By David Plumb, Head of SME Sales, O2: In my first Comms Dealer blog in March, I talked about O2's experiences at Comms Vision in Gleneagles and the journey we've been on ever since as we move from being a mobile operator to a complete communications company.

A journey to better understand you, your needs, aspirations, challenges, and how we can all work together to help business customers get joined up. I promised you that I'd keep you up to speed with any developments, and now I have some exciting news that I want to share with you.

What a journey!
First of all I want to say thanks for your open and honest feedback about O2 and what you're looking from a mobile partner. It wasn't always what I expected, or perhaps what I wanted to hear at the time, but I'm grateful for your input. There's no doubt that your thinking has helped us shape our offering.

When I look back to the Round Table lunch I held in London in April, alongside Comms Dealer and other meetings I've had since, one thing stands out more than anything - your passion for your customers.

Customers who, you understandably want to manage, service and bill, whether they're taking mobile, fixed or managed services. Or ideally all three!

Introducing a wholesale solution
With this in mind, I'm delighted to announce that we'll be launching a full wholesale billing solution via a number of trusted aggregators. We'll call them Joined up Communications (JUC) Channel Partners, as that's exactly what they'll do... help us, you and your customers all get joined up.

So far, we have three partners on board - Daisy, Total and Fidelity Group. So if you want to sell and bill mobile under your brand, then you can do just that, via one of our JUC Channel Partners.

Having a wholesale solution means that you'll be able to offer your customers a truly joined up solution: One bill, one commercial negotiation, and one number to call. You!

I know that this is what you've been asking for, so I hope you'll agree it's a huge step forward.

Anton Le Saux and Maggie Kennedy from my team presented this approach at the recent Margin in Voice and Data event and the feedback was positive.

So, what's in it for you?
• Attract and retain high value customers by offering a complete joined up solution
• Earn more - it's an additional revenue stream from your customer base
• Pull on the support and energy of O2 to strengthen your market execution, we understand the business market and can help you win

There's more to come...
I appreciate that this is only a taster of what we're doing and it really is hot off the press. Take a look at pages 40-43 in the August issue of Comms Dealer for more details, including a profile of each of the Partners.

If you have any questions, thoughts or ideas, please drop me a line at AskDavid@o2.com or use the comment functionality below.

And if you want to get involved, please drop Anton.LeSaux@o2.com a line, as he'll be looking after this new channel for me.