Comms Dealer

The next 12-18 months will be a pivotal period for the comms industry as customers decide whether IP will form a fundamental part of their future communications, according to Jennifer Jones, Sales, Operations and Marketing Director, BT Wholesale.

The SME market for connectivity is undergoing a period of unprecedented transformation and according to Jones a perfect storm is brewing, driven by consumer trends and end user expectations and a revolution in how businesses communicate. This has created a new dynamic that presents big opportunities and challenges for all those involved, whether a customer or a supplier. "Most companies face similar challenges, such as how to become more efficient but maintain service levels, how to innovate cost-effectively and how to find smarter ways of working," said Jones. "At the same time, employees have become used to a fast multi-device experience during their leisure time and expect 24/7 access while moving seamlessly from smartphone to tablet to PC, from work to home and back again."

Meanwhile, noted Jones, fibre broadband and Ethernet, the game changers for cloud services, are rolling out at pace. BT's fibre broadband is in reach of more than 16 million UK premises and in 2012/13 BT Wholesale saw its installed Ethernet circuits grow by 63 per cent. "These connections have the reliability and speed required for the simultaneous use of communications applications across multiple devices and desktops," added Jones. "Smart businesses can see what these capabilities can bring in terms of quick growth, flexible and collaborative working and lower operating costs. Many more will follow."

BT Wholesale has been gearing up for this IP revolution for a number of years, investing time and resources to create hosted communications solutions (many offered on a pay-as-you-grow basis) that expand the IP voice portfolio and blend with the company's data and broadband products. "No matter what pace of change SMEs want to move at from their TDM base and other assets, for most, the IP path leads to where there is most to be gained," added Jones. "The appetite for embracing the next step in business connectivity is clear."

IDC research indicates that SME spend on hosted communications solutions is expected grow 18 per cent by next year, in contrast with lines and mobile calls which are predicted to fall by seven and 20 per cent respectively. "Customers looking for hosted communications are generally at the start of a journey in their strategic development, and we have the collective opportunity to take them on the road while securing sustainable, predictable and margin-rich business," stated Jones.

"Most enter that journey at step one, looking for ways to manage and reduce telephony costs inspired by the promise of the cloud. Beyond this, they typically start to look at ways to build on and apply their investment to IT efficiency, increasing employee productivity through enabling mobility and collaboration, for example, and improving business agility by integrating apps, processes and communications."

In an industry where traditional connectivity margins continue to be squeezed, the ability to build a relationship with SME customers and get further into their value chain is an attractive prospect, supporting them as they gain in confidence and want to do more with their voice and data. "With the right proposition, becoming a trusted provider of hosted communications gives comms providers the opportunity to secure a more predictable margin over 24-36 month contracts," added Jones.

While some channel customers are happy to build their own capabilities, BT Wholesale is seeing significant demand from those keen to enter the IP space but who are unsure about whether to invest in hosted communications platforms given the pace of change in the market. Key issues include concerns over whether investments will become obsolete in a matter of years and the reliability of potential partners. "But they're also convinced of the benefit of keeping at least a foot in the door with IP technology, knowing full well that the fundamental technology swap over time from TDM to IP opens the market for a whole new host of competitors to join the party," pointed out Jones.

BT Wholesale is on a mission to be the 'wholesaler of choice' and has recognised that in order to carry forward its stated intent a change of approach is required. "Backed by our expert consultancy we're increasingly adopting a sell-through model and, by working closely with our channel customers, we are improving our knowledge of what it will take to win SME customers," explained Jones. "This mix is the perfect combination for in-depth discussions leading to practical and future proofed solutions that can be implemented, used, maintained and developed successfully."

According to Jones, it's all about understanding the business drivers and together establishing a more sticky SME customer solution. "Our customers are responding enthusiastically to this collaborative approach and they are keen to work with us to jointly agree the solution that will win the contract," she said. "We have a platform in the form of integrated access but must work in this way to maximise its potential."

