller companies don't have the breadth of services enjoyed by their larger counterparts. "Business Process as a Service, Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and other virtualised platforms are all adaptations smaller companies will need to adopt as the comms sector evolves," commented Martin. "Companies will need to re-invent themselves to compete and differentiate, especially in the Channel, and this is where GCI Channel Solutions fits in as we have the skill set to take partners on this journey of growth."

GCI's network growth, infrastructure investments, Cisco MPLS, access strategy, Smart Bunker data centre, Lync proposition and best of breed cloud platform are all acquisitions and investments Martin cites as milestones that have influenced the evolution and progress of GCI. "We believe that hosted Lync offers a huge opportunity for the Channel and we have had positive feedback from partners wanting to partner with an experienced Lync provider," he commented. "People are now working differently and adopting back-up and infrastructure services."

The success of GCI is not just dependent on technical expertise, but the ability of individuals to work together to make a one stop ICT shop happen for customers. "Our people are praised for their ability to work in partnership and as part of a team to deliver every single time, often in challenging circumstances," noted Martin. "Trust, support and transparency are crucial to making things happen at GCI. Mutual respect and integrity shape our internal and external partnerships."•

We have been talking about the march of machine-to-machine communications for some time in Comms Dealer, but few resellers have got to grips with the technology. Anton Le Saux hopes all this will change now that O2 has launched its M2M channel programme.

In simple terms, M2M (machine to machine) means connecting devices wirelessly without human intervention. Just imagine a vending machine sited in a sports centre being able to inform its maintenance team that it only has five Mars bars left and six Topics, but dozens of cereal bars. Oh, and its coin box is almost full too. That's not only vital knowledge for maintenance units, but it's also important information for the vending company's marketing and finance teams. Add increased consumer acceptance of digital connectivity to the equation and M2M represents a plethora of opportunities for resellers to sell this new technology across an array of vertical markets, and potentially gain up to a decade of recurring customer revenues.

According to Le Saux, we are on the cusp of this new dawn in communications services which intelligent reseller businesses should be able to profit from, immensely. "In the future we will truly live in a connected world - our lives, homes and cities," he said. "Everything will be connected in an Internet-like way, providing us with valuable information and making people's lives better."

The 65,000 dollar question for channel players is how to get a stake in this gold rush. O2 believes it has stolen a march on rivals on the back of its existing partnerships and support infrastructure. "O2 has always recognised the value in channel and building great partnerships in mobile and mobile data. It is the relationships that have been built with partners that have enabled us to become the market leader and first choice for channel business," argues Le Saux.

"Given the size of the future M2M opportunity and the market potential, it is clear to O2 that in order to be able to realise our full potential we will need to make use of our expertise in partnering and building new channel relationships as well as expanding on our existing channels. We have recognised that we will have to deliver dedicated resources to help both new and existing partners understand the M2M opportunity and reshape their business models in order to ensure they maximise the potential."

So what M2M products do resellers actually get from O2 to sell on to customers and what are the key benefits? "We have a number of bespoke vertical solutions that partners can take to market but the core offer is M2M connectivity," explained Le Saux. "This comes in the form of a standard UK unmanaged SIM solution that offers small data packages at competitive pricing and a managed global SIM solution that offers the partner or customer a fully managed proposition with full UK network roaming and roaming within specific European countries. All of these are available at a wholesale level so our partners can re-bill and package along with their existing voice and data solutions.

"A large percentage of business users would benefit from some form of M2M solution in their business whether it be asset or vehicle tracking, monitoring of devices or machines or simple security solutions. At some point someone will be speaking to these businesses about M2M. In our view it would be better for the partner, the customer and the network if these conversations were taking place with the same company that supplies their existing communication needs. Our objective is to build a channel that has the capability and access to do this."

