Author transcript
Hello and welcome to UC today. My name is Christopher Carey and today I'm joined by Tom Cheddam, head of connectivity and wholesale at Gamma. We're going to be discussing why connectivity can no longer be treated as a commodity and how partners can use it to create stronger customer outcomes and longer term growth. So Tom, uh, thank you for joining me today. Connectivity is often still treated as a utility or a commodity. Why is that mindset no longer fit for how businesses operate today?
Um, I would I would come down to the importance of it really, Chris. Like if if you think about it as you're a small mediumsized business and you lose your internet connectivity, um that's a big big effect on your business. Your connectivity runs pretty much everything from start to finish nowadays within your in within your office, your environment, your phones, everything you think of. The moment you're without your connectivity, it's all gone wrong for you. Um, so you can no longer just classify as a commit as a quality, something that you just pay for on a monthly basis and hope works. It's really, really important and I don't think anyone needs to tell me to tell them the importance of it. When somebody goes, "Oh yeah, it's just the fifth utility and we just pay a bill for every single month and we want the cheapest one possible." That rings alarm bells to me because they're not thinking about the importance of it and what's likely to happen when it goes wrong.
Yeah, it's a good point. And when a customer invests in connectivity, what are they really trying to enable across communications, cloud, security, resilience, and just business in general?
Um, they're trying to get themselves into the the 21st century. Everything that we use is cloud-based nowadays. Most CRM are um browser based. The telephone system is usually cloud-based. Your accounting software is all cloud-based. We don't have the day the days of uh the Sage software being installed in the local server are gone and needing coming to the office to use that those days are over. Um so by getting a decent interconnect key what you're trying to enable is your business just operating on a day-to-day basis exactly the same as having electrics installed. Without the lights you just can't go on on a daily basis. You're working in the dark. Is exact the same without getting through it. You can't operate and all those software all those SOS mentioned stuff like this that we're doing today doesn't work and your business talks.
And Gamma has been speaking directly with partners through its PX interviews. What did you hear about the practical challenges of sourcing and managing connectivity?
Um the not to put words into partners' mouths. A lot of the feedback came that connectivity is complex. It's no longer simple. You don't just go to open reach anymore and buy an FTP an FTP or um way that when I'm talking about this example, an FGTC, there's all these different suppliers popping up and it's a bit like Spaghetti Junction at the moment. The connectivity industry, it's all coming from all these different angles. There's loads of new terminology. There's loads of new players in that place. And what partners wanted to be able to do is almost go to a one-stop shop where they can get everything they need from a single place. They've got a single commercial agreement with one support. That's the supplier that they trust and everything can be provisioned and ordered and managed. And when it comes to support, it's all in a single place. And connectivity is like we've spoke about them being spoken about as a commodity. Um so yeah, it's a bit of a race to the bottom and the cost going down and down. What people have got to remember is when it does go wrong, who are you contacting? Having people in multiple different places, that's just increasing your support cost. And that's not a natural proud moment in your P&L. That's something you've got to consider when it comes to time and effort of staff and people like that. And that is what we're hearing a lot in our PX interviews is we want one single vendor where we can manage it all. And we're not just talking about managing our open rich base. We might talk about managing our net base. We're talking about the weird kind of complexity that a customer may have. We don't want to have to on board a single partner just to be able to serve that. We want it. We do want and I hate the space, but partners want a one-stop shop where they can get it all from.
It's an interesting point. And why is greater supplier choice important to partners? Why has it traditionally come with so much operational complexity?
Um mainly because the vis comes with operational complexity I always felt is that you'll get a single partner in within a partner you'll get somebody who's a product champion and they really understand the process and they get it but when that person goes on holiday or on leave or something happens to that person they leave the business there's a bit of complexity around what do we do next who runs that Mike's no longer here so what do we do who do we contact and that is the beauty of having that kind of greater supply choice in terms of can go to that person and I can speak to them because it's the same person I speak to every single day about all this other stuff. We're not just relying on Mike his knowledge within our business to help us through this customer issue because God forsake Mike should leave or not be available that customer is going to suffer which then mean our partner suffer and then the person who's ultimately supplying that connection suffers as well because it's all disjointed. So having that supplier of choice available from one place, it does mean that you're no longer relying on individual knowledge or intricacies or one portal, that kind of stuff. You remove all that headache in your business and you're working solely with somebody across multiple different options.