In the main, SMEs come to the cloud with any number of problems to contend with. Bigger companies have a legacy environment they can't afford to mothball overnight, while small companies may have no in-house IT expert and are too time-poor to manage the change. "The integration of protocols, existing technologies with new apps, platforms and equipment may be too much of a headache to take the plunge," noted Jones. "But we've designed our hosted communications services with this in mind, offering the flexibility for the channel to sell something that's exactly the right fit for the end customer, whether at step one or step four of their journey to IP."

For resellers that already help SMEs advance their voice and data plans the move to hosted communications will feel like a natural step, according to Jones. "With the right approach, hosted communications has the potential to increase the value of a customer by up to five times, if not more, while securing trusted partner status and seeing the benefit of more reliable margins," she commented. "While the perfect storm will calm in time, the rise of hosted communications powered by IP means that for companies of all sizes the cloud is here to stay."•

Oak joint CEO Phillip Reynolds believes there is a lot of life left in traditional telephone systems but he's no Luddite when it comes to the Internet and believes his latest web-based call management solution could be Oak's best innovation yet.

Reynolds' Poole-based software company has dominated the call management sector for over 20 years and Oak wall boards and call management solutions are ubiquitous in call centres and sales and support operations across the length and breadth of the UK. For some time customers have been asking Oak for a faster, more flexible web-based call management offering and Reynolds believes Oak's response, the new EVOLVE solution for Avaya's IP Office system, is a 'game changer' as it works on any communications device, including tablets, and on any browser, including those for the Apple Mac. "EVOLVE is one of the first products of its kind and we believe it will revolutionise the way businesses are run," said Reynolds.

A bold statement indeed, so what's under the skin of EVOLVE and why does Oak believe it will revolutionise call management for reseller customers? "EVOLVE brings together the most cutting edge telephone, Internet, database and mobile technologies in a single solution that does everything through the web," explains Reynolds. "This means that managers can view what's happening at that very moment in their business or call centre, using any communications device, anywhere in the world. It not only does all of the above, it operates much faster. This is largely due to incorporating a NoSQL backend database which can quickly process huge amounts of data."

Reynolds says EVOLVE addresses the limitations of traditional call logging solutions which have left businesses unable to immediately see missed calls or pursue customers who have left call queues. "EVOLVE addresses these frustrations head-on to dramatically improve effective call handling," he added. "Supervisors can now see how many calls are in a queue, which important customers are waiting to be answered, prioritise calls, and even move live calls between queues. A supervisor may also choose to speak to a customer themselves which is simple to execute. Also, all missed calls are logged in an organised list incorporating a dial back feature, so sales people can phone these customers straight away. This means businesses never lose sales or the opportunity to deliver exceptional customer service."

Reynolds is confident channel partners will find EVOLVE easy to sell, not just because it is easy to install and operate, but because it offers business improvement across the board. "The intuitive browser interface can be configured in exactly the way you want it to best monitor quality and performance," explained Reynolds. "Not only can calls be recorded for training purposes, but supervisors can participate in live calls passively to see how well they are handled, or actively intervening with support staff when they need it.

"Supervisors can manually manage agents' current statuses, making sure they are available when a large number of calls are coming in or a particularly important customer is waiting. Agents can also use the internal messaging system called 'chat' to confer with their supervisors on the best and fastest course of action with a current caller. The combination of faster response times, the emphasis on prioritising customers and the improvement of team customer service and sales skills could see a significant increase in the closing rate of calls."

And he stresses that EVOLVE, like all Oak products, is fully compliant with legal requirements with regards to the storage of calls and personal information. "All recordings are encrypted, so they are legally admissible in a court of law and take up minimum space compared to WAV or MP3 files," said Reynolds. "500GB stores around a year's worth of calls on a Primary Rate Interface or PRI. You can simply click on a call record to hear it, without any need for expensive voicemail ports. Reports can be run showing the details of each and every call, where it came into, how long it was on hold, how many times it was transferred, and who was involved in the call. This is often referred to as 'cradle to grave' reporting."