Le Saux confirmed that O2 already has some M2M partners but there is a big gap for new partners to fill who can choose to have a first or second tier relationship with them. "We understand that there will be a lot of interest in our propositions and not all partners will have the desire or ability to maintain a direct relationship with the network," he added. "As such, we have a number of channel Managed Service Providers that are primed and ready to work with these partners to ensure they have the right solutions and support mechanism in place to win business. All are experienced in the M2M market place and will offer the support and assistance needed for a new partner. We are prepared to sit down with each potential partner and assess the size, scale and value of each opportunity so that we can evaluate if we have the synergy and capability to do something direct, or if it would be better suited sitting with a Managed Service Provider.

"We will be delivering a channel programme that will offer marketing advice and support as well as bid support and sales support. We have some really compelling vertical solutions that our team will help partners sell as well as a number of technical architects that are on hand to help with the more bespoke bids."

M2M technology can be quite complex and Le Saux stressed that new partners will have to have the desire and ability to adapt to the new M2M market place, but there could be big rewards for the early adopters in some 'highly connected' vertical markets. The biggest verticals currently in the market by number of connections are Transport (vehicle and trailer tracking, infotainment and Pay How You Drive Insurance); Security (alarms, CCTV); Energy (mainly metering and related smart home services); Retail (point of sale); and Communications (either as backhaul or for resilience). In addition there are some large data services using M2M such as security, digital signage and content streaming.

"Some of these services can be active for up to 10 years," said Le Saux. "Churn in M2M is much lower than in mobile comms which can help both us and our partners build really sustainable business models. We are keen to talk to partners that have the vision to see what is coming down the line and the contacts within their base to be able to secure new revenue streams before the competition comes knocking. Having been to Comms Vision for the past four years, I have seen some of the best resellers in the world in their chosen fields. I would expect that the top 20 per cent or 30 per cent of the resellers that attend this event would be on my list of partner to speak to directly."

Although M2M is seen as a sunrise technology it has been around for some time and O2 already has an established foothold in the sector. "We have been successful in this market for over 10 years and in the last year have won two of the biggest M2M deals in the market," commented Le Saux. "O2 is one of the top 20 most recognised brands in the UK but this is backed up by our £1 billion-plus network investment, our award winning service, dedicated teams and proven partnership capability. O2 and its parent Telefonica already has over seven million dedicated M2M connections across the planet and has been recognised as an industry leader by independent market analysts."

Le Saux believes this experience will help resellers address M2M opportunities. "We have experienced key wins in all of the verticals within the market place, we can supply resource and information to partners that highlights what has been successful and why," he said. "We are committed to working with partners to not only uncover these opportunities but to help them build a proposal to deliver a solution and manage it in life. Our managed platform gives partner access to everything they would need to offer world class support to their customers. The ongoing support from my team and our support teams will allow partners to address the needs within their base and deliver against them."

Le Saux is urging resellers to get involved soon before the market becomes too crowded. "Now is the ideal time to get involved because this market is just starting to accelerate," he said. "Many will remember when mobile started to go mass market - well this is now happening in M2M. This is a great chance for resellers to get involved early and gain share before M2M becomes really competitive. There is a demand for M2M services and it's a great chance to revisit both existing and old comms customers with a new, fresh story.

"In short, we believe that with the right support resellers can really accelerate their businesses, and naturally we believe that O2 are best placed to help them achieve this growth. No one else is as well placed and we've already delivered a number of early successes, so I would urge resellers to come and speak to us if you are up for the challenge." •

Channel pedigree and experience

Anton Le Saux is heading up the new M2M channel team and knows the channel well having been previously Head of Indirect Sales at O2. He outlined the team that will help resellers address M2M opportunities. "I have an existing sales manager and account management team that will continue to manage the existing M2M partners. Along with this we have three new dedicated partner acquisition and support people, namely Simon Boyd, Mike Steed and Shaun Clark, whose key objective is to identify partner opportunities, hand hold through a defined on-boarding process and support the ongoing management of the relationship.

