Technology Reseller v40

technologyreseller.co.uk 43 Q&A To find out more about becoming a Gamma dealer, please email [email protected] . before progressing to Wholesale. Over the years, we have been quite successful at delivering Platinum partners to the Wholesale side of the business. We get the occasional one coming back, as well, where they have tried Wholesale but found that it was a bit too much for them, that it was a distraction from their core focus or that they didn’t hit the revenue marks that they (or Wholesale) wanted. In such cases, they might choose to become a dealer instead. Technology Reseller: The dealer route sounds an ideal proposition for an IT reseller or an MSP that might want to add hosted telephony to their offering without having to invest in additional skills or resource. Neil Taylor: Definitely, and with Microsoft Teams coming to the fore, now is a good time for businesses wanting an additional revenue stream to embrace voice and expand their offering. The relationship can be as high-touch or as low-touch as partners like; we have seen new partners from all kinds of industries, not just the one’s you’d expect. The attraction here is that we can provide sales and marketing support or train their staff to create and spot new opportunities themselves. Q&A Gamma, the unified communications solutions provider, is building on a successful 2020 with a renewed focus on its dealer business. James Goulding finds out more about the opportunities for IT resellers and MSPs from Neil Taylor, Head of Direct Partner Sales involved or removed from the relationship with the end user as they like. We have some partners who prefer for us to communicate on a day-to-day basis, and others who would rather take care of this themselves. Our 24/7/265 UK-based helpline makes this decision easy for them too. With Wholesale, the brand the customer sees isn’t Gamma, but the partner’s. They know that Gamma is providing the service, but it is the reseller that delivers that end service to the customer and assumes the responsibility of service, billing and communications. Technology Reseller: How many dealers do you have on the Direct side and why do they choose to go down the Direct route rather than Wholesale? Neil Taylor: Right now, we probably have around 200 dealers on our books, ranging from one-man-band consultancy businesses right the way up to MSPs with a salesforce of 500 to 1,000 people. Sometimes a dealer comes to us because they are installing a phone system and putting in our SIP trunks, in which case we effectively just take orders from them. But more and more often, especially when it comes to Horizon hosted telephony, we are introduced as product specialists and will sell directly to the customer through the partner. The partner is an introducer, a sponsor, into that end user business. The main reasons they choose to be a dealer for Gamma Direct are a) because by talking directly to their customers we can help them win more sales; and b) because they don’t have to do any of the provisioning work themselves – they can focus purely on their core business, while we provide a value-added revenue stream. Some also choose the Direct route to put a foot in the water, to test it out, Like many communications and technology businesses, Gamma had a successful 2020 based on a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions in the UK and Europe. Together, they helped the provider of unified communications as a service (UCaaS), SIP trunking, connectivity and mobile services to increase revenue by 20% to £393.8 million and gross profit by 21% to £200.8 million. This year, Gamma has continued to expand its footprint and enhance its capabilities through acquisitions, including that of Cloud Contact Centre as a Service specialist Mission Labs in March, while also addressing growing demand for hosted telephony, UCaaS and CCaaS through its Wholesale and Direct Partner Sales operations. The latter is headed up by Neil Taylor, who has identified IT resellers, VARs and MSPs as a key channel for Gamma as convergence, including accelerated take-up of Microsoft Teams, presents clear opportunities for partners from outside the telecoms industry to capture lucrative recurring revenue streams by offering UC services. We started by asking Neil about Gamma’s different routes to market and why the Dealer model is particularly well suited to partners from a non-telecoms background. Technology Reseller: Gamma has two main routes to market: Wholesale and Direct, which you look after. What are the main differences between the two? Neil Taylor: With Gamma’s direct business, partners refer their customers to us and we contract with them directly – we bill, we provision and we provide first-line support to the end user directly. The partner has the freedom to be as continued... Neil Taylor