Comms Dealer

Gamma's Daryl Pile has pledged to elevate the company's partner strategy following his promotion to the role of Channel Managing Director in September.

The incoming channel chief took up the mantle following a 13 year stint at Gamma, and the move is the latest development in a 20 year career working in the comms channel in a variety of senior business development roles. With his feet now firmly under the table Pile wasted no time in reaffirming his commitment to Gamma's guiding principles - listen to partners, innovate, develop and deliver. "It's a simple philosophy," he stated. "Gamma has always been channel-centric. It was true yesterday, it's true today and it'll be true tomorrow. With the vast majority of our revenues coming from resellers, it allows us to plan and develop our services specifically for the channel, often designed nearly completely by our channel partners."

Pile's observations on how Gamma has developed over recent years is as much a story about the channel's ability to adapt and evolve with the times. "During my time at Gamma the biggest change I've seen is the number and breadth of products our channel partners are now selling," he added. "In the early days it was all about cheap minutes and diallers. I remember when wholesale line rental and dial up Internet access were cutting edge. As the market has evolved, partners have expanded their portfolios to meet the increasingly complex voice, data and mobility requirements of today's businesses. Now, partners provide a variety of VoIP, cloud and SaaS solutions. Suppliers such as Gamma are investing in making these next generation products and services easy for the channel to sell. Markets once reserved for the most sophisticated channel partners are now far more accessible."

He also noted that on the supplier side there's a diminished list of specialists whose business models are focused on, and depend on the channel, as opposed to suppliers who attempt to address the channel as a secondary target. "I believe that in a market as competitive as ours a channel partner's success hinges on working with suppliers that have a channel-centric focus, where products and roadmaps are designed to give the channel an edge," commented Pile. "Secondly, it's clear that end users want an increased number of services from one supplier, while partners do not want an unsustainable increase in the number of trading relationships and service platforms."

According to Pile, the channel partners that prosper most are those that invest in becoming early adopters of new solutions. "They gain a sales and operational head start that helps them to sweep up the low hanging fruit," he added. "Those who focus only on 'the today' end up entering a much more mature and competitive landscape running like topsy to catch up. It's also important for partners to have a clear understanding of where their strengths lie and the value they add. Partners who concentrate on these aspects as they develop their sales strategies, target markets and verticals tend to progress most quickly.

"Most importantly, resellers who have the right people, in the right culture, incentivised for the long haul usually build a successful environment. As this gains momentum it usually attracts more successful people and the whole scenario becomes self-fulfilling. It's one of the pillars of our success at Gamma."

The biggest challenge for resellers moving into voice is the heritage of what many voice-centric channel partners take for granted, but has in fact taken years to build up through their experience of indirect access, CPS and WLR, observed Pile. "These represent an enormous service, provisioning, billing and tariff knowledge base that, compared to those uninitiated in the finer arts of voice, are a huge competitive advantage," he stated.

The next five years will be an interesting time for the channel, believes Pile. "It will prosper," he said. "We'll see data services increase in both capability and quality but continue to decrease in cost. This will drive a growing number of available services in a hosted flavour and will be key in making them more competitive. We'll also see network-based convergence in fixed voice and mobile become a reality. At the same time, voice will become a mere application of the respective data service, and suppliers that are early entrants will gain a significant foothold and quickly gain a larger share of the customer spend. Over time more and more millennials will move into decision making positions. They are inclined to embrace the latest technologies with an expectation that things just work, in the office, on the move, at home, seamlessly.

"As the services we provide become more complex it's Gamma's responsibility to ensure channel partners are properly trained, equipped and adorned with all the tools and knowledge they need to effectively sell, provision and support our products to their absolute best ability, either as a whole or as part of the solution they deliver. Continuing to automate the mundane, streamline provisioning processes and put real-time support tools into the hands of our partners drives sustained gains in their efficiency, a better experience for their customers and ultimately a benefit to all of our bottom lines."

Reflecting on the past five years at Gamma, Pile recalled several products that have gone from relative obscurity to mainstream market via a loyal army of channel partners. "The frightening thing is we know we can do better in many areas," he added. "There are some obvious priorities around driving sales activity, particularly in the latest product innovations coming down the track while maintaining an acceleration in the uptake of our hosted and SIP portfolios. However, it's in the on-boarding, ongoing training and improved partner support systems that we must continue to advance as part of what we call being easy to do business with."•

Placing innovation and diversity at the centre of all strategic campaigns is the only way to compete and survive in a fiercely competitive market, according to Silver Lining Convergence Managing Director Allan Packer.

A combination of self-belief and the strong influence of previous work experiences, leadership mentors and company cultures set Packer on the road to building a successful and creative business with long-term viability. His career began on the Isle of Wight after leaving college at 18 to become a telemarketer. Three years later, following redundancy, he joined Sotel which was opening a call centre on the island. "I was interviewed by Dave Bramley," recalled Packer. "He was one of the owners and a great guy. I said to him, 'I am prepared to work hard, I just want an opportunity at making something of myself'."

Having secured the position, Packer soon made his mark and became the number one telemarketer every month, at the same time showing an equal zest to learn more about the technology, products and services. "I loved the spirit of the company, it had a great ethos," he stated. "Dave Bramley and Jim Thatcher were great leaders with vision and they made everyone feel valued and part of something special. That has stuck with me all these years, and I have always felt that if I can emulate that in my business, everything else will follow."

