Gradwell Communications’ new partner rectifies the “neglect” its channel has seen in recent years, according to incoming CEO Jamie Ward.
The Alliance partner programme is the company’s brand new channel programme which was formulated by Ward and Justin Powell, Head of Channel Development, to give structure, understanding and commitment to partners. It will be launched from 1 October.
“I think it’s fair to say that Gradwell had neglected its channel for the past five years,” Ward (pictured above) told UC Today.
“It had some good growth back in 2012 through 2016 and then after that, it was pretty much neglected and there was no structure around it. Partners could join as a wholesale partner or they could effectively join as a dealer, but that was about it –there was no ecosystem.
“We had nothing stating their responsibilities to us as a partner, what our expectations are, what we’re going to deliver to them, what our service wrap looks like, clear definitions around what they’re going to get, what the SLAs are, or how we’re going to help them support their customers. None of that really existed; there were bits and bobs all over the place, but we’ve spent the last few months putting it together into this programme”
Highlights of the new Alliance programme include a new partner portal which allows partners to configure prices and quotes directly from the portal to their customers, as well as giving them real-time updates on issues such as faults and tickets. Larger partners will also get access to network management tools to support their customers.
Ward also pointed out Gradwell’s hosted telephony platform as a major ingredient in the Alliance programme.
“We’ve spent the last two and a half years really building it out. It’s really built to serve that sub-30 extension market which I don’t think, many others do very well,” he said.
We’ve really simplified it: we’ve made the self-serve on it really easy and we’ve dramatically reduced the provisioning burden on the partner.”
His colleague Powell (pictured right) added that the programme has been designed not just for partners that specialise in comms but for managed service providers who want to move into the voice space.
“The Alliance programme is exciting for our existing comms partners, but it will also attract IT partners and print partners – companies that are looking to get into voice. [With Alliance] they see a partner in Gradwell that is big, but not too big that they can’t get that day-to-day, friendly, professional service that can help them grow.”
For those MSPs and resellers that do not include voice as part of their service offerings, they are missing out on a big market opportunity that their rivals are likely picking up on, Ward added.
“Service providers that don’t currently offer a voice service need to recognise that if they’re not offering that then they can be certain that the voice providers are adding IT services to their portfolio, and they are going to be in and around their customers,” he warned.
“From a defensive point of view for anyone who is working in that space, it’s a good strategy to have a voice offering”
Gradwell will also be focusing on a smaller number of partners to prevent “dilution” of their offering, Powell said. He doesn’t want partners to feel it is a “race to the bottom” for margin and that they can feel confident that they will be one of a small number of partners offering Gradwell’s solutions in their geography.
Becoming Channel-centric
Earlier this year Gradwell’s private equity owner Chiltern Capital acquired The Technology Group (TTG). Both companies retain their independent identities in the larger group, however, the move has caused Gradwell to shift to a channel-centric business, focusing on the SMB market.
Ward is transitioning into the role of Chief Executive from his current role as Sales and Marketing Director, while current CEO Simon Curry becomes Group CEO. The move to a 100 percent channel company is a “big change” for Gradwell as around 70 percent of sales come from direct customers, with the remainder from the channel, said Ward.
“Over the last couple of years, we’ve been selling into slightly bigger customers who’ve got more sophisticated requirements, but that’s put a burden on our provisioning and our support team which are really designed to support micro SMEs,” he explained.
“We identified TTG as being a business which would be really complimentary to Gradwell because it serves the upper end of SME and mid-market. It’s got very good project management and onboarding teams, and so they are better able to serve those new customers that the Gradwell sales team have been bringing on board.
“TTG will effectively be Gradwell’s biggest channel partner. TTG is really where we’re going to be supporting the bigger, more sophisticated direct customers but anything smaller is all going to be routing through the channel and that’s where Gradwell is strong”
Small businesses and the lower-end of the SMB market is an area that not many are going after at the moment, as enterprise vendors chase after enterprise customers, Powell said.
“Nobody’s really going after the mid and the small level partners in all spaces: telecoms, IT, Microsoft,” he said
“The opportunity for us is that the partner of today also wants to place most of their services in one place. That’s where we’ve got a fantastic opportunity because our portfolio covers communications to connectivity to professional services – all of which the partner wants.”
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