Avaya IP Office resellers can add EVOLVE to their portfolio immediately, but it won't be long before partners of other leading manufacturers can reap the benefits too as Reynolds confirmed. "To achieve such high level control over a telephone system requires complex real-time integration where multiple connections to the switch are managed in parallel," he added. "We are currently looking at the other leading manufacturers where we can achieve similar technically advanced results and where EVOLVE can add real value to the switch sale and further enhance our dealer relationships."•

When Annodata's joint Managing Director Andrew Harman announced the appointment of two key hires this summer his intention to create a £100 million turnover business over the coming two years received a strategic boost of significant proportions.

In June Annodata made two key hires as part of its growth strategy to become a £100 million turnover business. Mike Mason was appointed as Managing Director of the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) business while Martin St. Quinton was named as Non Executive Chairman. St. Quinton replaced David Fielden who served in this role for the last 13 years and remains as a Non-Executive Director. In 2000, St. Quinton founded Azzurri Communications which grew to 700 staff and £150 million turnover in six years. According to Harman he will play a key role in the growth of the company as well as assisting in unifying its telecommunications division with the core business functions.

"We are currently achieving revenues of £65 million across the Annodata group and over the next couple of years our objective it is to be a £100 million turnover business," Harman commented.

Annodata has been delivering strategic communications solutions to clients since 1988. From FTSE 100 corporations to SMEs, the firm has earned a reputation for helping a diverse spread of organisations transform the way they choose and use communications systems. "We have over 7,000 client relationships with companies such as J & J, GE, Harrods, New York Stock Exchange, Mitsubishi, Burberry and the IHG Group," added Harman. "Our success in the public sector arena continues to be a key market for us and we have recently been chosen as the only independent supplier on the Central Buying Consortium Framework agreement. We have in excess of 100 engineers, complemented by a large and experienced group of sales consultants and professional services support team."

Mason, a key figure in Harman's growth plans, has held senior leadership roles with France Telecom, BT and Capita. More recently, during his tenure at Intrinsic, he led the transformation of the business from a traditional UC player into a cloud-based computing solutions company. This resulted in a doubling of revenues and an increase in profitability of over 300 per cent. Subsequently, he led and managed the £30 million private equity backed sale of the company. Mason said: "Collaboration and an enhanced customer experience are top priorities for most organisations today. This is an exciting time to be part of the Annodata journey as it understands the importance of unifying different communications solutions and how to unlock the real business benefits for their current and future customers."

Annodata was established in 1988, 25 years ago this October. The company was started by Harman and shortly afterwards he was joined by his brother, joint Managing Director Tim Harman. "Before starting Annodata I was the top sales person for a communications manufacturer but felt that some of the large players didn't really understand the needs of the customer," he said. "I asked myself the question, why should businesses put up with technology and service vendors that are inflexible, outdated and which have the suppliers' rather than the customers best interests at heart? The result was Annodata. Via an open minded and consultative approach we are taking our expanding portfolio to our key and future clients to help improve their business processes so they can concentrate on their core competencies."

Annodata has partner relationships with many top name organisations including Canon, Ricoh, O2, Kyocera, Mitel, Cisco and Avaya. "In particular, our strategic relationships with Canon and 02 have grown and strengthened over the past 20 years," noted Harman. "These prominent industry leaders have endorsed the Annodata brand and incorporated their customer base into the Annodata service division, sanctioning us as an extension of their own business. With the speed at which technology is changing we are always looking to how we can enhance our product portfolio and map this against the need of our customers."

According to Mason, the unified comms marketplace offers one of the largest opportunities for Annodata. "The ability to take our customers on the journey from traditional TDM voice through to digital and IP voice and bringing that together under our UCC portfolio is critical," he said. "Mobility, in particular BYOD, continues to drive growth as does cloud-based control from companies such as Cisco Meraki who boast feature rich offerings and ease of deployment."

The experience that both Mason and St. Quinton bring to Annodata will enable it to execute strategic acquisitions that will complement the current business as well as achieve revenues of in excess of £100 million. "As most business leaders would recognise the key to a successful business is the army of staff that work alongside you," added Harman. "Although we have grown significantly from the early days we still try and foster a family environment. We are keen to incentivise staff with the right commission plans and recognise non sales staff that provide outstanding performances."•

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: Forget TV advertising and winning trips to the moon, it is the modest proposal document that needs your attention. In the heat of the excitement of a successful client visit and the prospect of a new business contract it is easy to rush through the proposal and pricing in order to make sure your prospect receives the details required to sign on the dotted line in a timely manner.

