Comms Dealer introduces the new man responsible for BT Wholesale's channel business serving hundreds of reseller customers - Colin Annette, Client Director, Communication Service Provider Group (CSPG).

Annette was originally recruited into BT Wholesale six years ago to bring fresh blood into an organisation that was on the verge transformational change. "Since then, I have been lucky enough to work in several roles that have all been about changing how we work with our customers and driving new directions for growth in our business," he said. "I have been tasked with consolidating the rapid growth of the past two years, under Karen Murray's leadership, and building the next generation of growth."

According to Annette the newly created client director positions are more than sales roles. "I am accountable for all aspects of a business unit that will have a turnover in the hundreds of millions," he said. "I bring a breadth and depth of commercial, operational and strategic skills that will be needed to lead this substantial business to growth, in turbulent times."

BT Wholesale has had a ‘fantastic' couple of years working with the channel, enthuses Annette, citing rapid growth in the customer base. "There's more to do, but I reckon resellers now have opportunities to grow their business in ways that were only for the big boys a few years ago," stated Annette.

"Absolutely the first challenge is to set that position in concrete, as a solid foundation for the next phase of our growth. From that solid foundation, we are building deeper customer relationships and new products to tap into the immense communications and IT market with SMEs. We have barely scratched the surface of this market and it's tremendously exciting as we reorient ourselves around a market that is substantially broader than lines, calls and broadband."

Annette reiterated his sharpened focus on BT Wholesale's product portfolio, noting an ongoing conveyer belt of new products and the advent of BT's next generation network 21CN. "Primarily, we are focusing on the set of products that the channel can sell effectively to a SME end market," he commented. "We have invested heavily in reducing the overall Total Cost of Ownership for our channel, not simply reducing the price of our products at the point of sale. Ongoing operational and service management costs can weigh heavily on profits and we have dedicated substantial resource to building a robust and cost-effective end-to-end customer experience. We aim to drive reduced lifetime service and operational costs, with reduced customer churn."

All the new product opportunities are IP-based and these run best over a next generation network. BT Wholesale's 21CN broadband services support good quality voice services, and fibre access (pilots underway) will improve that even further. "Today there's a lot of interest in our Wholesale Broadband Connect ADSL2+ services and our Ethernet services, especially the Ethernet-in-the-first-mile EFM services," said Annette. "These technologies both allow SMEs to punch above their weight in terms of networking capability and bandwidth, which means that resellers can expand voice and data services as never before."

The key influencing factors shaping BT's UK channel strategy, in no particular order, are the economic climate, increasing competition, change in market dynamics through M&A activity, the need for IP-centric propositions, the demand for pay-as-you-grow service bundling, the rise of managed services and the growth of Ethernet services. "In terms of attracting new customers we are promoting our entry level products - Wholesale Calls, IP Exchange and Managed Broadband," said Annette. "These products are available with minimal capital outlay, therefore offering growth opportunities into new markets. I'm also happy with our dedicated account management and marketing support that new customers receive."

Annette noted that VoIP is ‘making an impact now', and urged resellers to install SIP trunking for their customer base and install a soft switch or take a hosted VoIP or IP Exchange service. "We are going to see a transition away from traditional call minutes towards VoIP and broadband. It is a trend resellers should take advantage of sooner rather than later," he added. "Our Ethernet services are also proving popular. The latest developments with our Ethernet services include a provision portal which simplifies the ordering process. We're currently trialling a hosted VoIP service called IP Voice Services. The trial is going well and we're getting good feedback. We're feeding this back into our product development team and plan to launch an updated version."

He believes that VARs will also be interested in BT's Marketing Grant programme, designed to help them grow their business while offering the opportunity to double their marketing spend. "In a nutshell, resellers can request a marketing fund which they must match or exceed, and with the joint funding they can then implement an integrated marketing campaign to promote our products and services," said Annette.

He observes that service providers are moving away from directly managing their networks' day-to-day operations, and resellers must consider this as they offer new services. "Cost and asset optimisation pressures mean service providers are increasingly seeking support from third parties, not only to operate, maintain, or optimise their legacy networks, but also to plan, design, and build their next generation networks," he stated.
"Resellers should review capital-intensive fixed cost investments done upfront in favour of a variable cost model matching variable revenues, up or down. Managed network services let resellers benefit from economies of scale so are worth exploring further. Finally, keep focusing on your people. Even if you have to let some people go, put time and effort into those that remain, to build their sense of engagement and commitment."

Annette has held a range of roles in BT since the initial injection of fresh blood back in 2003. Before then he was a consultant for PCCW (Hong Kong) and Orascom Telecom (Belgium). Prior to that he was the Director of European network planning at what was then MCI WorldCom, and also worked at Cable & Wireless, NYNEX CableComms, and NTT Europe.

"I began my career as a systems analyst at British Airways - you could say it took off from there," he said. And looking back across his career, the single biggest achievement was winning BT Wholesale's then-largest-ever single contract, for a managed service for the Post Office in the summer of 2007. "It was a huge achievement for BT Wholesale. It was certainly the most exciting thing I have achieved in work."