01732 759725 34 ...continued View from the channel With Lee New, Co-founder and Sales Director, F One Technologies How’s business now? Better or worse than 12 months ago? Compared to where we were 12 months ago, I think we've now got a fantastically solid and reliable team; we've got great products; we're dipping our toe into that IT sector. I'm really excited about the future. I'm extremely confident that the hard work and the graft we've put in over the last 10 years are going to stand us in good stead for the next 10 years. In what areas are you experiencing strongest growth? Wi-Fi is a huge growth area, and the ability to be more flexible when it comes to phone systems. Because more people work from home, they don't necessarily have a phone on their desk. They use an app that sits on their mobile and PC. I plug in my headphones and I can make and take calls using my laptop. Wi Fi and a flexible solution that you can use from anywhere are two areas where we see a lot of demand. What recent wins you most proud of? One that springs to mind is Angela Mortimer, a very large international recruitment company with a head office in London and a presence in France and the US. I'm so proud of this win because up to this point, we'd shied away from big opportunities, thinking we didn’t have the infrastructure, the knowledge or the capability to deal with them. Implementing a 130-user solution for Angela Mortimer showed us how wrong we were. It was a risk; it wasn't the usual size of customer we supply and support; and there were internal discussions about whether this was the right job for us. We decided to go for it and I'm extremely glad we did. We learned so much in those two or three months, not least that we’re more than capable of competing for those bigger opportunities. And where is business proving most difficult? Finding the right people. We've got such camaraderie within the team and we don't want to bring in someone who's going to upset the applecart. Recruitment has got easier since we moved to Southampton, but it’s still difficult. How have you changed/are you changing business operations to exploit new opportunities? What we’re doing in IT and Wi-Fi are the two biggest areas of change for us. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing channel businesses today? AI obviously, but that is still something of an unknown quantity. That aside, we do the odd Teams call, but still very much want to get out to see people face to face. Notoriously, people get three quotes if they're updating their phone system, and if we go out and see someone, a lot of the time they will say it's really nice to meet someone in person because their last two meetings have been on Teams. Teams is fine, but we much prefer being in front of people. I think that could be a challenge for the channel. Losing that personable, face-to-face thing is potentially a pitfall. It's really important for us that we maintain those ongoing physical face to face relationships. Teams is useful if it stops me making an eight-hour round trip for something that lasts five minutes, but it’s important we don’t do 100% of our business virtually. The other challenge is the pace of change and proliferation of technology. With the introduction of so many thirdparty applications and products, how do you know which is the best route to go down? How do you ensure you provide the right products? Could vendors and distributors do more to help overcome these challenges? I think vendors and distributors struggle in the same way that we do when it comes to finding the right staff, staying abreast of new technologies, refining that knowledge, and being able to support them. Technology changes so quickly it’s difficult to keep up. Are customers becoming more demanding in any way? Not more demanding, just far more aware. For years and years, they’ve been spending thousands of pounds on equipment that very quickly becomes redundant and now they're far more informed about what's out there and available. Previously, we'd go and see someone and ask ‘what are you trying to achieve?’ and they’d say ‘Why don't you just tell me what the product does?’. Now people say ‘I've got this problem here and I need to do this, this and this’. They are a lot more informed and educated about what the industry can offer them, and they want more flexibility. For example, three or four years ago, you’d buy a mobile on a two-year or three-year contract. Nowadays, many people buy their device and do a SIM-only deal because they want the flexibility to be able to move to a different provider or a different phone or a different tariff. It’s exactly the same when it comes to phone systems. They want the flexibility to be able to move in a different direction if that's what their business requires. If you could change one aspect of your job what would it be and why? I always say to my wife that the day I wake up and don't want to go to work is the day I'll go and do something else. Ten years in, hand on heart, I can say I've yet to have that day. I love everybody I work with. I love the fact that because we are a wholesale provider, we can go anywhere and look at any new product. The possibilities are almost endless in terms of the products that are out there. I don't need to change anything because everything around me is changing so quickly. The exciting bit is keeping up with those changes. View from the channel Lee New
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