PRINTITRESELLER.UK 39 EVENTS continued... The first of a planned series of regular events came hot on the heels of a wideranging reorganisation across Asolvi which saw the company move away from regional operating companies to product focused business units, a series of internal promotions, and the news that Tony Milford was returning as Managing Director of Vantage Online. In his opening address, Milford clearly set out the direction of travel and focus on strengthening Vantage Online’s relationship with partners: “We want to get back to the intimacy and speed of the small business we were, combined with the strength, discipline and resources, that being part of a larger organisation brings,” he stated. Milford spoke about the five-year journey with Asolvi post-acquisition and how the business will function better now with a dedicated team committed to one product and a single group of customers. A renewed focus “I am genuinely excited,” he said, adding: “We have a renewed focus and full autonomy across product, support, and professional services, supported by Asolvi’s central functions. Our aim is to focus on you and to lead where we can make sure there is value and a great fit for your business.” Milford also shared the company’s plans for growth including the news that Vantage Online has expanded into Introducing the new Vantage Europe, is opening in Australia and New Zealand later this year and has plans to expand into the US. “This reorganisation has brought the resources we need to become more ambitious and to recruit more people. The journey has only just begun,” he explained. Product roadmap Operations Director Matt Houlden recapped on product updates completed to date in 2024 which included security, in particular enabling multi-factor authentication; building a new reporting engine designed for Azure to mitigate random errors experienced by some partners; as well as strengthening the software to reduce latency, improve responsiveness and performance. He reinforced the commitment to continuous improvement stating that throughout the summer, the team will expand the scope to cover off other areas in the system. Sharing details of upcoming releases, Houlden confirmed that a root and branch review of the Asolvi Anywhere mobile app for engineers was imminent as well as plans to enable end-toend billing automation by the end of the year. Other areas of focus include enhanced subscription management and billing, mapping and route optimisation, dashboard and BI integration, AI, machine learning and predictive maintenance. PrintIT Reseller joined around 65 guests from 40 dealer partner companies at the 2024 Vantage Online User Conference which took place on June 18 at the Double Tree Hilton Hotel in Stadium MK, Milton Keynes Customer survey Sales Director Kevin McNally and Chris Wright, Head of Customer Support shared the topline findings of the Vantage Online Customer Survey. McNally said: “These survey results will provide a starting point for us to benchmark where we are,” adding that they will be conducting a deeper dive and analysis into the comments respondents added in the text boxes. Overall, the survey revealed that 60% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with Vantage online and that 50% were satisfied or very satisfied with customer service and support. McNally pointed out that the user interface and ease of use where among the top features identified by the users polled and whilst performance and speed scored less highly, as Houlden explained earlier, they have made inroads into addressing and resolving these issues. Milford added that the plan was to put together specific user groups to align with the product roadmap as well as technical user groups designed to help nail what the team should be looking at around billing and subscription management for example. “We want to make better what is good and make good what needs to be better,” he said. Channel opportunities in an AI world Louella Fernandes, CEO of Quocirca delivered an insightful keynote focused on the race to relevance in the era of AI, pointing out the changing buyer landscape backed by Quocirca research data.
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