"We also have a desk-based sales support manager, Victoria Johnson, who will help to manage the smaller partner opportunities, as well as a new dedicated Commercial Bid Manager, Helen Roberts, who will be on hand to help partners pull professional and exciting bids together in order to secure business. Alongside my own direct team we have a marketing team, operations team, product and solutions team as well as a dedicated finance team that are all also on hand to ensure the partner relationship is a successful one."

Did you know?
• At least 24 billion devices will be connected globally by 2020 with a potential for 50 billion
• M2M is estimated to be a $1.2 trillion opportunity
• The overall market is growing circa 25 per cent year on year

Steve Harrington, Channel Manager at tIPicall, has been busy compiling a dossier of ambitious strategies in preparation for a five year journey that, on paper, will dismantle long-established industry structures and redefine the channel landscape.

To say that tIPicall has been hard at it over the past 12 months would be to quietly understate the bustle of activity across all corners of the business, not least work done on advancing a growth strategy that if fulfilled will see the company become the pinnacle supplier of telecommunications services by 2018. More pressing however is the advancement of an ambitious plan to secure tIPicall as the second biggest supplier of SIP in the UK by the end of next year. "We believe the timing is right and we have the right product set, people and network to make it happen," stated Harrington resolutely. "During the last 12 months the business has grown more than 80 per cent and we aim to expand at the same rate over the coming year. Initially we were known for our links with Tata and what we can do internationally, but our UK proposition has become much more recognised."

With 100 partners on board it is clear that the tIPicall express train is running at a full head of steam. "As SIP and hosted products are developing so are we," added Harrington. "A few months ago we released a new version of our hosted platform incorporating the latest product set for hosted. Available on tablet, smartphone, soft client and hard phones the feature set is impressive with control passed to the reseller and client so they can manage everything they require."

Aside from ramping up its hosted proposition tIPicall has overhauled its service delivery team and taken on a new head of operations, while expanding its carrier base and network on the SIP side. "We have completed the latest upgrade to our core network which has allowed us to provide more services and connect to more PBX types," commented Harrington. "Next year will be about fine tuning new products and working with key manufacturers on the future of SIP."

tIPicall now interconnects with several large data providers meaning that it can provide quality SIP services to more end users. "These interconnections have made a huge difference to our business," said Harrington. "We were one of the first companies to develop private SIP and the ability to deliver QoS from ADSL to Ethernet is absolutely critical to our, and our partners' success. If we can control the data connection then we can control the voice quality and end user experience. Working with data providers and their partners on delivering private SIP will be the largest growth area for tIPicall. We have already seen significant growth but only scratched the surface."

Despite these big strides the lack of SIP skills in the market remains a challenge, noted Harrington. "From finding the level of engineering staff we need to training partners there has been a steep learning curve for all concerned," he said. "We have been banging the education drum for years and this is an area of development and a key part of what we offer to our partners. If we help educate them they can sell more, support their clients easier and deal with changes in the market. Our API is critical to our next phase of development as it will allow us to provide this comprehensive information to our partners. It will also enable them to interact with us automatically, giving them flexibility and control. Our portal development enables us to be best of breed and our goal is to have the best portal. We are working on that now."

tIPicall has also put its shoulder into driving the popularity of its latest hosted PBX (OnePBX), led by Guy Miller. Plans for new upgrades and a roadmap of feature additions and integrations are already in place. The company is also expanding its core network and will be adding a new data centre in the coming months. "We are also working with some key partners on Lync with our SIP trunks, the technical development of which is complete, so now we are helping them go to market," added Harrington. "The majority of our partners have geared up for SIP and hosted so now it's about helping them to deliver.

"Providing SIP internationally is also a rapidly expanding requirement and we can now offer local breakout throughout Europe which will expand our abilities greatly. Alongside this our international numbering has taken off and will continue to do so. Recently we provided a number in Nicaragua and a number in Belize, it is amazing what can be achieved with global networks these days."

tIPicall's base is equally split between dealers and resellers including many IT sector organisations looking to develop their voice portfolio. "We see this as a key growth sector," added Harrington. "We have also been working with partners such as Nimans to educate their partner base and gain traction. We still need to develop our base of partners but much more strategically and more focused on larger partners with the infrastructure and resources to deliver our products and services, especially in the north where traditionally we have not been so active. Our sponsorship of Margin In Voice and Data this year was a great boost to this strategy and we are working with many of the partners we met at the event."•

Solving problems comes naturally to TFM Networks Managing Director David Heyes, so much so that we should perhaps dub him the industry's Solution Finder.

Heyes had no master plan to enter the telecoms market but he's not one to miss an opportunity that enables him to leverage his experience and skills to maximum advantage. "Telecoms wasn't planned, my introduction was opportunistic," he explained. "I love challenges, building new things and problem solving. This eventually took me into the IT department at Somerfield Stores where TFM were involved in a telecoms tender I was running. My previous retail experience and focus on customer service, cost-effective, efficient and sustainable change alongside a pragmatic approach to problem solving and overall people management have all helped shape how I work and deliver today."

Perhaps Heyes' pragmatic approach and dedication to the cause can be traced back to childhood when the early signs of a determined achiever were clearly evident. "At the age of 14 I was told that I would never pass an exam because my handwriting was illegible," he said. "It was, but I spent the entire summer holiday using technical drawing letters to re-learn how to write from scratch. It worked and I did well in my exams. However, I'm glad we have computers now."

Putting pen to paper in an evolved way rates as one of Heyes' main achievements in the early days, more latterly his biggest career achievement is building the Promotional Forecasting Unit sitting in logistics at Somerfield stores that transformed the accuracy and speed of reaction based on actual sales for the business. "This was seen by everyone other than the Chairman and Logistics Director as a poisoned chalice for the business," added Heyes. "But my idea and challenge was to deliver a balance across numerous disciplines and many areas of the business. Job done, it put me on the map at Somerfield and I haven't looked back since."

Not surprisingly an ordered approach to doing business and solving problems in many ways defines TFM's culture, nurtured by a man who bases customer focus on a clear order of priorities starting with protecting service, delivering customer projects and finally delivering internal change. "Ownership is also key," added Heyes. "I encourage the freedom to make decisions, focusing on resolution not blame with appropriate accountability and teamwork. Fundamental to this is that we work with, and alongside our customers, partners and suppliers and hand-hold rather than hand-off problems."

Another major task in hand has been the work undertaken since 2008 in positioning TFM to help managed service providers capitalise on hosting and cloud services, because reliability, quality and security of telecommunications connectivity is business critical. "In 2008 we knew we had to build out our own core network, enabling us to have more control over our services and be less reliant on suppliers," commented Heyes. "Our business-only MPLS network has no consumer traffic, is uncontended and highly secure. We deliver all voice and data connectivity, lines and associated services, 3G, 4G and cloud Wi-Fi fully supporting BYOD, all with business grade security, availability and reliability."

At that time TFM also made the decision to focus on channels, particularly the emerging hosted services companies that were reliant on their telecommunications capability. "We're still targeting channels, the emphasis being where we can help them offer truly complete service offerings from a safe, trusted and integrated pair of hands," added Heyes. "Next year will see us looking at how we deliver fully functional workflow customer portals. We've already combined the majority of our monitoring tools into a single web-based view and are trialing this with some customers. The aim is to build this into a full portal."

Alongside the more usual telecommunications services, TFM also uses and sells innovative software from Actual Experience with consultancy to look across increasingly complex digital supply chains, highlighting quickly and effectively the issues that degrade the end user experience. The company is also in the late stages of launching PCI support services to help guide and protect merchants from fraud and also to maintain PCI standards cost-effectively.

In 2009, TFM kicked off a number of initiatives aimed at being acquisition-ready via debt funding. The most significant of which was the move to deploy automated workflow across all internal processes and teams. "Our products and pricing, the ability to quote, authorise, convert to sales order, provision, support, invoice and provide management accounts and other management information all reside in a single system," said Heyes. "The system is being developed to enable multi-company operation and accounting by the end of 2013 for our acquisitions and any others in the future."

