Comms Dealer

South West Communications Group has become the fastest growing new ShoreTel reseller in the EMEA region outside North America since launching with the vendor in June 2012.

The Exeter-based reseller made the decision to introduce the ShoreTel brilliantly simple unified communications (UC) platform to enhance its existing product portfolio in June 2012, in order to address the contact centre and mobility needs of its customers and prospects.

Since then, South West Communications Group has successfully secured the sale of more than £500,000 of ShoreTel products for deployment to a range of UK companies, including paint and wallpaper producers Farrow & Ball, toy manufacturers TOMY and Bradley's estate agents.

Adrian Hipkiss, EMEA vice president and managing director at ShoreTel, commented: "South West Communications Group's adoption of the ShoreTel product family has been remarkable, as the sales figures prove. We believe South West Communications Group will go from strength to strength and will continue to flourish as one of the leading ShoreTel resellers in the UK."

South West Communications Group has invested heavily into the skills and knowledge needed to sell, install and support their customer needs, fulfilled with ShoreTel's UC solutions. This delivers the highest levels of customer satisfaction and return on investment.

South West Communications Group is currently a ShoreTel Silver Partner with sales staff and technical staff trained and accredited to the same level as a Gold Partner, achieving certification in design, architecture, and demonstration skills. Engineering staff have unified communications, IP telephony, contact centre and mobility accreditation.

Sarah Flowers, sales director of South West Communications Group, said: "We have wholeheartedly embraced the ShoreTel platform and our sales figures confirm that customers have welcomed our decision."

Kcom has become a Blackberry Strategic Partner following a period of collaboration with BlackBerry since 2005 to deliver a range of mobile solutions.

Kcom has deployed BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS) since 2011, a solution which unifies office phone functionality with mobile voice communications to provide customers with one business phone number, one caller ID and one voice mailbox through BlackBerry smartphones.

Sally Fuller, Director of Strategic Propositions at Kcom, says: "We're delighted that Kcom has become a Strategic Partner in the BlackBerry Partner Programme. We have a number of customers who are considering the best way to drive the BYOD agenda within their organisation and through the BlackBerry Partner Programme, we are able to showcase how the full breadth of BlackBerry's enterprise mobility solutions can best address the needs of our customers' business."

Mobile airtime provider Daisy Distribution is providing its partners with affordable MiFi dongles to showcase the high speed capability of the EE network.

The Huawei e776 MiFi device, which allows the creation of a personal 4G network to which multiple devices can connect, is available to partners to demonstrate how the 4GEE proposition can work within a customer's office.

Daisy Distribution is offering its partners the chance to take a subsidised solution on a 24-month term with a view to underwriting some of the costs and partial use of airtime to boost the purchase of its MiFi devices. In addition, the partner will receive 50% of the device's trade cost back.

Julien Parven, Marketing Director of Daisy Distribution commented: "We are witnessing exponential growth in our EE numbers as it becomes more and more established. However, with greater understanding of the offering and its strengths, we believe the take-up of 4G could see a considerate rise.

"With this new offer, we are hoping to stimulate sales for our 4G products and give our partners an incentive to sell the MiFi device and its capability. By providing an affordable demonstration device, our partners have an opportunity to show their customers, first-hand, that 4G speeds can be up to four times faster than that of a standard fibre optic broadband solution."

Provider of cloud-based contract and credit management applications ccapps has bolstered its management team with three key hires.

The move builds on the firm's presence in the IT and telecoms sector and its successful deployments with a growing range of vendors, channel partners and funding providers.

Paul Cunningham has been appointed Business Development Director with overall responsibility for ccapps' sales and marketing activities.

Prior to joining ccapps he was engaged as an independent consultant by a number of UK and US software vendors and channel organisations, having previously held senior business development management positions with Westcon Group, Comstor, BMC Software and Oracle Corporation.

Mario De'Cristofano joins as Technical Director and is tasked with defining and delivering ccapps' core products and integration services in support of the company's expanding customer and project base. De'Cristofano was previously Technical Lead at Server Centre, a provider of software and cloud systems and services.

Jenna Forbes has been appointed as Business Development Manager for ccapps' growing Client Services team, which provides a complete outsourcing solution for vendor and channel partner finance operations. Sher was previously Senior Account Manager for BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions.

