COMMS VISION 10-12 NOVEMBER GLENEAGLES PREVIEW


www.commsvision.com SPREADING THE VISION FOR B


The stage is set for the single most concentrated gathering of movers and shakers in the UK ICT industry – Comms Vision Convention 2010. Ahead of this year’s ‘summit of leaders’ we canvassed the opinions of event delegates to get their opinions on some of this year’s big themes.


T


he big theme for this year’s Comms Vision event is Business


Transformation. Throughout the keynotes, panels and discussion sessions, luminaries will address the challenges that new business models and practices, along with the technologies that enable them, raise for traditional ICT sales. More importantly, they’ll discuss the opportunities that they bring. The network is at the heart of doing business in the UK and abroad, and as a result the ICT channel has never been so important to the wider business community. Companies and public sector clients are facing pressures to work efficiently and increase productivity, and it’s the infrastructure and application suppliers that must take the lead in determining the shape of the market to come. Ahead of this important event, Comms Dealer has polled several leading channel CVC delegates to finding out their opinion on the questions that will be raised at Gleneagles.


If there’s an important lesson to be learned from the last few years, it’s to be wary of buzzwords. They’re a useful shorthand, but some obscure more than they reveal. Unified communications, for example, is regularly called upon to describe everything from networking


protocols through convergence on a single device to a more abstract discussion of what it means to be online. The term ‘Business Transformation’ risks being even more nebulous for resellers, so how do we understand it from a telecoms point of view? Harry Langley, Managing Director of South West Communications, has a straightforward definition. “It’s about driving efficiencies, smarter working and changing working practices through technologies such as Unified Communications and remote and home working,” Langley says. “Implementing such technologies facilitates organisational changes, leveraging and enhancing traditional voice


communications to a level that allows business to be conducted without barriers or location dependencies.”


The biggest challenge is that there is no one size fits all approach. Different businesses will be looking to change in different ways. “We consider business transformation as part of the journey we take our customers on,” says Steve Clark, Director of Operations at Azzurri. “Different organisations have different evolutionary points in their life cycle in terms of change. Everyone knows the end goal, which is to help our customers improve workforce


productivity, be more agile


and competitive, and improve customer service to their internal staff and customers alike. It’s about how they get there.”


Clear vision


Rachel Dodd, Head of Communications and Value Propositions at Capita IT Services, says that understanding a company or institution’s vision is vital to making a sale. Overselling a technology that isn’t wanted can be just as off-putting to a potential client as not having the solutions in the first place. “Those things are quite organic,” Dodd says. “I can cite an example of one of our customers who has effectively taken on the IP service but still only uses a fraction of its capability.”


Business transformation also means the repositioning of the ICT reseller as a trusted advisor who is able to both lead and be led by clients on efficient use of technology. If that sounds daunting, think about how much harder it is for customers to stay on top of new developments and integrate them into their processes. Carl Churchill, Managing Director at Daisy Wholesale, has an apt analogy for anyone who needs reminding about how quickly things move in the comms world. “I always like to compare the current transformation to the position of broadband data less than 10 years ago,” he explains. “The


Carl Churchill


Technology savvy businesses get


the benefits of UC


advertisements from BT had a USP of ‘using your phone while you use the Internet’. At a time when dial-up was the primary connectivity method, that seemed like a ground breaking development. Today, who talks about that USP for broadband? The connectivity conversation is very different now.”


High potential You will find it easier to work with some businesses than others. The Internet may be worth £100 billion to the UK economy, but there’s still a lot of businesses which are unaware of its potential benefits. “Technology savvy businesses get the benefits of unified communications and can see the opportunity for their business,” added Churchill. “In the more traditional industries there is a requirement for us as a wholesale provider to work with our resellers to educate the end user to identify the benefits and make them realise that


unified communications is a genuine opportunity for their business, not just a development in technology they should avoid.”


It’s about more than selling new solutions, too. Azzurri’s Clark says that many customers already have the infrastructure they need in place, what they lack is the knowhow to utilise it. “Many firms have already deployed the technologies required to deliver a UC solution,” he says. “It isn’t about ripping and replacing a product, it’s about working with what customers already have in more intelligent ways. Most customers are striving to improve workforce productivity and to create back office efficiencies in order to be more competitive and agile in their sectors. By making existing infrastructure smarter and adding to it in some core areas, customers can benefit from UC. The challenge is to convince


Gleneagles Hotel


10th, 11th & 12th November 2010 www.commsvision.com


50 COMMS DEALER NOVEMBER 2010 www.commsvision.com


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