The acquisition of Globalwave (Waveworks) in May this year proved beneficial to both organisations. "The two distinct and separate businesses and business models are complementary and both have a lot to offer each other in terms of additional services," commented Heyes. "The increased scale enables us to look at more for everyone. The challenge we have with everyone doing everything is to focus on what needs to be core to our business and what we then subsequently source from our partners. This challenge will only get harder as the lines continue to blur between technology service providers."

The comms industry bugbear that grates Heyes most is the race to the bottom on cost, based on the ever present and aggressive battle for volume and market share. "This only works well for consumers as they can be standardised for volume," he said. "Businesses still want tailored options. If we can successfully automate or workflow the key deliverables we can handle far more volume with the same teams, ultimately at less cost without compromising our flexibility. This is a key area of focus. We've worked hard on internal automated workflow, the next step is to extend this out into a fully functional reseller partner portal. Many companies have nice looking portals, but I'm yet to see one that enables them to deliver automated workflow. We're looking at how best to achieve this in 2014."

Over the coming three years Heyes expects TFM to triple in size with another one or two acquisitions. Other focus areas include the cloud and wireless with unification also at the forefront of his mind. "There will be one place for all communications, aligned to either relevant business verticals and/or integrated into the customer be they the end customer, reseller or managed service provider," he commented.

"TFM Networks has a history of being opportunistic and relatively quick to react, and true to form we will be keeping our eye on early movers and looking to capitalise on opportunities where we can. The channel will see more of us in 2014 when we'll be in a better position to fully advance a number of concepts that have already gained traction. The icing on the cake is not about saying what you plan to do, it's about demonstrating what you've done. Watch this space."•

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: How long is a piece of string? Not something you want to hear when budgeting for a new website but if you have not put thought into why you actually want a new website this could be the answer you receive.

Websites are often the first point of contact your prospects have with you and is therefore one of the most important mechanisms for future growth, but you need to think deeper into what you want your website to achieve. This in turn will help you budget as you are then able to give the web developer enough information to give an honest quotation.

How much functionality do you really need? Bells and whistles look great but it all costs money. Yes it is extra work to add on an e-commerce facility and yes a customer portal will cost more so think carefully about what your company really needs to succeed. Plan from the start and remain focused on your core objectives.

Another common stumbling block is page content. Companies often allot members of staff, often from the technical department, to work on text but the reality is that copy writing is a skill and it is not a five minute job to knock up a web page. They soon find that a technical description of their latest service is not sales focused enough to appeal to their target audience and this often leads to significant delays or devalues the overall website.

How much design and customisation is really the million dollar question as this really affects cost. If you are happy to use existing layouts and will not be tempted to tinker then pre-designed themes will save you a fortune. But be realistic, if you have your heart set on specific detail then you definitely need to go down the bespoke route.

O2 has launched its M2M channel programme and says early adopter resellers could strike gold in what is flagged up as a $1.2 trillion market opportunity.

Anton Le Saux, Head of M2M Managed Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2, has been tasked with finding reseller partners with the skill, resources and resolution to address what has been described as the new digital revolution.

"If the last revolution was all about connecting people, this next phase is all about connecting things," commented Le Saux. "The market has been referring to the opportunity as the 'Internet of Things' and this is now becoming the 'Internet of Everything' as more everyday devices are being connected."

O2 has put together a team dedicated to helping resellers reshape their business models in order to ensure they maximise the potential of M2M.

O2's offer, available directly or through appointed M2M aggregation specialists, will be a standard UK unmanaged SIM solution that provides small data packages at competitive pricing, and a managed global SIM solution that offers partners or customers a fully managed proposition with full UK network roaming and roaming in specific European countries.

"All of these are available at a wholesale level so our partners can re-bill and package along with their existing voice and data solutions," said Le Saux.

"There is a demand for M2M services and it's a great chance to revisit both existing and old comms customers with a new, fresh story."

