36 01732 759725 INTERVIEW 3 Rural networks. “One of the areas we want to concentrate on is rural networks,” said McKindland. “The market in the major urban conurbations (Manchester, Liverpool, London and Birmingham) is very, very competitive and it’s very, very difficult to make a margin that allows you to invest back into your business. Altnets in under-served rural areas are a target-rich environment for us. If we can get the right strategic resellers into those areas, we can give some value, drive some quality and earn some margin that will helps us develop our business and invest back into the UK and, more importantly, back into the local economy.” Targeted partner recruitment McKindland says that he is not looking to recruit a large number of partners but is taking a more targeted approach. “We’re looking to work in quite strategic geographical areas, starting with the M62 corridor, from Hull into York, Leeds, Sheffield and the Doncaster area, then across into Manchester and Liverpool. Finding niche partners in those areas will keep us entertained for quite some time. We’ll then start to move south, to Birmingham and into the South-West, before targeting London a bit later.” Sona is being careful to restrict the number of partners in each geographical area to maintain the value of what it does and to avoid downward pressure on prices. Sona products are suitable for businesses in all sectors, but it is prioritising strategic partners that are active in certain verticals for which it has good wholesale solutions. These include fintech, an area in which Dutch partners are very active, construction, hospitality and retail.” McKindland adds that he is looking to recruit partners at a pace that will enable Sona Business to on-board new partners in the right way and at a pace that existing resources can cope with, from its NOC in Central Europe to technical support in India. “My target for this year is around about a dozen partners. If half of those are putting regular business through us by the Integrated network communications Sona Business is a privately owned wholesale internet, cloud and hosted Unified Comms provider based in Rotterdam that already enjoys a strong market presence in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. It was set up by Sonia Harjani and Walter Perris in 2012 and provides real-time data, video and voice communications over a Layer 2 network supported by 11 data centres in seven countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and a 24/7/365 Global Network Operations Centre. Sona Business has been a licensed operator in the UK since 2016, but didn’t test the water on this side of the North Sea until 2020 when it worked with UK partners on a niche hosted UC solution delivered from its Rotterdam data centre. The pandemic put a halt to further UK expansion until this year when Harjani and Perris relaunched Sona Business in the UK. Top sellers While Sona Business positions itself as a one-stop-shop for integrated network communications, with a menu of products and services, McKindland has identified three areas where he believes Sona Business can have a real impact in the UK market: 1 White-label hosted unified communications, which he expects to be Sona’s biggest revenue generator in the UK (on the continent, it’s connectivity). “That’s probably about 65% of what I’m dealing with at the moment,” he said. 2 SD-WAN, one of Sona’s biggest revenue generators on the continent. “That is an enterprise-grade product, not an SMB product at this moment, so in the UK we might sell that on an agency model. We’ll sell it with the partner and provide them with a revenue stream, very much like Zoom and RingCentral do now with their hosted UC offerings,” explained McKindland. He adds that Sona Business has an enterprise-grade WiFi product that could be sold on the same basis. Earlier this year a new name, Sona Business, entered the UK connectivity market, with the opening of an office in Ferensway, Hull and the recruitment of industry veteran John McKindland to spearhead its UK operations as Head of Partner Channel UK. Since McKindland came on board in June, the wholesale provider of hosted unified communications, connectivity and private cloud has continued to build out its UK operations, making a big investment in equipment for its UK datacentres, expanding its product offering and developing new partnerships, most recently with ITS Technology Group, the power behind Faster Britain, described as the UK’s leading business fibre network, delivering gigabit-capable connectivity. The addition of Faster Britain solutions to Sona Business’s channel offering is a significant expansion of its current connectivity, communication, cloud and mobility services, which already include hosted UC, SD-WAN and private cloud, offering ‘last mile’ access and data connections across the UK and Europe. So who are Sona Business and why should channel partners take note? As Sona Business launches in the UK, Technology Reseller learns more about its channel and growth strategy A vision for growth John McKindland
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