Comms Dealer

The Phone Co-op has formed a partnership with social teleconferencing charity Community Network.

Transferring the telephone conferencing service to The Phone Co-op will enable Community Network to concentrate on its charitable work using teleconferencing as a tool to bring lonely and isolated people together, while allowing The Phone Co-op to expand the range of services it provides.

The co-operative will be offering the specialist conference call service, which includes HD video conferencing, and a premium operator-managed service, to its new and existing business customers.

Vivian Woodell, Chief Executive of The Phone Co-op, said: "We are delighted to be working closely with Community Network in a way which will benefit all of our customers and clients, and help both organisations to focus on their strategic objectives.

"This approach builds upon The Phone Co-op's long tradition of working closely with organisations which share our values. The Phone Co-op and Community Network have been working together in a number of ways for many years and we are now deepening this relationship through our new partnership."

Under the terms of the new partnership, Community Network's conferencing services will be co-branded with The Phone Co-op's The Co-operative Business Telecoms brand, and Community Network will receive a share of the revenue from customers who have transferred and also from new customer recruited by Community Network.

Community Network has provided teleconferencing services to the Third Sector since 1990 as a way to fund and support its charitable work, befriending groups that use telephone conferencing to help socially isolated and vulnerable people.

These groups offer a lifeline to people who need emotional support, increasing their sense of belonging and positively impacting on their self-confidence, physical health and well-being.

ICT distributor Micro-P has appointed Toshiba's former Distribution Sales Account Manager, Sarah Potter, to the role of B2B Business Development Manager. Potter takes responsibility for developing and executing Micro-P's overall business to business strategy within its Computing Division.
 
Micor-P says Potter will focus on developing Micro-P's business within its key accounts as well as focusing specific attention on increasing its presence within the business to business channel.  She will work closely with Micro-P's strategic vendors and also takes responsibility for tailoring Micro-P's market proposition to maximise sales opportunities and grow market share within each of its key strategic vendor partners.
 
Potter commented: "This is an exciting time to join the Micro-P team as the business continues to outperform the market. I'm looking forward to the challenge of developing and executing Micro-P's overall business to business strategy within its Computing Division, as this is one of the most dynamic and fast-moving sectors of the IT market."

Ingram Micro (UK) resellers have been given a platform to diversify and transform their business in line with new technologies and evolving market requirements, according to Julian Thompson (pictured), Senior Director, Ingram Micro Sales and Advanced Solutions, who is leading a new division in the UK.

The firm has invested heavily in new technical services and enablement programmes that also enable the distributor to build a more robust enterprise business, and Thompson says Advanced Solutions represents a 'huge step forward' for Ingram Micro.

"Employing the right balance of specialisation and scale, with a partner strategy focused on meeting business customers' evolving technology consumptions needs and preferences, has effectively positioned Ingram Micro as a new VAD for a new channel," commented Thompson.

"Ingram Micro Advanced Solutions offers its VAR, managed service provider, and integrator partners solutions in these major categories: data centre, network infrastructure, unified communications, cloud services, enterprise applications, professional services, and IT life cycle management.

To enable growth for the evolving business models of its reseller partner community in these areas, Ingram Micro has announced significant advancements in technical capabilities and channel development services supported by increased vendor expertise, specifically with the recent achievement of Cisco Accreditations and Microsoft Cloud specialisations.

Ingram Micro has also announced that several leadership changes have been put in place to further facilitate specialisation and business unit agility which allows the company to meet the accelerating needs of its partners and the broader IT market.

Martin Bannister has been given the responsibility to drive strategic sales initiatives through existing and new partners within the Advanced Solutions segments.

Concurrently, Apay Obang-Oyway assumes leadership of the newly launched Ingram Micro Services Division. In this role he takes responsibility for the continuing growth of Ingram Micro's enterprise software and cloud business in addition to a broader portfolio of channel-facing professional services, managed services, and training services.

Thompson added: "Our objective is to enable our reseller partner community by better understanding their needs and aspirations and in response, creating new opportunities around advanced and integrated technologies."

Former Avnet director John Toal has been named as Sales and Marketing Director for Onyx Group, a UK provider of data centres and IT infrastructure.

He said: "Onyx Group has a wide range of both local and national high profile clients and I can't wait to continue the tradition of working alongside some of the best and most established companies in the UK.

"I am joining at what is a very exciting time for Onyx. With an ever growing product portfolio and the recent investment into our infrastructure, skills and service offering, the company is in a strong position."

