Conference Program

Stephanie Watson of MZA Consultants

Matt Townend of Illume Consulting

Market Overview

The voice, data and networks markets are highly dynamic. Whilst the economic downturn hit sales very hard we have become very resilient and the fight back is well under way. The Convergence Summit profiles three key market areas for resellers; PBX communications platforms, VoIP/hosted telephony and SIP Trunks. Within each market where are the key growth areas? And what applications are driving sales? Where should resellers focus their resources to gain maximum commercial advantage? This session features two of the key analysts in the sector who will share their views based on the research their companies carry out to measure and monitor these markets.

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Andy Morris of Gamma Telecom
BT Wholesale
Cable & Wireless
Opal

Market Update - NGN's

Next Generation Networks (NGNs) are starting to deliver on their promise. Fast, wide bandwidth circuits are enabling existing application to run better and significantly new applications are being developed to take advantage of the new infrastructures. Network Operators are developing new ways of getting faster access to business all the time, Ethernet delivery, FTTC and FTTP for example. This session features four of the key NGN suppliers in the UK channel who will details their own NGN roll outs and answer the key questions on the issues of the day that resellers need to know to plan their own customer offerings.

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Ian Kilpatrick of Wick Hill

Channel Sales Opportunity - ICT Security

In selling converged voice/data solutions, it’s rarely just about price. Adding value is crucial and one area that resellers cannot ignore is security.
Data security is important to businesses. Financial information - e.g. accounts and tax details - or employee information - e.g. payroll and personnel files - could be very difficult to replace. If you lost data through human error, fire, theft or for some other reason, you would at the very least have to spend time and effort collecting and reproducing the information. Equally, losing data to hacking or other criminal activity needs to be guarded against.
Our speaker, an expert in the field of data security, will identify the resources available to resellers to work profitably with their customers in this market.

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Andrew Copper NEC Infrontia
James Palmer of Nine Telecom Group
Gary Pryor Voicenet Solutions
Carl Churchill of murphx Innovative Solutions
Opal

Panel Debate - The future of communications

Communications: it’s always been a fast moving market and some organisations will get left behind as new technology opens up new opportunities and enables competitive advantage to be gained by those who embrace the changes.
From a broad perspective of Networks, PBX, ISV, Mobile and Hosted Services this session looks at where the winners and losers have been and more importantly where the new opportunities for resellers are likely to occur.
Featured are some of the best known speakers in the channel, each an expert in their own markets, who will impart their experiences and views in order that delegates are well prepared to consider the direction their own businesses need to take in the future.

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Andrew Dickinson of Griffin

How to reduce churn

Looking after your existing customers is a high priority for resellers as IP is becoming the conduit over which their customers will access all of their desktop services, voice and data. Finding new customers is harder and more expensive that looking after the ones we already have so what are the best ways to make sure our churn rates are as low as possible?
Griffin has been successful in helping resellers reduce their churn and we have asked Andrew Dickinson of Griffin to share the dos and don’ts of keeping your customers. The principles are the same for whatever you are selling so if you want to make sure you keep hold of what you already have make this session a ‘must do’ event at the Summit.

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Keith Bates of The Cloud Computing Centre

Market Overview - What's happening in the cloud

Global Cloud services revenue is predicted to reach £46.4 billion in 2010, with an expected rise of 16.6% from last year.  Analyst firm Gartner forecasts that the Cloud services market will double by 2014. Increased bandwidth at reasonable cost is fuelling a revolution in the way applications are provided and the channel needs to be aware of how this can impact their business – where are the opportunities and threats?
Our speaker, an expert analyst in cloud based services will identify the areas of rapid growth and how resellers and take advantage of this growing market.

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James Palmer of Nine Telecom Group

“The Reseller Army” and “The Future Phone Bill”

We examine the role of the reseller and a number of opportunities that they have to increase their revenues by adding a range of services that can be supplied to their customers. Take hosted desktop services for example. Here the reseller can make a very healthy margin from supplying office applications and support without the need to neither be ‘an expert’ nor supply the first line support. There are many other opportunities to be explored all of which add to revenues and make customers that much more sticky at the same time.

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Bob Sweetlove of HSC
James Emm of Oak Telecom
Mike Ballantine of Aastra Telecom

Panel Debate - The future of communications

Communications: it’s always been a fast moving market and some organisations will get left behind as new technology opens up new opportunities and enables competitive advantage to be gained by those who embrace the changes.
From a broad perspective of Networks, PBX, Mobile and Hosted Services this session looks at where the winners and losers have been and more importantly where the new opportunities for resellers are likely to occur.
A second set of speakers, each an expert in their own markets, will impart their experiences and views in order that delegates are well prepared to consider the direction their own businesses need to take in the future.

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Mitel
ShoreTel

Head 2 Head

Two of the leading vendors providing communications platforms have fully embraced virtualization and here we have them presenting ‘Head 2 Head’ on the merits of their individual approaches to the market.
Mitel and ShoreTel have developed leading edge technologies for the deployment of their solution other than in a CPE based format.
What are the implications for their channel partners and what new skill sets are required to get involved in these new markets? How will this affect the more traditional means of supplying solutions and will these present day mid market and enterprise based products soon be available for the SME?

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