And how has that feedback shaped Gamma's connectivity strategy and road map?
Um, it's exactly what's fed into our road map. So our road map at the moment is all about diversity and bringing alnets whether that's from a traditional route or from an Ethernet uh background or even when we were talking in more recently about satellite broadband all these different options that a customer may want or hear of. Um, we want to make sure that our road map can bring all of that in for them so that when a partner looks at a postcode or they look at a customer, they know all the best connectivity options or that per customer. And then when their salesperson goes out, they can already go out and talk about what connectivity options are available and talk about what's good and what's not good and what the right decision is for them to make. The person that helped the sales journey in terms of yeah we can open the door with connectivity but then we can start to talk about all these other things that the partner offers that connectivity helps deliver and you could say that fiber exchange is a key part of that story. What is it exactly and how does it make it easier for partners in practical terms?
So the goal of fiber exchange has become money supermarket rolements. Uh, like I just said in that previous bit, the example I give is that you can take a postcode, drop the postcode into Fiber Exchange, and Fiber Exchange will tell you what's available, all the different bandwidths, um, the cost involved with that, the lead time, the different intricacies. So, you've got one portal just to check it all in one single place. That's the goal from a sales point of view. From an operational point of view, the goal is that you've got one place support. You come to the gamma support team, people that you know because you're already working with us on connectivity or you'll get to know because you're not working with us on connectivity but you want everything from one place and you can talk to this team. This team will help whether that's a connection with open reach whether that's a connection with city fiber and any other we on board you're working through those channels that you're used to working with and that's all starting with fiber exchange.
Yeah, it's a good point. And how does bringing providers like BT Wholesale, PXC, and City Fiber into a single portal help partners move beyond a price fiber conversation.
It goes from the thing of a price conversation. It's okay when you're comparing vanilla and vanilla, but if you're looking at this service and that service, then come down to price. What we're talking about is an availability fudge. It's more about right this person is located here and it means they can get hex and the price then becomes irrelevant. What I see from the altnet market unlike the open reach market is open reach is all about cost and the commercial aspect of it where altnets essentially they set their own price and they talk about yes we're the only thing that's available in your locations but the cost is X and that means that the partner's got more control around um what that cost is because customer is and not only educated about what skies letters advert is on the TV or what they send on a booster. It's a unique offering, a unique server. It's based on where that customer is. They've got no idea of what the commercials do. So, it allows the partner to go from being able to go right this is a bog standard FTP and you've seen FTP. You probably got the same connection at home x amount per month to actually this is dedicated to where you guys are. This service is only available in these postcodes in these regions and you've got no other choice, Mr. Partner or Mr. customer, sorry, into taking this and helps them move into that uh consultative cell, an actual based on your postcode, based on where you are, we've done our research and we know that this is the best thing that's available. Fiber exchange is going to help all of that because it's super simple just to search your postcode before you go out and see that customer.
And just one final question, where do you see the biggest opportunity for partners to use connectivity to create more valuable kind of longer term customer relationships over the next 12 to 24 months?
I would start with their existing base. Um, that's where you've got all your current opportunities when it comes to connect. Either they've got connect SIMs with you already and pretty sure unless you've been living under a rock you're aware of what's about to happen next year with the switch and that's a big change that's driving a lot of this is the fact that customers have to now review their connectivity because there something that's going to happen in our industry and we'll probably never see anything like it again. So your existing customer base and learning what's available now but having a look what's going to be available in three months time and having a look what's going to be available in six months time and then selecting the right connectivity for them now means that customer is probably going to stick with the vendor for the next three years next five years because that's what's going to be available. So it's your chance now to future proof them for the next five years. And there's going to be nothing else really touch wood. It's going to create a hell of more a lot of work if there is. But there's going to be nothing like this event like the switch off which is going to force to customers to review their connectivity all in one go the same way that's happening at the moment.
Interesting times ahead I think. Tom, thank you very much for joining me today. If people want to find out more, what's the best way to get in touch?
Um, if you're G partner already, contact your account manager. You probably know who they all are. If not, head to the website, put in a contact inquiry form through us. One of our team will reach out to you and we'll more than happy to have a conversation about fiber exchange and the future connectivity for Gamma. Thank you.
Thanks again, Tom. If you like this video, uh, please give us a like and a share on social media and we'll see you next time. I've been Christopher Carey for UC today. Thanks for watching.