The largest international strategic communication survey in the world shows that UK businesses are lagging behind some of their key competitors when it comes to communicating with European neighbours. 
 
The survey finds that nearly a third of UK businesses fail to see communication with Euro' markets as important and, therefore, only 46% report that their organization has solid structures in place for international communication.  
 
These findings come against a backdrop of widespread recognition that international communication is now more important than ever.  In the survey 72.5 per cent of more than 2,700 communication professionals polled in 43 countries by a research group of professors from 11 renowned universities, said communicating internationally will become much more important within the next three years.  In the UK, this view was shared by 70.2 per cent of communication professionals, but only 47.2% say they communicate internationally on a regular basis.
 
"With communications and a global perspective each being such a critical part of a successful business, it's alarming to find that less than half of UK companies are in a regular dialogue with people beyond their borders," explained Denise Kaufmann, partner and CEO of global PR consultancy Ketchum London which has supported the study.  
 
"Enlightened companies are putting in place the structures and capacity now, to take advantage of both fast growing global economies  and the substantial market potential on the UK's doorstep.  Despite economic difficulties, the EU remains a vital market for the UK and typically, a first step towards broader international trading." added Kaufmann.

Call recording and workforce management specialist Sinclair Voicenet  has been named Partner of the Year by NICE Systems. 

The award was presented at the company's EMEA Business Partners Sales Summit 2013 year in Budapest, Hungary.

"We are delighted to have been recognised as NICE Systems' top Partner across the EMEA region as this confirms our position as the UK's leading provider of innovative interaction recording solutions and associated applications that set new standards for business excellence and client satisfaction," commented Sinclair Voicenet Director Peter Gough.

Over the last twelve months, East Kilbride based Sinclair Voicenet has opened a new office in Greater Manchester and built a technical server laboratory which will be used to stage the increasing number of large and complex implementations.  The company  has also recruited additional staff, including marketing and field service specialists as well as pre-sales and project management consultants.

South Lakes Housing (SLH) has undergone an overhaul of its ICT systems, completed by managed services and cloud computing specialist Intrinsic Technology.
 
The project followed the relocation of SLH's headquarters, and saw the installation of a new LAN, WAN and telephony infrastructure. The work succeeded in giving the housing association complete ICT independence from South Lakeland District Council.
 
Adam Jarvis, CEO at Intrinsic Technology said: "This project illustrated the efficiencies that can be achieved when an entire infrastructure is designed holistically. We have a wealth of experience partnering with registered providers, so we were well placed to advise and implement a cutting-edge system tailored to SLH's needs. "
 
Based on the latest Cisco technology, the new resilient LAN has delivered improved network access forstaff, while the Avaya telephony system has led to improved staff collaboration and customer service.
 
The WAN links all the organisation's key sites by a fibre and private broadband. This includes SLH's sheltered housing schemes, supporting its digital inclusion policy. 
 
Underpinning the entire infrastructure will be Fusion, Intrinsic's managed services offering. Once implemented, Fusion will proactively monitor the new infrastructure, ensuring that SLH's ICT is available 24x7 by identifying and responding to any issues before they impact on the availability of services.
 
Lindsay Simons, director of finance at SLH, commented: "The relocation of our headquarters provided us with the perfect platform to overhaul and transform our ICT, and Intrinsic has been the ideal partner to see us through that process. 
 
"We've seen improvements both internally and in terms of tenant experience. The on-going support from Intrinsic has provided an extra layer of security, so we can get on with serving our tenants with the knowledge that our ICT systems will be running smoothly."  

Satellite broadband provider BroadbandEverywhere has joined forces with global satellite operator SES to launch a superfast broadband service based on SES Broadband Services, offering high speed Internet even where traditional ADSL fails to reach, claims the firm.

SES Broadband Services provides reliable and secure satellite communications solutions to broadcast, telecom, corporate and government customers worldwide.

Launched by IT and technology sales company Box in June 2013, BroadbandEverywhere can provide up to 20 Mbit per second download speeds to customers, suitable for areas where there is no, or slow standard ADSL broadband services.
 
"BroadbandEverywhere frees users from the limitations of terrestrial Internet connections and brings fast, reliable broadband, anywhere," stated Jason Fernyhough of BroadbandEverywhere.  