But if you stop and think about the experience and interaction your prospect has had with you and your company so far, the proposal document may be one of the first pieces of collateral they receive and will therefore place great importance on it for building a perception of your brand and confidence into whether you can deliver the proposed service.

It is advisable to create proposal documents that are corporate and easy to edit so that you can be sure your team is promoting your brand values but at the same time can easily edit the documents to make it tailored to specific requirements without going off brand. One common mistake I see when looking at proposal documents is that resellers talk too much about themselves and their proposition and too little about its impact on the prospect.

Have a look at your last proposal documents and using the 'find' function count how many times you used your company name, 'we' and 'our'. My guess is way too many times for a document that is meant to be customer focused. Next time you are putting together a proposal, take a little extra time and change the focus from 'we do X' to 'you want to achieve Y', 'we can help by doing X'. Finally, try and use the word 'you' and the prospect's name more often than 'we' or your company name. This simple rule will stand you in good stead for much or your corporate collateral.

Nimans has announced its 4G wholesale tariffs from O2, and according to Head of Networks Mark Curtis-Wood 4G is a 'game changer' that will revolutionise how customers communicate via high capacity, high speed mobile connectivity.

"Future generations will view 4G as a watershed moment," he explained. "O2 has announced services will be live in 13 cities by the end of the year with London, Leeds and Bradford the first to be up and running at the end of August. O2's ambitious rollout plan means it is aiming for its 2G, 3G and 4G network to reach 98% of the UK population both indoor and outdoor up to two years earlier than the 2017 regulatory requirement."

By the end of the year, O2's 4G network will also be live in Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Sheffield, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Curtis-Wood added: "Over the last few months our channel team has been busy preparing to enable us to bill the 4G tariffs and provide the tools and support to help our customers drive new margin opportunities.

"I've been in the industry long enough to remember the launch of 2G and 3G and the changes made to the way we worked and the additional margin opportunity they created. However the launch of 4G is going to be a 'game changer' for our industry and the technology which will underpin our digital future.

"It will support our move into new mobility solutions such as cloud services, digital storage and real time security but also as people's general behaviour changes towards increased flexible working, social media and streaming of real time events and news.

"Mobile Internet is growing and this offers us huge opportunity across British business - from m-commerce to increased collaboration and helping businesses get closer to their customers. 4G will act as an enabler for more digital business. It's the connectivity that will improve and transform these experiences.

"4G could be used for mobile workers having their office in their pocket, saving costs from flexible working, or digital signage within the retail sector where 4G technologies will help to connect more. We'll be working with resellers and their customers over the coming months to bring these possibilities of 4G to life. It's a very exciting time and the dawning of a new era."

Softcat has achieved the Cisco Gold Partner Accreditation following a two year investment in training and resources.

Softcat's private and public sector customers will benefit from advanced technical support for Cisco's solutions across its four key architectures: networking, security, collaboration and data centre.

Doug Fawell, Softcat's Operations Director, said: "As one of the most challenging accreditations in the IT industry, this a landmark achievement for us. Rather than attaining Gold via the acquisition route, we've done it from the ground up through investment and training, and I believe this gives customers a greater level of assurance in our capabilities."

Softcat's MD Colin Brown said: "This really marks a departure from our beginnings as a licensing reseller. We're now perceived as an IT solution provider offering on-premise and cloud-based services."

Under 35s living in the north of Scotland are among the most patient people in the UK when it comes to customer service from brands, according to research from Aspect Software, which found that almost two thirds (65 per cent) of Brits have admitted to slamming down the phone in frustration at least once when talking to a call centre.

According to the study, which spoke to 1,000 UK consumers over the age of 16, people based in the north of Scotland and the Highlands are the most patient consumers across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In fact, only 38 per cent claimed to have hung up on a call centre agent.

