interview “ 18


Andrew Percival, Excel


We are seeing more confi dence in our


customer base but I think quite a lot of damage has been done to the market pricing and the value associated with certain services and products.


smart home sector and intelligent buildings are now becoming a reality. Maintenance and upgrade services for these projects also offer a chance for repeat business.


What are your biggest selling products in 2011?


It is still Category 6 copper solutions. We are seeing an increase in the use of Category 6A but it’s still not as popular as Category 6. From an educational point of view I think there are some messages we and other system providers in the market need to get out there in terms of cost effectiveness.


Has interest in fi bre increased and is it having an effect on copper? We are seeing more interest in fi bre and it’s happened quite quickly. There seems to be a realisation that it is a logical choice for certain projects. OM3 has become the de-facto choice now for multimode and OM4 is beginning to be requested a lot more as sometimes it is the better option from a costing point of view. I don’t think that fi bre is going to make a huge dent in the copper market as a replacement technology for two reasons really. Firstly, the cost of electronics and secondly, although the installation practices around fi bre have become clearer and maybe a little easier


Andrew Percival joined Mayfl ex in 1984 and worked his way up through the business to become the managing director in 2000. He has shaped the current strategy to offer customers a diverse, but complementary range, of converged IP solutions and was instrumental in the development and success of the Excel brand.


with pre-terminated solutions off site, you’ve still got bandwidth requirements to consider and even if you’re in a highly multimedia desktop environment a Category 6A 10Gb desktop link is likely to be more than enough.


Are you seeing more inquiries about shielded cable? Are installers and specifi ers ever wary about using unshielded? We do get asked and our recommendation is to go for shielded – not so much because of current applications but because of where we are headed in the future. If we start operating at higher speeds it makes a lot of sense and also from the point of view of installation effi ciency. Highly trained engineers can install shielded products as quickly as UTP and the testing process is quicker.


Are you seeing a drop in the number of educational projects and other public sector schemes getting the go-ahead?


They’ve dropped but they’re certainly not disappearing at the pace or to the extent people expected. Whilst the funding may not be coming through in the same way, it is still coming through in smaller pots and regardless of how the government is delivering it there is a need in many schools for upgrades and updated technology. In addition, when universities are competing against each other for students they need to be able to offer the best facilities that they possibly can. Investment in technology is still vital but there’s no denying that it has dropped away slightly when compared with previous years.


Are certain industry sectors proving to be stronger than others at the moment?


Retail is unexpectedly strong right now – some of the big retailers have very aggressive store opening plans and are investing in multimedia within their stores. Some are also increasing fl exibility by utilising wireless for payments and checking stocks.


Why is the Excel range being rebranded/refreshed?


The product offering and values will not change but the aim is to emphasise what the system now offers. We are changing the typeface of the logo, the colour scheme that we use and the branding on the packaging, website and other literature. The new strapline ‘without compromise’ is designed to summarise everything we do around the brand.


What we want to get across is that we offer a strong suite of post and pre-sales services, including design and product selection assistance, sales lead generation, presentational and marketing support, site audits, tool box training.


Is the Excel brand now targeting a different market demographic? To gain market share we need to get into some different markets. We are very strong in retail, education and local government. We see the growth opportunities in specifi cation led markets and also getting involved in large scale one off projects. We can certainly see opportunities to grow our vertical markets and feel our offering getting stronger – this refresh is about becoming more and more attractive to potential customers.


How important is third party verifi cation? We think smoke and mirrors are often used in the market when it comes to third party verifi cation. There is sometimes a lack of clarity and we think there are questions that end users and integrators should be asking – particularly around validity of certifi cates. There are clear differences in the way testing houses go about their testing and assurances should be given by vendors. Certifi cation is often not consistent over entire ranges and customers shouldn’t make assumptions based on reputation.


What do you think is more important to installers and end users – price or quality?


Budgets are being squeezed everywhere and though that doesn’t necessarily mean that price comes fi rst it may well have jumped higher up the list. The way the economy is at the moment it has got to be a key consideration.


How would one go about becoming an authorised Excel cabling partner? They need to complete a simple application form that tells us about the business, the markets they operate in, revenues, the number of trained engineers etc. If we move to the next stage there are training courses for design, installation practice and testing and we use a third party training company for our training. We’ve always done this and we feel it gives an unbiased, independent view of the trainee’s application to the training and classroom performance. That training includes some e-learning documentation including online training manuals. The training has to be renewed every year to retain accreditation.


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