technologyreseller.co.uk 33 BUSINESS BRIEFING you can’t keep chasing the ball. I have talked to many people over the years about the latest and greatest and bumped into them years afterwards and asked them how it went; most of the time it didn’t work out. My belief is that you need to be known for something and then iterate. I can’t see us jumping on too many of the tickets out there where we have no credibility; sooner or later it will catch up with you. The most important thing is to do things well in your space and to keep turning up for your people and your clients. I am a huge believer that persistence, consistency and resilience are what is required and that is how we try to run our business. TR: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry today? AO: Talent is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but perhaps more than that our industry seems to have a stereotypical look and feel. Clearly, we have the dreams of Silicon Valley and what that represents, but we are also maledominated with a demographic that perhaps doesn’t lend itself to selling the diversity of roles and opportunities that genuinely exist in the IT industry. We have lost a little bit of the personality that made the industry exciting; some of the inspiring pioneers, the engineers and leaders, who were also the creatives, aren’t here any more and we seem to have a void that needs to be filled. I think the startup arena is immensely exciting but it needs help, certainly in the UK where we have taken our eye off the ball in terms of education and addressing the multitude of needs a successful individual has. We need to reclaim some of that space and get to the grass roots and start to tell our story. Evolution Capital Market Intelligence Team Highlights Revenue Opportunities for MSPs Evolution Capital’s market intelligence team have been analysing Managed Services in the ICT space and have found some interesting stats in telecoms which might surprise MSPs looking to increase revenue. With the planned decommissioning of the traditional PSTN network moving along apace, UK businesses only have until 2025 to make the switch to digital, and with a bigger number than you might think still opting for conventional voice calls, a strategic horizontal diversification now could bring major benefits to companies. EC’s Head of Intelligence, Fraser Dixon said: “Many ICT business owners look at telecoms in general as a legacy system but, looking at the data, you can see a very different story. Year on year, business call volumes through the network saw a modest rise with calls to mobiles in particular increasing by an impressive 30% – that’s over 7 billion minutes. And, with 35% of UK businesses still using PSTN systems, the move to SIP or VoIP quickly becomes more interesting. Analysts predict that over the coming four years, VoIP services will increase by £3.5bn in the UK. “Bringing together Managed IT Provision with Telecoms would lead to a unified comms business provided you have the technical staff in each area for success. The majority of businesses we are supporting through mergers and acquisitions currently recognise the value of technical teams as part of the dealmaking process.” Evolution Capital’s senior transaction advisors focus on building the right partnerships. Their thorough and highly targeted approach ensures the optimal transactional outcome with a swift return on investment as part of a carefully developed strategic plan. For more information, contact Lee Fellick on 0203 696 2810 or email [email protected] BUSINESS BRIEFING TR: Are customers become more demanding, and if so, in what ways? AO: Customers should be, and in my experience always are, demanding. It is all about value and many of our strongest advocates drive us very hard and engage with us very meaningfully. It is inspiring to know that you are working for one of the largest financial institutions on the planet and they are relying on you. You want to be tested, you want to be challenged and you want to go above and beyond. You have to feel like that in order to survive and if we don’t feel that we deserve not to be there. TR: If you could change one aspect of your job, what would it be and why? AO: Every day you look for chinks of light that demonstrate growth – growth in people, growth in our maturity, growth in our decision-making, growth in our numbers, growth in the way people operate. These are the things that you cling on to as a CEO and trust that what you see is the truth. We have to keep moving forward as a business, we have to keep failing every day and keep learning. We have to ensure that what we think is the state of play actually is the state of play. It is important to accept where you are and what you need to do and for that reason I do challenge myself on whether I am feeling the right things, whether I can trust instinct? And by the way, instinct isn’t gut feel; it is honed by experiences from the past that you can correlate to the future. I don’t think I want to change anything because my personal choice has been to make my job, in some part, my life. That decision has had consequences but it has also stood me in good stead. It isn’t really a job after all; it’s a passion that I find hard to explain.
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