It’s official! Comms Dealer No.1! The most requested & highest circulation magazine for the UK voice & data partner community VOL 17 ISSUE 3 AUGUST 2012
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marketing@p-rd.com Celebrate excellence: Enter channel’s top awards event now!
AS WE celebrate excellence at the Olympics it’s time for YOU to raise your profile across the UK comms channel. The Comms National Awards (CNA) is the UK channel’s ultimate industry awards event and gives you the chance to benchmark yourself against other channel companies, acknowledge your teams and
In this issue Industry News:
Catch up with events Special Report:
influence partners, clients and investors. Finalists are chosen by an independent judging panel based on the quality of services and solutions provided to resellers and reseller customers. That is why the CNA are so highly prized. The deadline for entry is approaching so enter now at
www.cnawards.com. See page 48
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TalkTalk Business gets hosted Special Report:
18
CWW makes channel strides News Interview:
Culmer peps up Avaya Special Report:
Westcon launches Lync Special Report:
Powernet unveils ViBE News Interview:
Westcoast pushes UC FCS Update:
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Battle against fraud hots up Business Matters:
WE SUPPORT… 34
Comms Dealer Five-a Side Football, September 27th
Comms Dealer/Sir Trevor Brooking Golf Day October 13th
EMAIL:
info@sparks.org.uk
Providers urged to ramp up education
COMMS solutions providers must improve their education programmes to ring-fence SME customers and preserve margins, claims an industry think tank set up to evaluate customer understanding of cloud and hosted services.
EXCLUSIVE
Channel players are also being urged to rethink their sales pro- cesses as more companies in the private and public sectors fol- low consumer trends and move towards subscription models to manage costs. The customer insight pro- gramme carried out by chan- nel Internet supplier Eclipse in association with Comms Dealer has unearthed a gulf in end user knowledge of cloud and UC products that Eclipse MD Clodagh Murphy believes the channel can fill.
“The customers we worked with were diverse in type and size but there was one clear message: They didn’t under- stand the business benefits of all the services that are available to them and how they can help them grow their businesses. “There is a gap in knowledge and understanding that as an
industry we have an opportu- nity to plug. We can help people grow their businesses.”
Debating the research at an industry forum in London, channel chiefs agreed that the industry needs to sharpen up its education programmes as SMEs are increasingly attracted to subscription billing. Pete Tomlinson, Head of Sales & Marketing at Eclipse,
added: “A subscription model may be the future but you had better be sure people want and like the services you provide.” Channel specialist John Donohoe, Director of training company Believe, commented: “If customers understood how to use platforms like MS Lync or CRM they could achieve more and get proper value from investments.” See pages 38-39
Avaya trims UK channel
THREE months into the job Avaya’s new UK MD Simon Culmer has confirmed that he is on track to cut the number of UK partners to around 400. “Our priority is rationalising partners that do not have up-to- date accreditation or who only put a very small amount of busi- ness through Avaya,” he stated. “The aim is to focus time and resource on those partners that are committed to working with us. We expect to complete the process during early FY13.” Culmer has also swung his gaze onto a stronger indirect strategy. “I’ve seen how com- panies get it wrong when they take direct business in a channel model,” he said. See page 20
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CHESS served up a charity ace during a Tennis Day held in aid of The Prince’s Trust, raising over £500. Stephen Dracup, MD, said: “It’s in our culture to play our part in the community and give back to those less fortunate. The Prince’s Trust do fantastic work supporting disadvantaged young people and we’re proud to support them.”
Have you hit your Purple patch?
www.comms-dealer.com A BUSINESS MEDIA PUBLICATION
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