Aiming to replicate this model, take control and turn ambition into action Packer set up Fareham-based Silver Lining Convergence in 2007 with two friends. "I was frustrated with the job I was in at the time and wanted to do things my way," he stated "I guess I wasn't destined to be an employee for ever and had to be in control of my own destiny despite the country being in the absolute pit of a recession. My friends and family thought it was crazy, but my wife supported and encouraged me to do what I thought was right.

"We started out in an industrialised unit in Gosport. Whenever we were tempted by new offices we managed to differentiate between sanity and vanity and invested the money in people instead. Once we had grown to a certain point, we knew it was time to relocate for both the image of the business but also for the wellbeing of our people. An opportunity arose for us to move into a great building locally called The Granary. It has lots of character, loads of parking, great outdoor space, it's well located and a great environment for everyone to work in. Moving to our new offices in June 2015 was a significant milestone for us."

Packer took an early view that for Silver Lining to be master of its own destiny he needed to create a true converged solutions provider of both communications and IT services. "Working with partners for IT support and services just wasn't effective," he stated. "This is important as the market is evolving at such a rate and the risk of attrition of traditional telecoms revenues is getting ever greater."

Silver Lining provides managed voice, IT, data and mobile solutions to businesses, focusing on managed services, creative solutions and customised products and services. "We aim to organically grow our business through the diversification and evolution of our portfolio," added Packer. "We are currently focused on PCI compliance solutions and comprehensive enterprise hybrid cloud solutions. There is an opportunity to drive innovation in the way cloud services are served to both resellers and customers, so we created our new Revolution Cloud platform. We have spent the last two years on planning, building and commercial modelling. Over the next three months we are launching our new cloud offering in stages and everyone from our technical guys, to sales, operations and even some of our partners are so excited about it."

Where others have rushed to market and failed, Packer believes that the groundwork done over the last two years provides a springboard for growth. "We talk about cloud in a far more comprehensive way than many of our competitors," he stated. "We are looking to provide an entire suite of services from the connection to the desktop, back up, compliance, voice and much more. We are looking to deliver this securely from a single managed platform with guaranteed performance and service ."

Another turning point in the context of this strategy was bringing onboard a new business partner and investor, Peter Appleton. "As we drive the business down a more converged communications path focusing on becoming a true converged solution provider with our own ISP and cloud offering, we really benefit from Peter's expertise in the ISP and cloud arena," added Packer.

The company currently employs 40 staff and generates £7 million-plus revenues. In financial year 2013 Silver Lining generated £2.6 million turnover but the introduction of new cloud services and PCI solutions significantly catalysed revenues to over £6 million in 2014. "With rapid growth comes a variety of expansion challenges," added Packer. "One of our big issues is getting the extra skills and resource we need. Recruitment can be a slow process. Our strategy has been to demonstrate that we have something exciting and new to work on, and that captures the interest and imagination of candidates."

The main strands of Packer's growth strategy are working with partners to speed up Silver Lining's route to market. "As a small business we have historically relied on referral and word of mouth for us to penetrate the market," he said. "We are now focusing more heavily on targeted event-based marketing activities and partner procurement. We see the partner channel route as being a major part of our strategy for growth over the next two to three years."

Packer also wants to enhance the company's position within its base as a managed solutions provider, which is partly why he was an early innovator of PCI solutions. "This helped us achieve significant growth and also opened up a number of doors into some great new opportunities," he commented. "It also demonstrated to our customers and our staff that innovation and diversity is good for both growth and security in the business."

In terms of diversity, if Packer finds a gap in the market he will try to fill it creatively. "We recently started providing TVs and Wi-Fi to hotels," he explained. "However, we wanted to do it better so developed our own hospitality TV and Wi-Fi controller based solution. There will undoubtedly be more gaps in the market that come to light and as they do we will work to fill them. We are technically led and excited by the potential of evolving and customising technology. This approach leads us by referral into some exciting opportunities whether it be providing cloud services to the NHS or developing a completely new emergency communications system for the RNLI."

Packer also monitors regulatory changes in the industry to determine his innovation strategy. "Two years ago regulatory changes steered us to PCI, more recently we are launching some new lone worker solutions that we have designed and developed in house," he explained. "If you can make problem solving easy and affordable everyone is a winner. Having our own development team and constantly trying to be aware of the challenges our customers face helps us to define which solutions we invest time and money into developing."

Packer is also keeping a close eye on commodity attrition, as many of the commodities that telecoms businesses have relied upon such as call and data revenue are declining: Bandwidth pricing is constantly reducing, most inbound revenue is moving from higher value mediums such as 0800 and 084x to lower value 033 or even back to geographic numbers. And outbound call charges are disappearing with the introduction of low cost calls on SIP and call packages on SIP trunks.

"This means we have to focus on diversifying our products and constantly evolving to ensure that we have solutions and value added propositions to both maintain commodity income but also diversify away from it," he commented.

According to Packer, if resellers don't evolve to offer true value add they are likely to go 'extinct'. "A lot of businesses are jumping on the bandwagon of hosted voice, but these revenues are already at risk and resellers are going to have to innovate and diversify to maintain revenues and profitability in a market that is becoming ever more challenging," he commented. "Ultimately, we will see less resellers, but those that survive will be offering more creative and bespoke solutions."

Packer rates his ability to read the market and constantly evolve as his biggest achievement. "If we had sat back after a couple of years and patted ourselves on the back we wouldn't be where we are today," he said. "Diversifying our business into PCI, IT and eventually cloud has given us an edge. It involved a significant investment and was risky at the time, but worth it."•

 Cradlepoint has big growth plans in EMEA and the man spearheading its channel expansion campaign is Hubert Da Costa, Vice President of EMEA, whose career path and industry experience dovetails neatly with the US-based company's expanding global ambitions.