HENLEY based service provider New Star Networks has hit a £3m turnover in just 28 months after moving exclusively into hosted solutions.

Managing Director Mark Shraga says the success is down to the popularity of NSN's next generation iPBX platform coupled with easy to use data pricing tools.

"Our growth has exceeded all expectations and we are setting a standard of excellence in the channel that I have personally been striving for since entering the telecoms industry 14 years ago."

Operations Director Nick Shraga commented: "We are confident resellers won't get a better experience in the market today in terms of pricing, efficiency and delivery. Partners and customers are enjoying the NSN experience and are delighted with the full spectrum of services we can provide across the SME space."

Due to its positive trading results ahead of plan, NSN is extending its support beyond the day-to-day interests of the business to The Sunshine Children's Charity in the form of sponsoring one of its partners on a charity bike ride to Monaco.

"We plan to focus on more charities over the course of the year and we are also planning an awesome Partner Incentive to both New York and South Africa's Sun City," added Mark Shraga.

Six Degrees Group has raised £12,400 for charity HOPEHIV at the company's annual pub quiz held at the Loose Cannon pub. The event drew in over 100 suppliers, partners and staff who joined forces to make the event a fundraising success.

Six Degrees of Hope, the company's CSR programme was launched in October 2011 to support the charity HOPEHIV which helps children and young people in sub-Saharan Africa who have been orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS. The cause aims to help and lead change in families, communities and countries for a better life. In less than two years, 6DG has raised over £93,000.

Alastair Mills, CEO, Six Degrees Group, said: "I am delighted by the number of suppliers who took part alongside our staff and dug deep last week. While everyone had great fun with our model-building challenges and quirky quiz questions, it also gave us the opportunity to raise a huge amount of money for HOPEHIV.

"It is a privilege to support this fantastic charity and several of our staff have seen first hand what great work they do out in Africa."

HQ move integrates new communications infrastructure enabling a mobile workforce and enhanced support for tens of thousands of young people this year

Youth charity The Prince's Trust is implementing a new communications as part of its new London HQ.

The Trust is working with Siemens Enterprise Communications to drive workforce efficiency and implement new ways of mobile working. This will help enhance the support the charity which has helped more than 700,000 young people over the last 35 years and continues to support over 100 people every day.

The Prince's Trust, a charity set up by HRH The Prince of Wales, helps disadvantaged 13-30-year-olds gain the skills and confidence they need to move into work or training. The Trust is increasing its support for young people at a time of high youth unemployment. The use of a unified communications (UC) platform provides the required flexibility, mobility and security to serve the young people that rely on The Trust's support.

The Siemens Enterprise Communications UC system, OpenScape Office LX, enables one number contact, user presence and enhanced voicemail capabilities - automatically connecting to the most appropriate device - no matter user location. The myPortal user interface, a feature of the OpenScape Office package, allows mobile employees to interact with the communications network through a graphic user interface, and integrate contacts.

Employees now have real-time access to data on the move and on any device - enabling The Trust to operate a truly mobile and constantly productive team. The platform allows users to access all employees' location and diary through a single PC, with callers given real-time information enabling them to leave more informative and actionable messages for staff.

The communications infrastructure completely replaces the existing telephone network and was implemented in four days by Siemens Enterprise Communications' accredited partner Active Voice and Data. The initial roll out will cater for the 300 strong team based at the London HQ with plans in place to implement the system to over 60 offices and 2000 Trust employees, volunteers, and partners.

Gordon Mead, Deputy Director of IT at The Prince's Trust, says: "The move to a new HQ with an entirely new communications infrastructure - from new handsets to new switches - highlights the invaluable support Siemens Enterprise Communications has continued to provide us with. With a 'train the trainer' programme in place, our mobile workforce is more productive than ever. The Trust has avoided any office downtime in the move and now has the infrastructure in place to drive growth and make substantial cost savings moving forwards."

Trevor Connell, Managing Director, Region West, Siemens Enterprise Communications, says: "This is a significant project with a renowned UK charity to deliver an extensive and forward thinking communications infrastructure. The deployment of OpenScape Office will provide The Prince's Trust with the flexibility and mobility its workforce requires, while significantly improving the efficiency of its communications infrastructure.

