28 01732 759725 TELEPHONY 2 Snom as-a-service. Instead of paying for equipment upfront as a capital expense or entering into a traditional leasing agreement with a finance company, customers can pay a monthly rental for their devices. “I don’t think we’ve made enough of this to date,” says Try. “We’re talking to a couple of large ITSPs and they are only interested in Snom as‑a‑service. People increasingly look at their comms, like their IT, as a monthly expense. When I was selling PBXs 20 years ago, people would budget years in advance to buy that hardware. If ITSPs that are already selling licences can change that capital expenditure to an operating expense and add £2/£3/£4/£5 to the licence cost per month (depending on the handset), the handset attachment rate, which has gone down since the pandemic, will start to go up again because customers won’t have to find the budget for hundreds of handsets.” 3 European headquarters. Snom was bought by Hong Kong-based Vtech Holdings in 2016, but the company, founded in Berlin in 1997, still sees itself as a European business. “We’re headquartered in Germany and all our R&D, our provisioning server and our data is based in the EU and subject to EU data laws. That does have a certain amount of clout when it comes to specific verticals. If you’re dealing with government and the public sector, it might not be a deal breaker, but it certainly gets you that bit further,” says Try. 4 Manufacturing outside China. Snom manufactures products in China, but it also has a manufacturing facility in Malaysia, enabling it to meet the needs of organisations that have strict rules about which countries they may or may not buy technology from. “That is a priority for some organisations, and we have won business that was about to be signed with a competitor because of it. I think sometimes it’s an irrational fear, but it’s good to have that choice in our portfolio, in case somebody insists on it.” Its UK distributors, Provu Communications in Huddersfield and Electronic Frontier in Reading, provide sales, technical expertise and first line support (reseller partners can also raise tickets directly with Snom). However, much of the business development and lead generation activity is led by Try and his fellow UK&I Channel Manager Paul Grant. “A big part of my job over the last three years has been to raise Snom’s profile. We can’t rely on distributors to do that because they don’t focus on just one brand – they have other products and other handsets to sell,” explains Try. “When I do speak to people, I find they know the name, they know we’ve been around for a while, but may not always be completely up to date with our full product range.” Such is his faith in the quality of Snom products that Try takes every opportunity to get devices into the hands of potential resellers and customers, confident that they will like what they see. “We sell a tangible product, so sending people a device that they can test and get to know is the most effective route to market. Having the device on your desk, comparing it to what you’re currently using is the only way to really test something. We’re confident that if people do that, they will buy from us and the cost of that one device will pay for itself many times over.” Key differentiators The quality of its products is not Snom’s only selling point. Other differentiators include: 1 Branding opportunities. Snom handsets (bar entry-level models) come with a small glass plate featuring the Snom logo that can be branded with a customer’s or reseller’s logo free of charge. “Now we can go much further and actually manufacture handsets in the customer’s brand colour as well,” explains Try. “We can also create bespoke buttons, so if a reseller requires a specific function key on one of our handsets, rather than having it on a soft key, we can print their own keycap. That, again, is quite popular.” Earlier this year, Snom, developer of the world’s first commercially available SIP endpoint device, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the development of its first IP handset, surpassed 30 million euros in revenue and broke into new markets bringing additional opportunities for its UK resellers. Despite its heritage, Snom UK&I Channel Manager Steven Try still sees the brand as something of a ‘best kept secret’, certainly in the UK, where it doesn’t have the market share it enjoys in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Technology Reseller talks to Steven Try about new opportunities for Snom resellers and the company’s priorities for 2025 Strength in breadth Steven Try
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUxNDM=