EXCLUSIVE NEWS REPORT
www.comms-dealer.com
Nine’s big vision for Shipton
N
ine Telecom has acquired service will be available exclusively mouth through their customer
one of Britain’s oldest to my resellers for installations, base in the area. You can’t
telecoms companies, maintenance and cabling.” replace that with a large, national
Shipton Communications, and supermarket-like chain. We’d
Nine’s Managing Director, James Smaller resellers will be able to rather resellers facing financial
Palmer, has big plans for the call on its expertise to help win difficulty came to us so we can
Shipton business. With immediate sales too. “The plan is that if our help them in the short-term.”
effect, no new direct business partners have an opportunity to sell
will be received through Shipton. a high-end solution that’s not their The good news for existing
“The plan now is to reposition core business, they can call on employees is that there are
the Shipton business to become the Shipton team to help win the no plans for redundancies or
an outsourced engineering business,” said Palmer. “We’ll help
company,” Palmer explains. with the installation and can offer
James Palmer
office moves, because recurring
maintenance contracts on
“A lot of the resellers we deal maintenance, but the dealer or year, Nine has grown three-fold the existing user base cover
with are quite small. They only reseller keeps the end customer.” from a turnover of £10 million per existing overheads.
have one or two engineers year in January to £30 million now.
and deal with customers in a Similar services are increasingly Palmer believes this figure will rise “Even if they never sell a phone
certain geographical area. If being offered by hardware again to £40 million by December, system again, they’ll be profitable
they win a multi-site deal, with distributors, and Palmer says that but suggests that Nine’s growth just through that base,” says
a satellite office at the other it’s likely Shipton’s new role will plans are different to other rapidly Palmer. “It’s fantastic that we can
end of the country, it’s not cost- eventually see the firm taking on expanding companies, and sees buy a business for not a lot of
effective to send engineers to some distribution capabilities too. a cap on the amount of market money that makes a small profit
do an installation at that site. “Certainly, for low volume niche consolidation that can take place. from day one. What’s better is that
products and applications,” he several other companies were
“Shipton has a good reputation stated. “We’re going to choose “Our message to resellers is that looking at Shipton, but only as far
across a range of phone systems brands to work with very carefully unless you absolutely have to, as taking on the contracts. What
– Mitel, Samsung, Panasonic, over the next 24 months.” don’t sell,” he says. “Our PBX we’ve done is keep 25 people in
Avaya, Alcatel – virtually every dealers get a lot of business employment, kept the offices and
single make is covered by their Since the acquisition of Club because they’re local businesses kept one of the longest established
highly skilled engineers. Their Communications earlier in the and referrals come via word of names in the industry.”
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16 COMMS DEALER SEPTEMBER 2009 www.comms-dealer.com
PG 16 NEW.indd 1 28/8/09 15:10:48
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