INTERVIEW
Voiceworks UK and Enconvo UK Q&A
With Gareth Long, Managing Director of
In the summer, Technology Reseller got together with Gareth Long to discuss Voiceworks’ first year in the UK and the unified communications and smart voice solutions provider’s plans for the next 12 months. When we met, Gareth was itching (but unable) to talk about a new SIP proposition that he felt would make good his promise to do things differently and shake up the UK’s unified communications market. That product, SIP+, has now been launched. Instead of the established model of making partners pay for SIP channels before a single call is made, SIP+ gives partners SIP channels for free and only charges them for the minutes their customers use. Gareth, now UK Managing Director of Enreach Group’s indirect business (Voiceworks) and its direct business (Enconvo), says that by giving a choice of PAYG, bundled or aggregated usage options, SIP+ enables partners to build SIP around how their customers use voice rather than paying for capacity upfront. “The channel has accepted SIP channel charges for a long time but that doesn’t mean they’re right. Partners are under pressure to protect margin and find new ways to compete, so we think it is time to ask a very simple question: why are they still paying for SIP channels?,” he said. “SIP+ is our answer. This is not about launching another version of the same thing. We want to shake up a market that has become too comfortable with the way things are. ‘That’s how it’s always been done’ isn’t a good enough reason to keep doing it. “SIP+ isn’t about cutting the price to cut corners. Partners still get the features, flexibility and support they need to serve their customers, but with more room to make the commercials work for their business.” Since we spoke (and since Gareth’s promotion), Voiceworks has also
strengthened its channel team with the appointment of Irina Richardson as Channel Development Manager to help resellers, MSPs, IT providers, telecoms dealers and print providers unlock new growth opportunities as the company continues to develop its AI capabilities and services wrap. Technology Reseller (TR): It’s a year since Voiceworks entered the UK market. What sort of impact have you had? Gareth Long (GL): A really positive one. The big surprise for us is the partners that we’re now working with in the channel. We were a new entrant – nobody had heard of Voiceworks a year ago – and the traction we’ve gained with some of the bigger partners in the UK has been exciting. It’s been a good first year.
TR: What do the partners you’re working with value most about Voiceworks?
GL: Our honesty and the fact we’ve got some disruptive launches coming (see above). We’ve taken a blank piece of paper and said: ‘We’re a partner- first business. How do we build for our partners?’. We sat down with our partners and have come up with propositions that make their life easier and, more importantly, the lives of their customers easier. TR: Voiceworks has a good pedigree, being part of Enreach Group. Is that something partners are aware of? GL: We’ve spent a lot of time over the last year telling people about that pedigree because when you launch a new brand there’s a risk people will think there’s no history. The reality is the company started in 2005 as a Dutch channel-only voice business, and we’ve maintained that focus ever since. We’re now in 25 countries, with 2.7 million users across the group and we own and control our own IP. That gives us the ability to react to,
Gareth Long
build and deliver what partners want and are asking for, as opposed to just being a cookie-cutter business. TR: The UC market is obviously very competitive, with a lot of downward pressure on prices. How do you resist that? GL: There’s always going to be downward pressure on price, whether you’re talking about UC, mobile or connectivity, and the way to resist that is to create new value. To start with, it was just the UC. Then call recording became the big thing and we were able to create new value out of that. Then it was analytics. Now AI is offering a new way to create value, which creates commercial gains for partners and for their customers.
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