"An increasing number of The Trust's staff are now required to be mobile throughout the day. They need to remain visible to colleagues and be responsive to the young people they work with. Our UC technology will greatly enhance their ability to work collaboratively while providing a service that will motivate and support the one in five young people in the UK not in work, education or training."

Business communications provider Daisy Group has been awarded the highest level of channel reseller accreditation by Mitel.

Daisy is one of only a handful of organisations in the UK to achieve signaturePARTNER status, which recognises excellence in product delivery and burgeoning sales capability.

Daisy has invested heavily in training through the Mitel Engineering Accreditation Scheme (MEAS), which is designed to promote and recognise engineer product competency as part of the Mitel PARTNERprogram. Through MEAS, a Daisy engineer has recently qualified as the first Mitel Certified Specialist (MCS) in the UK.

Lee Hunwick, Head of Corporate Engineering at Daisy, commented: "Our relationship with Mitel is stronger than ever and we are delighted to become a signaturePARTNER.

"This is a huge achievement for Daisy and a testament to the commitment and dedication of our sales and engineering teams which have worked so hard to meet the tough criteria set out by Mitel for this award."

Graham Bevington, EVP International Markets at Mitel, said: "Simply saying you're good at something is one thing, but Daisy has gone the extra mile to actually prove they are good at what they do. Reaching signaturePARTNER status is no mean feat and it's great to see the team at Daisy affirm its knowledge and skillset with this award."

BT Retail is to split into two separate businesses, BT Consumer and BT Business. The move will take effect from September.

The split will enable the company to better serve its customers and focus even more on delivering its strategic priorities. These include 'Driving broadband-based consumer services' and 'Being the brand for business for UK SMEs'.

The CEO of BT Consumer will be John Petter, currently managing director of the Consumer unit within BT Retail. The CEO of BT Business will be Graham Sutherland, currently managing director of the Business unit within BT Retail.

Both currently report into Gavin Patterson and they will continue to do so when he takes over from Ian Livingston as BT Group Chief Executive in September. Both will join BT's Operating Committee on 1 September 2013.

BT Retail currently comprises four customer-facing units. These are BT Consumer, BT Business (which supplies SMEs), BT Enterprises (which consists of BT Conferencing, BT Payphones, BT Directories, BT Fleet, BT Wi-fi, BT Redcare, BT Expedite and Fresca, and BT Tikit) and BT Ireland.

BT Enterprises and BT Ireland will merge with BT Business to form the new BT Business division while BT Wi-fi and the consumer part of BT Ireland will transfer to BT Consumer.

Gavin Patterson BT Retail CEO, said today: "BT Retail has delivered well for many years now contributing strong profits to the group.

"It is time however for the business to be split in two given the intensely competitive nature of the consumer market and our strong ambitions in the business space. John and Graham are excellent leaders and I have every confidence they will take the fight to the competition and help BT to grow in the future."

John Petter, MD Consumer, said: "I am thrilled to be given this opportunity. BT is in a four way tussle with Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk for broadband customers and we are at the start of an exciting journey with BT Sport. There has never been a better time to be a consumer and we plan to up the ante in the coming years."

Graham Sutherland, MD Business, said: "Small and medium sized businesses are the life blood of the economy and they are central to our plans. BT Business has a rich set of services and the combination with BT Enterprises and BT Ireland, both fantastic businesses, will help us to grow. It is a pleasure to take on this role at such an exciting time."

Chess has staged its annual Summer Conference at the Manchester Printworks where its 230 strong team filled an entire screen.

The movie inspired conference saw Chess' Senior Management hit the stage to outline the businesses successes in 2013 and their strategy for the rest of the year.

Chess Chief Executive David Pollock said: "2013 has been an outstanding year for us so far. We've been re-listed as a Sunday Times Best Company, completed five major acquisitions and hired another 35 people taking our head count to over 220.

"The success we've achieved over the last few years has been down to our people and their commitment to our business, tirelessly going above and beyond for our customers.

"We challenge ourselves every day to be the best of the best and the conference outlined our ambitions for the rest of the year and how we're going to do it."

Chess also gave away three holidays as part of their Gimme5 competition. Andrew Slater, who works in the Sales Support team at Chess, won the grand prize of a £2,500 international holiday to a destination of his choice (pictured above with Chess CEO David Pollock).