Da Costa's IT career began in 1998 at Symbol Technologies, followed by a move to Juniper, then Avaya and Sonus Networks before dovetailing with Cradlepoint. Individually, Da Costa's biggest career achievement is winning his first one million dollar deal at Symbol. "Just as important is the time I spent in major companies under the tutelage of some world class leaders," he added. "This has given me the equivalent of a working MBA. My career experience has enabled me to touch every aspect of the networking mobility world, and I have brought all of this together at Cradlepoint."

He is gunning for Cradlepoint to become a global leader in software defined wireless WAN solutions to the distributed and mobile enterprise. And 15 months into the his EMEA expansion campaign Da Costa remains focused on the company's biggest opportunity - verticalisation of the business through localisation. "We will continue our investment in the channel and our vertical approach in the market," he explained. "Channel expansion has been a challenge that we've worked to address via a two tier route to market. We aim to double our EMEA business within vertical and horizontal markets year-on-year over the next five years."

Cradlepoint is currently investing $4 million in EMEA expansion and plans to grow at 80-plus per cent next year, increasing the team by eight in continental Europe to support the expansion it made into the ME region this summer. Incremental roles will be marketing, sales, channel, technical and business development focused. "We have developed a platform for growth through a 100 per cent channel-led route to market," stated Da Costa. "We will never take a deal direct. This feeds into our personal approach, so that our big accounts have a direct touch from Cradlepoint to enable the channel to grow faster. From here we plan to expand through local execution. We will continue to grow but instead of branching out from the UK into EMEA countries we will have local entities in those countries. We've already started this in the Middle East."

Founded in 2006, Cradlepoint is a privately held company with headquarters in Idaho and has shipped over a 1.4 million routing platforms, offering solutions certified and promoted by major worldwide carriers. These include cloud-based wired and wireless WAN networking solutions for distributed and mobile enterprises, with strong wireless and broadband performance and network system interoperability.

Cradlepoint's family of router platforms are deployed in mission critical applications that require 24x7 connectivity. With both integrated wireless and wired WAN and non-integrated versions, its solutions are designed for distributed and mobile operations and emerging industries that require either remote connectivity or multi-WAN redundancy. Cradlepoint's Enterprise Cloud Manager enables enterprise network administrators to monitor, manage and maintain their distributed network running on different WAN sources from a single location.

"An increasing amount of enterprise network traffic is moving off private IP networks and onto the public Internet and we are starting to see SDN as a solution," noted Da Costa. "This is the market opportunity for Cradlepoint and we are already embracing it through a product called NetCloud, a new brand that represents the combination of all our cloud-based management and software defined routers and EDGE software with the Pertino network as a service. Through this we can not only grow the business, but make a real difference to the customers we already serve."

There was a time when Cradlepoint provided connectivity via boxes. But with a recent technology integration (from the acquisition of Silicon Valley based SDN pioneer Pertino) the company is fast becoming all about cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places and things over wired and wireless broadband. "We are now taking the core intelligence at ground level and putting it into the cloud, connecting people, places and things," added Da Costa. "Initially, our mantra was 'always connected always protected'. We were able to do this with the advent of LTE for business. LTE was the key driver for us and we hit the market with a high degree of success. Now we're experiencing another big turning point for connectivity in the cloud."

Cradlepoint started out by focusing on retail as it could demonstrate RoI quickly in this vertical. However, its channel operations took it down a different route and the company quickly adapted to support different vertical markets. "Key sectors for us now are transportation, banking and finance, government and healthcare, as well as retail," added Da Costa. "Because of our close relationship with the channel we've been able to develop products specifically for those markets. The channel has been truly instrumental in the evolution of our business as we develop specific products by vertical market. We now have a business growing month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter."

The company grew 56 per cent in the 2014-15 financial year and continues to expand at a double digit rate. "We expect to close the year on a minimum 50 per cent over last year," added Da Costa. "In the last 12 months alone Cradlepoint has seen its EMEA business double. This rapid growth is set to continue as organisations across the region embrace cloud, mobile and IoT technologies to increase their business agility, empower distributed workforces and gain operational insights.

"What everyone is looking for today is something 'as a service'. If resellers evolve over time they will have to embrace the move from a capex to an opex model to better serve today's markets. They will need to take anything, whether voice, mobility or software, and deliver it as a service. This is the future."•

Avaya's revised go-to-market strategy for Aura Communications Manager could have potentially silenced the vendor's voice in the very market where it wants to make most noise, providing an opportunity for IP Netix to turn up the volume as a staunch Avaya services partner, says Managing Director Kevin Boyer.

The impact of IP Netix's role in Avaya's mid-market campaign is considerable and draws on Boyer's in-depth knowledge of Avaya systems and the channel, all qualities that secured him a Comms National Award in the Best Installer/Maintainer category this year. "I identified a gap in the marketing strategy for the Avaya Aura Communications Manager," he commented. "Even major resellers find it hard to justify the costs of having staff and accreditations to install and maintain Aura.

"At the same time Avaya adopted a channel only sales and maintenance policy for the UK, downsizing and making engineering staff redundant. Consequently there was a gap between Avaya's sales drive for Aura through partners and the channel's ability to offer consultancy, installation and service contracts for such a sophisticated system. I established IP Netix to fill this gap and the business has been a year-on-year success. As the mid-market is evolving into the bottom end of the enterprise market, we have brought our enterprise delivery skills into that space which has been a great success."