Those of us living in the South East and London are overwhelmingly the most likely - 73 per cent - to confess to losing their temper with customer service departments in this way.

Further, those aged between 45 and 54 years old, and over 55 years old, are more than 10 per cent more likely to hang up than younger age groups, with those over 55 more than 20 per cent more likely to do so than those between 16 and 24 years old.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, people based in North Scotland and the Highlands are less likely to agree that chatting about interests or gossiping with call centre staff makes for a better experience with the brand, with only 17 per cent saying it always or usually enhances their experience.

It is in fact those in London that overwhelmingly agree that this is the case, with over half (51 per cent) saying that it usually or always makes them happier with the company in question. Curiously, it is males that respond more positively to small talk with a stranger, as 41 per cent agree that it always or usually enhances their experience, versus 30 per cent for females.

"What's interesting here is that while the further north you go within the UK, the less likely it is that people are losing their temper with poor call centre processes, but they're also less interested in whiling time away chatting small talk with the person trying to help them," said Sarah Pallett, Head of Marketing in Europe & Africa at Aspect.

"Perhaps it suggests those in London are more emotional when it comes to engaging with their favourite brands, are more likely to get frustrated when their query is going unresolved, or they're kept on hold for longer periods of time, but also love the personal touch of a one-on-one conversation that isn't necessarily about the issue in question.

"What it highlights is that the important factor in any customer service function for any organisation is the people. Brands need to strike a delicate balance between efficient and speedy processes in order to resolve customer queries first time, and adding a personalised service too. This is about using technology in the contact centre in the right way and supporting agents with their customer relations skills to leave customers satisfied and maintaining loyalty," she said.

Harrogate-based InTechnology has been confirmed as an approved supplier on the online Janet Telephony Purchasing Service (JTPS) which enables organisations connected to the Janet network to procure approved telephony and Unified Communications services from the firm.

Natalie Duffield, Sales Director at InTechnology Managed Services, said: "We are delighted to be one of the first three approved suppliers following the launch of the JTPS. Our proven competency, capability and experience have enabled us to meet Janet's stringent requirements and is a testament to our focus on delivering telephony services."

Atia Communications has achieved Microsoft Premier Support for Lync Partners (PSLP) accreditation.

As one of just four companies in the UK to attain PSLP accreditation, Atia has demonstrated its ability to deliver high quality support to Lync customers which addresses all aspects of a voice communication system including software, hardware, network, gateway, and system interoperability.

"With so few companies capable of attaining PSLP accreditation this really reflects Atia's deep understanding of the UC marketplace," said Steve Gandy, CEO of MeetingZone, which acquired Atia in March of this year.

"Atia's UC expertise will play a key role in helping MeetingZone to become a major European UC provider. Together we will meet the need for a trusted partner who can deliver a bridge of knowledge between UC solutions and an understanding of traditional enterprise telephony environments."

Patrick Copping, General Manager for Atia, added: "Atia had already attained Microsoft Gold Communications Competency and our PSLP accreditation is further validation that Atia has the expertise and skill set to help our channel partners and end users successfully deploy UC solutions."

Virtual1 ha expanded its SIP Exchange following a link-up with Voiceflex, the London-based provider of voice and data solutions to the channel.

Launched by Virtual1 in 2011, the SIP Exchange provides access to the solutions of multiple UK SIP providers via a secure, ring-fenced area on the Virtual1 core.

The infrastructure allows customers to avoid both the need for upfront investment and for long term contracts with a single provider, removing the traditional barriers to SIP migration.

Voiceflex Sales Director Paul Taylor said: "Our decision to join the SIP Exchange was an easy one as we have been working with Virtual1 for some time.

"SIP is now an established product, however without quality connectivity SIP and hosted telephony will fail. Virtual1 deliver calls directly to our platform and not over the open Internet, enabling QOS to be established end to end."

Tom O'Hagan, Managing Director at Virtual1, added: "Virtual1 is committed to providing choice and freedom to our partners and their customers, so that they can build their solution, their way."