"It enables high-speed Internet without a phone line or mobile dongle, unaffected by landscape. If broadband is required at the top of a mountain, in the middle of a field, or simply living in a rural hamlet - this is the perfect service.
 
"With BroadbandEverywhere you can stop living in the dark ages. With your own static UK IP address you can access all the sites that you've never been able to use because they require fast download speeds - such as BBC iPlayer, Netflix and more. We can even fit special dishes to motorhomes and caravans which, along with the UK IP address, means you can always access UK sites such as the BBC without issue, wherever you are."
 
Patrick Biewer, Managing Director of SES Broadband Services, said: "Having launched our new high speed broadband service earlier this year we are vey pleased with the demand already being seen in the market. BroadbandEverywhere has packaged the offering competitively and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship."

SIP and hosted carrier tIPicall has unveiled an enhanced hosted PBX offering called OnePBX and a sister project, MobiPBX, offering hosted seats as a mobile application.

Both services are built inside tIPicall's SIP environment and integrate with its SIP trunk and international numbering services.

Guy Miller, Head of Hosted Services, said: "When we approached this project we looked at the problems with the UK hosted market and identified three key areas for improvement.

"Firstly, a reliance on one main system manufacturer among most of the top resellers means there is little differentiation outside price for resellers.

"Secondly the systems typically don't give enough control to the client leading to frustration and increased support overheads for the reseller. And thirdly, the systems are too complicated to manage effectively with multiple portals and a painful provisioning process. We have solved all three of these issues."

According to Miller every employee wants the latest smartphone and employers are not willing to spend this much money each time, therefore users end up with two phones, business and personal and two contracts are being paid for.

"With MobiPBX, businesses can load an app on the users own smartphone and allow them to make and receive business calls in working hours all charged back to the company, whether they have good data coverage or not. This is a huge cost saver," added Miller.

OnePBX and MobiPBX are available to UK channel now and include white labeled versions and the ability for distributors to add their own reseller channel to the service.

SIP services can be delivered with the product allowing free on-net calling between SIP trunks, hosted seats and mobile users. International numbers can also be delivered to hosted seats and auto-provisioning services mean that handsets can be ordered direct from distribution for next day delivery and be truly plug and play.

Liquid Voice has launched an upgrade to its Enterprise Call Recording platform that integrates real-time speech recognition, analytics and dashboard reporting to help organisations meet compliance, coaching and customer experience drivers.

"The last few years has seen a great deal of progress in natural speech recognition engines, fuelled in part by more powerful processors and demand from the consumer sector," says Andy Barrett, Technical Director for Liquid Voice. "Our aim with the new version is to integrate all this technology into a contact centre environment where it can be used effectively to speed up processes such as complaint call detection, FSA compliance and effective agent training."

The new 6.4 update to the Liquid Voice Enterprise Call Recording platform will include a number of optional features including deep integration with the AVAYA voice recognition engine and an automated tagging engine able to recognise user programmable phrases based around key business issues.

The new version also includes a real-time Dashboard to display key metrics and overall trends.

"The new Dashboard goes beyond simple call durations and activity by allowing users to create the interface using a simple graphical editor and that includes actionable information gleaned from Speech Analytics and other third party applications," explains Barrett.

"For example, if you are in a regulated industry that requires certain phrases be repeated to callers, the speech engine can detect when these have not been delivered and tag them for later inspection. Another example could include the automatic detection of a complaint call which can be flagged in real-time on the Dashboard or trigger an alert to a line manager."

The new Dashboard developed in Microsoft Silverlight uses a standard SQL database and provides integration points into third party applications to allow organisations to build unique views suitable for their own contact centre environments.

Liquid Voice has also added a coaching feature to allow calls to be saved, annotated and shared for training purposes. The platform can also manage the process of distributing this teaching material through tracked links which also ensure that the recipient of the coaching material have listened to the entire call or the relevant portion. This system avoids the need to send sensitive material and large audio files over email which may travel outside of the control of the organisation.

"We have spent many months working on the new version and gathered feedback on many of the features from a number of beta customers," added Barrett. "The goal of this upgrade is to allow organisations to start adopting voice recognition in a way that provides real and identifiable business benefits. For example, one of our customers has a policy where each complaint call must be reviewed by a manager to ensure proper procedures have been followed.

"The Speech Analytics engine can effectively detect and queue the most relevant portions of the call more effectively than any equivalent manual process with a high degree of accuracy. In this case, the customer reported that a single manager can check three times as many calls in any given time period."