While Avaya's channel revamp went against the grain of its mid-market ambitions it paved the way for IP Netix to become a highly valued partner closely aligned to the vendor's roadmap. Boyer has expanded the company's portfolio to mirror Avaya's kit bag, and he is currently embarking - with much determination - on a mission to address the fast growing mid-market sector with Avaya's IP Office and ACCS products. Boyer has also added data networking (Fabric) skills, video conferencing and workforce optimisation to the IP Netix portfolio, enabling the company to deliver specialist services across the entire Avaya range for business partners.

IP Netix now manages over 300,000 endpoints across multiple platforms in six continents. The business has grown to currently employ 22 people, with engineering teams working on projects that range from single site deployments to fully hosted Avaya solutions with over 20,000 endpoints. "For us to be successful we need our channel business partners to be successful," added Boyer. "Our channel approach is based on partnership and strategic engagement. Through partnership and early engagement we can bring additional value by helping to qualify, shape, develop and ultimately close opportunities."

Boyer hasn't always been working in the comms sector. He undertook a career change from materials handling equipment for Rollertruck with a first foray into the telecoms sector as a sales consultant with Telephone Rentals in 1997. He then joined Shipton Communications selling SDX systems when ISDN2 to the desk was first introduced. And moved to Pink Telecom where he spent over ten years, latterly operating as Commercial Development Manager. In 2006 Boyer left Pink and started his first successful business, Phase Telecom. As a specialist in consultancy for the Symbian mobile operating system, Boyer worked in particular on the VoIP integration for Symbian.

With IP Netix he has built a multi-million pound company without venture capital or other external investments. Since conception, IP Netix has adopted a 100 per cent channel only sales strategy, an approach that has been endorsed by Avaya UK which recommends the company to the business reseller community as a 'preferred' services partner. "Feedback suggests that our approach is increasingly important to business partners," said Boyer. "Many have suffered negative experiences having introduced a services partner to the end customer only to lose secondary business (support contracts, upgrades etc) to the partner who contracted the end user directly. Therefore, we remain diligent and unwavering in our indirect approach."

Boyer is carefully planning to double the size of the business and recruit more engineering resources in specialist areas. He has already deployed a full management structure including the addition of subject matter experts. IP Netix is also gearing up to move to larger premises that will house a state of the art Avaya portfolio demonstration suite exclusively for the use of partners. "I started IP Netix in the middle of the UK's largest recession," stated Boyer. "At the time people told me I was mad, but it was the best decision I ever made."•

Enter White Horse Telecom Managing Director Paddy Coppinger, a former helicopter pilot and seller of Magic Trees who branched into telecoms and is aiming for a knighthood.

Although he would like to be remembered as 'sir Paddy Coppinger!', it is perhaps more likely that Paddy will be recorded in the annals of comms as a characterful and ambitious technology entrepreneur. Yet his destiny could have been very different. Having finished school, Coppinger curtailed his educational career early when he decided to drop the idea of gaining a university degree to train as a helicopter pilot. "But the post-Gulf War global economic downturn largely put paid to that," he commented. "As an unemployed pilot I found jobs where I could, undertaking a variety of roles from van driving to bar work and ultimately falling into a sales 'repping' position in the automotive aftermarket industry where I showed a talent for selling. I noted that a number of friends who had recently graduated were turning up at my place in increasingly flashy cars, bragging about how much money they were earning for the (seemingly little) work they were doing within the tech sector. Telecoms beckoned."

Coppinger then joined a small cable franchise in west London that after a number of acquisitions ultimately became Virgin Media. He then moved to Energis before taking on a Wholesale Account Manager's role at what was to become Verizon. "I spent five years there, dealing with a variety of resellers of all shapes and sizes before I decided to strike out on my own," stated Coppinger.

He founded White Horse Telecom in January 2006, printed up order forms and business cards and set off door knocking. "In the beginning we were very much about calls, lines and not much else," explained Coppinger. "The business has evolved dramatically from those humble beginnings to a major player in the converged voice and data space. White Horse Telecom is an early adopter and each new product enables a further significant leap in growth, be it broadband a few years ago or hosted telephony today."

The company has demonstrated steady yet significant growth year on year since its beginnings. "We are considered, primarily, as a trusted advisor by our customer base which is typically made up of UK-centric, multi-site organisations," commented Coppinger. "The majority of our customers are not desperately price sensitive but they do value first class service at all times. To that end we could be viewed as, what I regard to be, one of the first proper business-to-business telecoms boutiques in the UK."

During the past two years White Horse Telecom has expanded to a new office in Hungerford, broadened its product portfolio and increased sales. Coppinger sees future growth coming from a variety of areas. "These include strengthened relationships with existing suppliers, growing the team, consolidation - which may include acquisitions - as well as good old-fashioned organic growth," he added.

"My main priority is to grow the business. There was a time when we had to make strong and sometimes unrewarded efforts to make customers more sticky by introducing multiple products to them. Today, almost all of our customers take more than three products from our portfolio. Customers these days cannot help but be sticky. To that end, our role is far more consultative than it's ever been. And our role as a key supplier to these companies means that we have to deliver on our word and according to agreed time scales."

White Horse Telecom's main routes to market have been either through direct sales or through a dealer channel, and Coppinger has witnessed more and more end user customers embrace the propositions offered by smaller comms and IT providers. "I see a greater willingness from large companies to engage with smaller CPs," he added. "The trick going forward will be how resellers of all sizes maintain levels of customer satisfaction and introduce new products while still turning a profit. The move towards IP-based technology is also fascinating. Coupled with the imminent demise of ISDN, we see a clear direction towards cloud and hosted IP telephony products."

