Celebrating its fifth birthday this year Eclipse Networks has come a long way in a short period of time, and company founder James Drake says ‘here's to the next five years in an industry that is constantly innovating and reinventing itself, but is never dull'.
James Drake established Eclipse Networks in its current format in 2004 with his wife. After spending a long time in the industry, working for a variety of telecoms companies, they believed that the needs of telecom dealers were not being met by the organisations they served. "We saw first hand how poor the service was that they received, and how often commission payments were delayed, or in some case never paid at all," noted Drake. "The thought process behind starting Eclipse was to address these issues, and create a company that enabled its direct customers to benefit from our knowledge base and a consultative approach, and crucially, create an environment for dealers partners in which they could prosper from an open and honest two way relationship."
Eclipse Networks currently employs seven staff, with revenue of 1.83m in the last financial year, and big ambitions to double revenue within the next three years. Drake added: "Our key growth area for 2010 and beyond is to expand our dealer partner volume in designated geographical locations. In early 2009 we established a separate brand, Eclipse Wholesale, to focus solely on our dealer partners, and it has been a huge success, allowing us to tailor make specific partnership plans for the wide range of organisations we work with."
Drake's ultimate aim is to bridge the gap between voice and IT distributors, by acting as a conduit for IT organisations that need to be able to provide their customers with a voice capability but don't have the time, experience or resources available to establish direct links with Openreach. "The ‘Networks' part of our name embodies what we do," Drake commented. "We see ourselves as a virtual service provider of networks to both our direct customers and dealer partners. We also knew from the start that the art of networking was going to be a key part of our business development. This networking has served us well, with some of our biggest relationships having been established in this way."
The Eclipse Networks product set has developed significantly over the past five years, from simple lines and calls in the early days to a completely unified services solution, covering all ends of the communication spectrum. "Our biggest evolution, proposition wise, has been our early adoption of data connectivity products," added Drake. "We identified from our direct clients that organisations in general were shifting more and more towards hosted solutions, as guaranteed bandwidths, SLAs and disaster recovery plans became mission critical. Hand in hand with this came the realisation that companies are always keen to keep discussions within trusted existing purchasing groups, so the roll out of the data products to our existing dealer partners brought great rewards from their existing clients."
Drake says Eclipse Networks' independence as a key differentiator in an overcrowded marketplace. For every product the company supplies to direct customers and dealers it aims to have two or three different suppliers to choose from. "No two customers are ever the same, so it can be frustrating for us to see some of our competitors advocating a ‘one solution fits all' philosophy," noted Drake. "During every sales process, be it direct or in collaboration with a dealer partner, we make a point of starting out with a completely objective view on what can be achieved within their budget, investigating all possible options before presenting the options in a clear, concise and consultative manner."
Another key differentiator claims Drake, is Eclipse Networks' consultative approach and Eclipse Wholesale's USP, which is to ensure partners are able to confidently and professionally handle their customer's requirements. "We pride ourselves on the open nature of the relationships we develop with our channel partners," said Drake. "At every stage of the sales process our buy rates are made clear to our partners, and we are one of the few wholesale providers who make payments on a flat profit share rather than a complicated commission structure."
Eclipse Networks was one of the first telecoms providers to be fully compliant on Openreach's new WLR3 system. This year Eclipse Networks will focus on developing its existing products rather than fully branching out into new areas. Working with its TPI, Union Street, the firm will continue to update its billing infrastructure and is poised to launch a new online billing portal that will provide analysis of current and past billing periods. Eclipse Networks will also be looking to offer a plug and play hosted VoIP solution this year for SME customers, while continuing to offer customers greater bandwidth.
"The key influencing factor behind our decision to focus on data products in 2010 and beyond has been the requirement for greater service levels on data connectivity," said Drake. "The ‘Best Endeavours' response time on standard ADSL broadband faults is simply not good enough when the vast majority of our customers see Internet access and site to site connectivity as business critical. At the moment the biggest obstacle we face is educating clients that the extra cost of private circuits is worth it, but as new products are developed and prices come down, we are excited to already be in a position to help our dealer partners benefit from what we see as an inevitable... the shift from ADSL broadband to data products for SMEs."
The data channel is a priority. "We have taken the time over the previous few years to align ourselves with the key data suppliers in the marketplace, and have developed solid relationships with all to ensure that we can provide a consultative approach, and importantly, a pricing model that generates significant revenue for our dealer partners."
Drake has been involved in the telecoms industry since completing his A Levels, avoiding further education to fulfil his mother's wish to get a ‘proper' job. "After spending nearly seven years at KCOM, I decided to return to education and completed a degree in Law. I truly believe that completing an under graduate course enabled me to fully understand some of the situations I had observed during my earlier working life, and gave me a real appetite to succeed.
"I spent the next few years post graduation gaining the knowledge of running a small business and filling my diary with key contacts, many of whom I still network with to this day. My experiences in and out of the industry have taught me to never take anything for granted, think about what it is you're trying to achieve and to always take every available opportunity to review your progress."