UC Advanced - issue #3

NEWS

Looking out for the little guys

DWS, or Gaicom as they are to be known now, has decided to make a splash in the unified communications industry. After splitting from the Daisy Group a couple of years ago, operating under Digital Wholesale Solutions, took the opportunity this month to reveal their grand plan for the reseller market, pursuing a £10 billion SMB opportunity. In short, Gaicom is now looking to supply the resellers with what their customers are asking from them. That is a one-stop shop. “SMBs face a significant problem when it comes to adopting UC because, according to a survey we conducted, less than 1% of all SMBs have any dedicated IT employees in their business,” said Nathan Marke, Chief Operating Officer at Giacom. “Even in the 50 to 250 employee SMB space, less than 30% of those businesses employ somebody dedicated to looking after their IT. As a result of that, small businesses get hacked all the time. “The one-to-50 employee business market is the most hacked sector of all the UK economy. Forty percent of those businesses get hacked every year, and 10% of those businesses that get hacked never recover, because they lose their data and they go out of business. That’s a huge problem, relating to the fact that they don’t have somebody to help them to deliver technology properly.” Cloud Market To fix this problem, Giacom revealed the launch of Cloud Market, a groundbreaking partner portal designed to provide a seamless platform experience across its complete product lineup. Cloud Market marks a significant milestone as it integrates the capabilities of DWS’ four existing platforms into a single, user-friendly interface. With intuitive navigation, enhanced performance and comprehensive access to all the company’s offerings, Giacom aims to empower partners to deliver a diverse range of products and services to their customers across cloud, connectivity, mobile and software. With Cloud Market, Giacom is aiming to enable resellers to educate SMBs about the B2B technology market, improve the

technology they use and make up for being “poorly served by vendors directly.” “SMBs aren’t looking for point solutions, they want solutions to these problems, they just want to get on with their job,” said Marke. “Our surveys show that SMBs are increasingly looking for a one-stop shop, they’re increasingly looking for one hand to shake. “But one of the questions that we asked in that survey was, ‘Are you aware of somebody who could come and help you with your technology?’ Sixty percent said they’re not, so a lot of SMBs don’t even know that MSPs exist.”

Nathan Marke Chief Operating Officer

Plugging the Gap On top of the struggles of the small

giacom.com

businesses, Marke laid down the challenges resellers have to serve them, and why he believes Cloud Market is the answer to these challenges. “We know that SMBs want all the brilliant stuff that the likes of Microsoft and Apple can provide. The problem is in the UK, smaller businesses have always been poorly served by these vendors directly. “Then the problem for resellers is that if they’re trying to deliver a one-stop shop, they have to work with many carriers and vendors. They have to strike a direct deal with Microsoft, O2, Vodafone, BT, Aronis and Sophos. A small reseller or MSP hasn’t got time to do deals with all of these different players. That’s where we see the gap for Cloud Market.”

With Cloud Market, Giacom is aiming to enable resellers to educate SMBs about the B2B technology market, improve the technology they use and make up for being “poorly served by vendors directly.”