Coppinger rates setting up White Horse Telecom and getting it past that 'mythical five year bump' as his biggest career achievement to date. The company's culture is firmly founded on the watchwords 'treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself', and a 'work hard, play hard' approach towards business. "I don't think I'd do anything differently," noted Coppinger. "Everything I've done has contributed in some way, however small, to the success of White Horse Telecom. From selling Magic Trees to working for the world's largest carrier."•

Being recognised as one of the fastest growing technology businesses in the UK for the second year in succession is a big achievement for service provider Channel Telecom, but owner and Managing Director Clifford Norton believes the best is still to come.

When outsiders imagine the telecoms industry, more often than not they probably see an image of a 20-something whippersnapper over-hyping the merits of the latest smartphone. The reality of this established sector is a current contribution of £56.5 billion to the UK economy and an opportunity for remarkable growth. Walk into Channel Telecom's offices, based in the up and coming area of Buckhurst Hill in suburban Essex, and you'll see the real business of telecoms at its best.

A bright open plan office is populated with smartly dressed, dedicated staff, all focused on expanding the company's channel empire. This commitment has meant that the £5 million revenue target Norton set when he opened the business just five years ago was significantly exceeded with over £10 million recorded in 2015. When revenue surpassed £5 million in 2014, the company was thrilled to meet the requirements of entry into the Sunday Times Hiscox TechTrack, a highly regarded recognition it has now received two years running.

As befits its name, Channel Telecom is 'channel only', which means its success hinges on the performance of its partners and the company's 78th placement in the 2016 TechTrack survey is testament to the growth it has achieved and makes Norton a happy man. "If our partners are growing, we are growing. It's as simple as that," he said, which somewhat underplays the effort put into the partner support which sits at the core of Channel's philosophy and rapid growth.

The company is committed to providing everything a partner needs to make more network sales, specifically added value ones, as Norton explains: "I think what differentiates us from other service providers is that we are completely flexible and we want to help our partners build their business by delivering every single service we can to help them.

"We have reseller partners and dealer partners. With the dealers it's all about adding value to their existing business. On the wholesale side, which has grown massively in the last two years, we offer a billing system and a back-up bureau service where we basically take care of everything for the partner. It gives them the opportunity to go out do what they are good at - building customer relationships and selling. Those partner sales have risen exponentially on the back of data lines, particularly Ethernet, which facilitate added value up-selling.

"Over the last three years we have really pushed data connectivity and recently sold a huge amount of Ethernet lines. Once the data connectivity is there and your customers are getting better speeds then that's the time to go back in and offer SIP, Skype for Business, data recovery, business continuity and all of the hosted solutions that customers now want rather than just calls and lines."

With ISDN disappearing by the end of 2020, Norton believes that the opportunities are huge with more flexibility for customers and better margins for resellers. He is also convinced that the path to real prosperity is through package deals or bundling. "It's all about making it as easy as possible for our partners to sell the products we offer," added Norton. "The customer will say 'I want a bundle of seats, a hosted phone, mobile and MS 365 all for one monthly cost'. That's the way the whole market is going. It's a complete price per person model and it's a strategy that is already working for us."

As well as easing the selling process Channel is also helping partners plan or execute their exit paths. "We are looking to buy as many of our partners as possible that would like to sell," explained Norton. "We have got some flexible arrangements whereby if they want to come on board and sell in 18 months we'll give them a pre-buy out now.

"Every partner is different. Some like to sell the base and want to go now, but most want to take all the hassle out of the billing and the cash flow and simply get back to selling. In these cases, we'll buy a percentage, or most, of the business and the owner can stay on and grow by selling our products to customers, bring the profit up and get another multiple in a year to 18 months. This strategy is good for all of us because the partner carries on working with us and makes more money long-term. The customer migrates to Channel slowly and gets a good experience from all the value added products we offer."

The formulas Norton has put in place certainly seem to be attracting resellers to the Channel family. Since 2015 the number of partners on-boarded has increased from 150 to 340, and as Norton confirmed 'they are doing the numbers'. "The recognition we have achieved in the FastTrack 100 is to do with our growth, but it's also judged on profit," he said. "As we are channel only, it's obvious to say that our partners are bringing in the business, but it's a team effort. We don't just give them a rate sheet. It's about giving them constant training, regular webinars, keeping them updated, helping them grow, giving them what I believe to be the best rate, the best products, and then going out to help them sell.

"I am confident that the partnerships we are continuing to develop will secure us an even better position in FastTrack 2017. I have never enjoyed business so much as I do now, and with massive opportunities on the horizon, we will achieve even greater success."•

Equinix's multi-million UK data centre investment builds on its blockbuster acquisition of Telecity Group early this year and marks a step change in the firm's growth strategy, according to Equinix UK Managing Director Russell Poole.

Equinix's late summer £26 million investment in the second phase expansion of its LD6 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Slough upped its capacity to serve interconnection to connect companies. And in January the company closed the acquisition of European data centre services giant Telecity, delivering fresh challenges to Poole's desk. "Following the acquisition the big priority for me has been around welcoming many new members to our team and integrating the combined business, as well as managing the ongoing growth of our company which continues apace," he said. "It's about making sure we have the right capacity, in the right place, at the right time, with the right profile of service providers to allow our customers to execute their IT strategies. Doubling the size of our data centre in Slough helped us to keep up with customer demand in the UK."