Congrats to Nimans' Chairman Julian Niman who celebrated his 60th birthday (October 11th) with a party for staff hosted by TV celeb Bobby Davro, just hours after collecting a lifetime achievement prize at Comms Dealer's Comms National Awards.

To mark his 60th, giant balloons and a 20ft banner decorated the company's Manchester headquarters, and Niman was presented with a replica cake of his office and warehouse complex, a gold bar and a vintage computer to remind him of how he first started the business more than 30 years ago, inspired by his CB radio hobby.

Niman previously held an outdoor family fun day to mark his birthday celebrations, inviting all Nimans staff to an open-air summer party at a local sports centre.

"Nimans is like one big family to me so what better way to celebrate than with the people I work with," he said. "We've come a long way together. As for the future, I'm looking forward to launching a number of new initiatives to help staff further develop their careers."

The sweet taste of success is nothing new to Niman, pictured below with his remarkable birthday cake.

Sonus Networks has introduced the Sonus SBC SWe, a software-based Session Border Controller (SBC) architected to deliver unlimited scalability with the same advanced features and functionality of the Sonus SBC 5000 Series on a virtualised platform.

The SBC SWe is feature equivalent to Sonus' hardware-based SBC 5000 Series. The only difference between the Sonus SBC SWe and the Sonus SBC 5000 Series is how customers choose to deploy it: on industry-standard servers or in virtualised environments.

Scalable from as few as 25 to an unlimited number of sessions, the user-defined scope of the SBC SWe means that Sonus customers get to choose where they reside on the performance curve. Sonus will provide customers with a set of performance specifications for customers' host platforms, and customers can then rapidly expand capacity, calls per second, features, transcoding and security capabilities with a license key as business demands change, said the firm.

"Sonus customers can now move seamlessly between hardware and software solutions, with assurance that their existing communications and network investments are fully protected," said David Tipping, vice president and general manager, SBC Business, Sonus.

"Service providers are not 'boxed in' by hardware and no longer have to compromise on features or functionality when moving to software."

Diane Myers, principal analyst, Infonetics Research: noted: "Security was recently cited by enterprises as the second leading barrier to Unified Communications deployment. New types of traffic - voice, video, messaging - traverse the IP network, and unsecured borders could lead to unwanted attacks.

"One of the strengths of the SBC SWe is that Sonus incorporates security and interworking experience into a 'bring your own' platform approach."

Irwin Lazar, vice president and service director, Nemertes Research, added: "More than 67 per cent of companies have virtualised Unified Communications applications to reduce costs, improve resiliency and enable more efficient utilisation of server resources. The ability to run Unified Communications infrastructure on virtual servers is critical buying criteria."

Straight Communications, a new business telecoms firm launched in Northern Ireland, does what it says on the tin and is on a mission to do away with confusing jargon and provide no-nonsense solutions.

With a consultative approach Straight aims to help businesses make the best use of the latest mobile, landline, phone systems, broadband and IT solutions.

The company, headed by Managing Director Adrian McCourt, has ambitious growth plans and with new custom-designed office the company has employs 16 people so far with plans for additional employment growth in the coming months.

McCourt said: "We work with key partners across the business telecoms space and our flexible approach means we will recommend the solution that delivers the best value for the individual business and not one that
simply conforms to a particular network or tariff.

"For example, we offer rolling mobile contracts from as little as 30 days. This has proven popular with companies with a temporary mobile workforce or those who like the flexibility to scale up or down easily in response to changing dynamics of the business environment.

"We have heard of businesses being signed up to three, four and in some cases, even five year deals - I believe there is simply no place in the market for these lengthy, inflexible contracts."

Straight has secured partnerships allowing the company to offer solutions from mobile network providers including Vodafone, O2, EE as well as handset and mobile technology manufacturers including Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung and Straight will also be utilising the BT network to offer landline and broadband solutions.

McCourt added: "The Straight Charter reflects our commitment to be clear and straight-forward when communicating with our customers and to delivering advice that is free from meaningless jargon and consumer hype."