WORKING LUNCH on closer collaboration
between partners can exist when you consider the deep transformation companies such as STL Communications have undergone in recent years. Philip Donigan, STL’s Sales Director, charted the firm’s journey from traditional PBX reseller to an Ethernet specialist that has gained the initiative on a recurring revenue business model.
project that will involve the implementation of new CRM systems for provisioning and billing etc. “To support this journey we need to know the real problems within our partner organisations. We are promoting good communications and will ensure we have many contact points with partners to get the information we need to help us shape the new platform,” added Chen. “Our transformation also involves a fundamental change in the mentality of our business. We need to be process driven, but also deliver the care that can be lost in the process. The development of our platform and internal education are the most important and challenging priorities for Entanet.”
It’s easy to understand how a communication gap
“Our absolute focus now is selling Ethernet,” stated Donigan. “Our priority is to sell uncontended SLA pipes, and then focus on selling SIP trunks, hosted telephony and applications. We had to put ourselves in an uncomfortable position and take a difficult decision. People will always want PBXs but we see that market diminishing, and if you don’t learn about services like Ethernet your market will disappear. We went through a process of re-educating and incentivising our sales people to sell Ethernet based on recurring commission. Today, more than 60 per cent of annual revenue is recurring. If you own the pipe you own the customer.”
A clash of business models has been unleashed meaning that more attention must be paid to all challenges faced by organisations that want to grow and evolve in line with market trends and technological advances. Donigan added: “Microsoft Lync is an opportunity and threat that cannot be underestimated in the voice reseller channel. We’re getting involved in Lync so we don’t lose customers to it. We now face technical challenges and are investing in technical resources, CRM, and as we grow churn control will also become a key focus area.”
Also grabbing the bull by the horns is Carl Davies, Managing Director at Easy Connect, a company that found itself in an uncomfortable position 18 months ago until a decision was made to do things differently. “We had flatlined,” he explained. “But we recruited a new director and changed the business model to recurring income from hosted and cloud services. Hosted is the way forward and we are all seeing the benefits of moving away from traditional PBX and analogue lines to SIP and VoIP etc. The business has shown a profit for the best part of a year, and we have doubled the size of the company in that period. We’ve now hired Justin Blaine, formerly of NeoWave, as Sales Director, and invested in a CRM system to help grow the business.”
Internal efficiency through systems integration, smart outsourcing and a focus on doing things in-house sums up TFM Networks’ strategy for the near to mid-term, according to COO David Heyes. “Our single biggest challenge is how to grow in this environment,” he said. “Efficiency in being competitive and retaining customers is key, with a focus on account management and sales investment. We need to be more extrovert in how we do this. We are focusing on automating systems, have also acquired and want debt funding. We aim to partner to extend our capabilities but a big challenge is finding people who are like minded and like cultured.”
Easy Connect has solved some of the big issues around the question of how to grow in the current comms environment. Another
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key element in the mix is the way selling has shifted towards total solution provision and the challenges this approach brings has been neatly addressed by Outsourcery, according to its Head of Channels Adam Cathcart. “We changed our focus in terms of what partners are looking for,” he explained. “Our pre-sales team is now twice the size of the partner management team. Our partners come from different worlds where voice and hosted can be a challenge. So we educate our pre-sales to help companies take on new products. And we help traditional IT companies that want to get into comms bridge that gap.
“The biggest challenge for partners is getting products to talk to each other. We have made a big investment in helping our partners act as that glue while pulling through new
products. Our focus is all about enabling partners.”
If sales people don’t buy into the ethos of business transformation they simply won’t get the consultative approach, noted Entanet’s Head of Sales, Stephen Barclay. “Investing in sales resources has been a core focus for us,” he said. “Rather than just selling a product, partners need to look at what the end user is hoping to achieve. So we have trained our sales people to help partners with less capability to engage with end users on a new level and open up the conversation to take the opportunity away from a price perspective. We’ve seen a big uplift in added value sales based on this approach. Too much of the market is racing to the bottom. From a selling perspective this is our biggest challenge. Don’t sell on price, sell on value.”
Bites from the table...
Differentiation is a challenge, so we try to build products together into one solution. Calls and lines has a future but will be replaced over time by IPT and mobile. If you have no such propositions you will lose out. Ben Knights, Connectivity Product Manager, Nine Group (left)
Our challenge is automating everything, adding support and
putting in place the right people to manage growth. David Tindall, Technical Director, Talkstraight
The adoption of new technology will happen from new customers rather than existing ones who are slower to change. The real interesting drivers are the new businesses. Piers Daniel, Managing Director, Fluidata (right)
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Hospitality sponsor COMMS DEALER JULY 2013 33
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