US-based Equinix was established in 1998 by co-founders Jay Adelson and Al Avery, who were both facilities managers at Digital Equipment Corporation. They predicted that data centres as they existed then would not have the capacity to handle all the data created and demanded by technological advancements. They wanted to build a neutral location for carriers to connect together - almost a Switzerland of the Internet. With this idea in mind, Equinix was born. Since Equinix was founded it has invested over $13 billion in its data centre platform and grown from a single US location to having a global footprint of 146 data centres in 21 different countries.

"Having established a critical mass of network service providers we were able to secure customers such as Sony, Sprint and AT&T," stated Poole. "Creating a global footprint of data centres has been the company's goal since the beginning, and acquiring Interconnect Exchange Europe in 2007 enabled Equinix to make a big leap into the European market."

This was followed by the acquisition of Switch and Data in 2010, which provided the firm with 34 additional new data centre locations. "Two years later we moved into Jakarta and Dubai, with Amazon Web Services becoming a customer the same year - a major milestone for us," added Poole. "This year we have doubled the size of our business in the EMEA region thanks to the acquisition of Telecity Group. We now have a network of 146 data centres across five continents."

Equinix currently has more than 8,000 customers worldwide (including over 140 of the Fortune 500) and approximately 188,000 cross-connects. "The combination of a global footprint combined with direct connectivity means organisations can have their data where they need it, when they need it," commented Poole. "Building on this we are continuing to establish Equinix as the home of the interconnected cloud, which in turn is attracting enterprises that want to adopt hybrid and multi-cloud as their IT architecture of choice."

Equinix currently employs over 5,600 staff and its financial numbers are impressive, with revenues of $2.73 billion in 2015. Last month the company delivered its 55th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. "We have a great deal of momentum in the major locations in which we operate," added Poole. "What's exciting is that the market is now really getting to grips with the concept of interconnection and the transformation it will bring to the world of business. I have no doubt we will keep pace with the demand we're seeing and will continue to grow over the coming years."

Equinix enables businesses to be part of an ecosystem in which they can strategically connect with their partners and customers. For example, Equinix claims to be the only data centre company that houses all of the main cloud service providers - Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Office 365, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Softlayer and Oracle.

"Equinix can help businesses solve their critical data management needs by creating a multi-cloud solution that can be tailored to the requirements of the business, and which uses the most appropriate service for any task," added Poole. "So an enterprise may come into our facilities to run multiple applications in the cloud - connecting directly to the Google Cloud Platform to run Google Apps at Work and to Microsoft for Office 365 for email."

Equinix is busy identifying ways to expand its global footprint, building on its 20 International Business Exchanges (IBX) data centre expansions last year. "In 2016 Equinix continues to expand the scale and reach of its global platform with 18 announced expansion projects underway," said Poole. "We've also announced new expansions in Dallas, Dublin, Frankfurt, Helsinki and Zurich, totalling more than $100 million of capital expenditure.

"To meet the demands of the rapidly evolving business environment organisations must re-architect their IT infrastructures out to the network edge. We help our customers do this through a proven blueprint we call the Interconnection Oriented Architecture (IOA) which allows businesses to securely connect to whoever they want, whenever and wherever they need it."

A particular area of focus for Equinix is the growth of the cloud. In order to meet the increasing adoption of cloud by enterprise customers, it developed the Equinix Cloud Exchange. "Through Equinix's Cloud Exchange, customers have access to software-defined connections to multiple cloud services from a single physical port, allowing them to access whatever service they need," added Poole. "It really makes us the home of the cloud as it's the only neutral ground where all the major cloud providers can collaborate under one roof.

"Building a large and diverse customer base has had a snowball effect on our business, as the ability for our customers to digitally interact and interconnect with other companies and partners has been a very compelling selling point. The fact that Equinix is continually expanding into new markets makes this offering appealing to companies with a global presence."

According to Poole, the rise of the Internet of Things and its potential to change everyday life is probably the biggest game-changer on the horizon. "Moving towards a highly connected society will significantly drive up demand for ample data storage," he added. "That's where Equinix comes in. Driverless cars, for example, will require synergy between the cars own systems and real-time information about the road and its surroundings. The volume of data this will create will be astonishing, and will require a reliable and high-capacity data management solution."

For VARs to succeed in today's channel industry it's important they deliver enterprise solutions that are secure, reliable, cost-effective and easy to implement for customers. More specifically, as the hybrid cloud fast becomes the default enterprise IT deployment model, it will be essential for VARs to think about how to best utilise the cloud for customers, believes Poole. "We recently announced a partnership with Arrow Electronics to offer preconfigured hybrid cloud packages," he said. "This will enable resellers and managed service providers to rapidly deploy and implement hybrid cloud solutions for enterprise customers from markets around the globe.

"For us the biggest change has been in the conversations we're having with customers. They're no longer coming to talk to us about data centres, they're talking about interconnection and what the latest IT trends mean for their business. From hybrid clouds to BYOD models, IT trends are now firmly on the C-suite agenda, and we find ourselves at the intersection of these trends. It's a very exciting time."•

The autumn acquisition of UK-based UC distributor SIPHON Networks by pan-EMEA distribution firm Nuvias Group promised to extend SIPHON's influence in the UK and across the continent. We spoke to SIPHON Managing Director Steve Harris to find out how.

Harris's intention has always been to try and take the SIPHON product portfolio and value proposition into new geographical markets, and he had been looking at executing on this plan throughout 2016 after successfully expanding the business into the Benelux region. "The acquisition by Nuvias enables us to accelerate this and the group provides us access to over 20 potential countries across EMEA where we can look to replicate our success in the UK and Benelux regions," he said. "Nuvias shares the same philosophy, in terms of the focus on how we add value to our channel partners and provides significant scale, expertise and financial backing in enabling us to transfer this value into new areas."

