technology
reseller.co.uk
INTERVIEW
33
It’s like 1998 all over again
Technology Reseller
talks to Clifford Norton, managing director of Channel Telecom, about
developments at the channel-only provider of wholesale and retail telecommunication solutions
in service, support and billing – the ‘mucky
minutes, as Norton calls them.
“Most of our dealers are businesses
that want to offer lines and calls to their
customers, but don’t really want to get
involved with the day to day management
of it. We bill the customer, we deal with
all of their support, we collect the money,
we do everything; the dealer basically just
recommends us and earns a commission
on the profit every month.”
Because everything is handled by
Channel Telecom, its dealer base includes
a diverse mix of partners, from office
removals firms and estate agents to IT
companies that provide the servers and
infrastructure but don’t want to get involved
with lines and calls. All the dealer needs to
succeed is a good customer base.
The shift to IP
Whether operating as wholesalers or
dealers, Channel Telecom partners are
benefitting from a massive market shift to
IP telephony.
“At the moment, the industry reminds
me of that period from the late ‘90s, when
BT was deregulated, to the middle of 2000
when everybody moved to Least Cost
Routing. Now, everybody is moving away
from traditional telephony, putting their
network in the same place and moving to
hosted or SIP,” explained Norton.
“The problem with IP telephony
used to be that connectivity was never
particularly great; a lot of companies
didn’t want to put all of their systems onto
an internet connection that was neither
particularly fast nor reliable. But the cost
of connectivity has dropped so much and
speeds have improved so much in the last
18 months that the number of companies
moving to IP has grown massively. They’re
all getting rid of traditional lines and calls
and moving onto IP telephony.”
Norton expects this trend to accelerate
following BT’s announcement of its intention
to close down its ISDN network by 2025.
Additional software
Another trend from which Channel Telecom
partners are benefitting is the expansion
of the company’s product portfolio and the
transition to solutions sales.
“Now, when we sell a customer a data
connection we don’t just sell the data
connection but also the SIP trunks, the
IP hosted, Microsoft 365 and additional
software. We’re not just selling a simple
telephony solution anymore; we’re selling a
complete solution,” explained Norton.
He added: “One thing I’m working on
now is a channel solution with Microsoft
365. We’re looking to get Microsoft
accredited ourselves so that we can start
delivering these products through our
partners. It’s quite a long process, probably
6-8 months before you’re even accredited
and then another six months before you
can sell it through the channel. We’re about
half way through that process.”
In the meantime, Channel Telecom
continues to add new solutions to its
portfolio, like Nimbus UC, introduced in
August last year and already boasting 50
active Nimbus EC resellers and more than
1,000 user licences.
It is also continuing to invest in service
and support to make sure that it carries on
meeting the needs of its partners.
“The more services we can offer to our
partners, the more they can sell into their
customers,” explained Norton. “But we also
want to service those partners, so we need
to make sure that we have the best pricing,
the best service, the best portals, and then
constantly account manage them and look
after them to make sure that we deliver
everything they want.”
Business has been booming at Channel
Telecom, so much so that for the last
two years it has appeared on
The Sunday
Times
Tech Track 100 ranking of Britain’s
fastest growing private technology
companies.
The company was founded in 2008
and in the last three years turnover has
increased rapidly, from circa £6.5 million in
2014 to £10.2 million in 2015 and £14.5
million in 2016. Over the same period, its
partner base has almost quadrupled in
size, from about 100 in 2014 to 200 in
2015 and 360 in 2016.
Managing director Clifford Norton
expects similar growth levels again this
year, taking turnover close to £20 million.
He attributes Channel Telecom’s
success to a number of factors, foremost
amongst them its strict channel-only
strategy and multi-carrier approach.
“The main thing about us is that we’re
channel-only, so we’re never going to be
going after the same customer as a partner.
There may be another partner against you
but it will never be us. The other thing is
we’re not tied to any particular carrier. When
you come to us, we’ll normally give you
prices for five or six different suppliers and
let you choose the one you prefer,” he said.
Wholesale or commission
Partners work with Channel Telecom on
either a wholesale or a dealer basis.
Wholesalers buy services from
Channel Telecom and then do everything
themselves, including billing customers
and collecting the money (though Channel
Telecom can do the billing if required).
According to Norton, the wholesale route is
becoming increasingly popular.
“We’ve got more partners going
wholesale than want to work on a dealer
basis. The reason they come to us is that
we’ve got order relationships with the likes
of BT Openreach, Virgin, Colt and we’ve
developed all of our systems to talk to their
systems. A wholesaler start-up or small
business would never get the prices and
rates they get through us, or the service,
simply because they don’t have the account
managers on the ground anymore. We’re very
much an intermediary between the carriers
and the smaller wholesalers,” he explained.
The dealer route is favoured by
companies that don’t want to get involved
Clifford Norton,
managing director,
Channel Telecom