Nuvias has adopted a 'practice' approach within its evolving organisation structure and is looking for these practices to be thought leaders and experts in the key technology focus areas for the Group. SIPHON will be the Unified Communications practice but its partners also have access to the other six practices being built within Nuvias. The Advanced Networking (former Zycko) and Cyber Security (former Wick Hill) practices are also in place and the SIPHON resellers and partners will now gain the opportunity to explore further new revenue opportunities from being part of this wider group.

"SIPHON has always had a strong focus on innovation and we have a dedicated team in place whose job is solely about researching and launching new technology areas," added Harris. "We are now also working on our own software development to provide operational support systems for our partners to simplify the deployment and management of cloud services. We have made significant investments in the automation of our internal systems and 70 per cent of our orders today are via our API or web store. We will look to continue this approach to enable us to scale effectively.
"Through a combination of growth in our existing markets and entering new regions we expect to double our revenues over the next three years. We will be fully integrated into Nuvias by this time but the ethos of the Unified Communications practice within Nuvias will be SIPHON and built on the DNA and success we have achieved to date."

Much of this success derives from SIPHON's role as a cloud technology enabler for partners, and a growing area is Microsoft's Skype for Business (SfB) which continues to gain traction from large enterprises and public sector organisations. This traction is now being replicated all the way down to the SME with the launch of the E5 SfB license pack on O365. "The availability of the E5 license and a PSTN calling plan from Microsoft in the UK has resulted in a new and significant peak of interest from end users which is now translating to a business opportunity for a new type of reseller looking to enter the UC market, and who have come from predominantly an IT background," noted Harris.

"These resellers are mostly proficient in delivering the collaboration and messaging (Sharepoint/IM/Exchange) features of SfB and O365 and when you add the growing popularity of MS Dynamics as a CRM and the continuing closer alignment between Dynamics and SfB they are well placed to also deliver the full SfB E5 Communications solution. Certainly there is also now an increasing interest too from the more traditional voice resellers to have some form of SfB offering in their portfolio."

Resellers can leverage either their own internal engineering skills, SIPHON's skills as a white labelled service or a combination of the two. "We aim to fill in the gaps and enable resellers to sell SfB solutions effectively," added Harris. "We have been deploying cloud UC platforms for seven years and developed some cloud-based software ourselves which help resellers to deploy SfB solutions and handle the ongoing management of SfB hardware and end points."

Microsoft is not new to this space and Live Communications Server (LCS) was first introduced about 10 years ago. SfB is just the latest release in the journey of Microsoft becoming a credible Unified Communications supplier as well as being dominant in IT. Traditional resellers should look to have some form of Microsoft offering alongside their traditional offerings as ultimately their end user customers are likely to be using some form of Microsoft product and the chances are that usage will continue to expand, believes Harris.

"Certainly at the Microsoft World Partner Conference in Toronto this year there was a very clear commitment to working through channel partners, and with its size and scale plus commitment to innovation and R&D Microsoft is bound to exert even more influence in the communications space moving forward."

Another priority area is the growth of video and collaboration. "Broadly speaking, we provide resellers and service providers with the same value proposition in video and collaboration that we've been delivering in voice and UC services, which is centred on technology enablement for our channel partners," explained Harris. "Firstly, we have invested in engineering skills and internal systems to ensure we have a strong engineering and technical support capability in video platforms as this is at the centre of everything we do in supporting our partners.

"Secondly we want to make the delivery and support of video and collaboration solutions easy and repeatable as historically deploying room based systems and MCUs has been both cumbersome and expensive. We have developed packages of hardware bundles for various room types from huddle rooms to large meeting rooms that are simple for our partners to sell and package to end users. We also then provide field installation services plus extended warranty and technical support to our partners and we are launching some new cloud-based Video as a Service (VaaS) offerings in the new year to complement our video hardware and engineering services portfolio.

"The combination of all of these items is what powers how we enable our channel partners to sell, deploy and support full packages of end point hardware and peripherals together with a white labelled cloud based VaaS proposition."

It is becoming increasingly clear that users do not see video as a separate application to voice and IT now, and it's important that any room system deployed works well and seamlessly into PC clients for remote and mobile users. "When end users then start to consider applications like desktop sharing and collaboration too, it's clear that video services can no longer be deployed and supported in isolation from other IT and voice platforms," commented Harris.

"A further key trend driving adoption is the significant reduction in costs in room system and MCU hardware and the availability of cost effective software based VMRs. Our partnering strategy is based upon making video a ubiquitous and repeatable service that can be deployed in volume and at a price that delivers this to down to the SME as well as the large corporates who have traditionally invested in large scale and complex video deployments. Those companies who make video simple to deploy and consume commercially will see significant success and we are working with our vendor partners to bring new VaaS and associated hardware bundles to market to address this."

The popularity of Skype and Facetime demonstrates the potential usage of video as an application and people now expect to have the same experience in the workplace and want to connect with colleagues who are in rooms and/or on their PCs and mobiles in a seamless and single video call or conference. "This consumerisation of video is driving the emergence of new and innovative video vendors and service providers who are looking to make the technology universally adopted by new cloud-based services and consumption models, and the previous barrier of video services being capital intensive and complex is quickly eroding," observed Harris. "We would expect to see this trend continuing with lower cost hardware emerging and the continued launch of new disruptive cloud video offerings that make video more mainstream and accessible for all types and sizes of end users."

Resellers and SIs will continue to play a major role in the delivery of advanced services like video and collaboration and their value is determined ultimately by how readily they can make complex technology usable within the end user environment, according to Harris. "Video has always been a specialist area, with niche players carving out successful businesses through deploying very complex video 'islands' for end users," commented Harris. "The approach of the SI and reseller today needs to evolve and become more focused, not on integrating video components but on driving video adoption and usage by integrating the video service into existing business processes and making it accessible to all staff and across rooms, desktop and mobile."•

Infrastructure is the future of communications. It's the new kid on the block and the nation requires more of it. With that in mind, Neil Christie, Managing Director of Aberdeen-based Converged Communication Solutions, aims to ensure that his customers get what they need.

Christie hopes to establish the first peering point in north east Scotland, an ambitious challenge that shows his determination to provide businesses with infrastructure that is fit for purpose. "Currently, nearly all data that is generated in the region is sent via a peering point in Edinburgh, or more often London, before it reaches its end destination," he explained. "With a local peering point, emails and phone services could be delivered faster for local businesses. Over the coming decade there will be more self-employed people working from home, with many based outside our towns and cities. Therefore, connectivity for our rural communities is crucial."

Over the past two years Converged has invested in developing its service standards, facilities and connectivity network. It has access to Brightsolid's new tier 3 data centre in Aberdeen and CityFibre's superfast Internet network in the city. Converged has also invested in unbundling nine Openreach exchanges in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. "This gives us access to more customer bases, but we need to win new business to recoup the outlay," said Christie.

The company was established in 2005 by Christie who adopted a technical role and a co-director who worked in a business development capacity. The firm launched the same year as YouTube and Google Maps, a time when more people were accessing the Internet via broadband rather than dial-up. "Our goal was, and still is, to provide a single point of contact that can take care of telephony, Internet and IT support," said Christie. "We wanted to reduce the number of suppliers or contracts a customer would need, and by providing passionate customer service we hoped to eliminate the grey areas that otherwise existed between a customer's IT support, Internet provider and BT/Openreach. We also aim to provide as many services as possible in-house and not just act as a middleman between the customer and ultimate supplier."

Converged's support model is based on the industry standard ITIL framework, with all of its support team ITIL-certified. The firm's customers range from small local businesses to large companies operating in multiple locations throughout the UK and internationally. The client base currently numbers around 300, and in the last financial year (to the end of November 2015) Converged generated over £2.2 million turnover. "We have experienced steady growth throughout our history, adapting as the industry itself has developed," added Christie. "Bundling of services and more service level orientated decision making by customers are areas we're working hard to explore."

In a move to advance this strategy, Converged snapped up Aberdeen-based IT provider Century Business Systems (CBS) this summer, its first acquisition. The deal, valued at circa £500k, significantly strengthens Converged's in-house service operation. CBS was established in 1999 by Brian West and Kevin Sinclair and supplies computer hardware, software and technical support to businesses across north east Scotland. The firm's team have transferred to Converged and relocated to its premises, increasing the workforce at Converged to over 25.

"This is a notable move for us," commented Christie. "To date, we have grown and expanded naturally, so our first acquisition is a major step. Brian and Kevin, supported by a talented team, have built a strong business and its integration into Converged will enrich the service that we offer to clients."

Christie plans to continue to grow Converged at a steady pace while staying in touch with established service values. "If we try to grow too quickly we may lose what our clients like and respect about us," he commented. "In five years, I would like to see us being regarded as the leading connectivity provider in north east Scotland and having grown our market share across Scotland and parts of the UK. Aberdeen will always be our home, but as we expand we need to look at how we deliver our services while remaining local to our clients. Continued hard work by the whole team, along with investment, evolution, innovation and putting the needs of clients first will take us there."•

Businesses must offer far more than traditional marketing techniques if they are serious about growth and strategy, according to Comms Vision speaker Allister Frost, founder and Managing Consultant at Wild Orange Media.

If marketing messages are to remain relevant to their target audiences they must extend their influence to the ‘segment of one', he told delegates, and this can only be achieved by alleviating historic divisions between marketing and IT departments. "IT needs to understand marketing and see it as an enabler for growth," he stated. "The marketing versus IT divide cannot continue. Data is key to making marketing messages hyper-relevant. This is your big opportunity."

Frost, who has spent 25 years working in big organisations such as Microsoft, now gives a helping hand to companies wanting to evolve in line with how technology is fuelling the customer experience. "It's commonly said that we live in a Digital World where screens are cheap and offer a window into wider realities," he added. But it's not a Digital World, it's Our World and there's no reverse gear. We are irreversibly changed and hyper-informed with more access to information sources than ever before. We become welded to the technology we trust."

Hyper-connected consumers are no longer the underdog. They have to an extent disempowered businesses by taking control of ‘knowledge'. And customers are intolerable to sub-standard service.

"This all means that businesses must improve," added Frost. "Organisations must learn to play the long game, create new marketing messages and build relationships that can be nurtured. Prospects must not be rushed, they should be given information on their terms - helping is the new selling."

The language of marketing is no longer a language of action and hoped-for reaction. It's interactions that count most and this dynamic has driven an evolution in content marketing. And there is a clear danger in hyping blanket messages that should sensibly be more targeted and individualised.

"Marketing is no longer a case of ‘spray and pray' to see what sticks," noted Frost. "It should be laser targeted to reach specific people in a short space of time. Marketing is now about talking to an increasingly smaller group of people, and saying the right things to the right people at the right time."

This tech-fuelled reaction to customers should encourage all channel marketers to think differently. "As technology and automation moves us forward, the ‘segment of one' has emerged," added Frost. "Personally tailored messages will be key."