Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Jola won Best White Label Solution and received a Highly Commended certificate for Wholesaler of the Year at the Comms Business Awards in London last week.

The judges shortlisted 94 entries from over 160 submitted from well-known channel businesses such as Giacom and Virgin Media Business Wholesale. To win such a prestigious white-label award demonstrates the strength of the Jola channel proposition.

Cherie Howlett Jola’s CMO, commented, “We are delighted to win two awards and to sponsor the Best ICT Solution. It is a fantastic achievement and I would like to thank our suppliers, partners and wonderful team for their continued support and dedication. Craig Charles was a great host and we had a brilliant evening celebrating.”

Cherie Howlett, one of Jola’s founding members and Chief Marketing Officer, completed the Race for Life in Derby with her daughter Bella, aged 10. They wanted to raise money for Cancer Research to prevent other families from losing their loved ones to this terrible disease. 

“We lost my Dad and Bella’s Grandad to a rare form of cancer in October 2020 and Bella wanted to help Cancer Research fund new innovative treatments to help more people survive. Neither of us likes running, so we trained with the Couch to 5K app to get fit to face the challenge. We raised over £800 as a pair and over £250K as a group! Thank you to everyone for your generous donations, the support we received for this has been amazing. Thank you!” Cherie, Howlett, CMO, Jola.

Value-added reseller Softcat provides secure, reliable internet access and connectivity for Social Bite free of charge, raising an additional £4000 for the charity at its recent Big Cyber Summit.

In 2022 charity Social Bite planned to open its first coffee shop in London, with the idea of incorporating its pay-it-forward scheme to allow customers to purchase food and beverages for those experiencing homelessness. The team also wanted to offer free Wi-Fi to make the donation process easier,  encourage customers to spend time in the coffee shop and engage with its initiatives locally. The steep set-up costs and year-long installation time presented a huge challenge for the project.

That was until the team reached out to Softcat for advice and support. Softcat’s Chief Technologist for Networking and Connectivity, Thomas Rowley carried out an initial scope to determine how Softcat could support them. Rowley also leveraged the support of three independent vendors, Cradlepoint, Cisco Meraki and Jola, to help provide the wireless network with secure internet connectivity to Social Bite for three years, with setup and configuration completed in less than 24 hours!

Thomas Rowley said, “Upon understanding the remarkable work that Social Bite accomplishes daily, I felt a strong motivation to contribute to their mission. By harnessing the combined power of our technology, skills, people, and vendor relationships at Softcat, we aimed to make a tangible impact and support Social Bite’s success.”

The Social Bite coffee shop is now up and running with secure, reliable internet access for all staff and customers. Sara Rees, Director of Partnerships and Fundraising at Social Bite, said: "The result took us from no Wi-Fi at all to live, free customer Wi-Fi, saving vital funds and facilitating a better guest experience, which in turn will support increased awareness and donations and help more people break the cycle of homelessness."

Continuing its support for Social Bite, Softcat also raised an additional £4000 for the charity at its Big Cyber Summit, held at King’s Place in London in May. Visitors were encouraged to visit the Softcat and Cradlepoint stands at the event to donate. The donations collected were sent directly to Social Bite to provide free meals for those experiencing homelessness and vulnerability.

Social Bite has been committed to ending homelessness across the UK since 2012, primarily through its coffee shops in Edinburgh and London which offer employment and free food to those experiencing homelessness. The charity has garnered support from George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Chris Hoy.

In the annual partner satisfaction survey, Jola scored a Net Promoter Score of 55, categorising the company as ‘great’, with 44% of Jola partners giving them 10/10 and 95% scoring them 7 or higher. In the comments, Jola partners praised Jola’s products, pricing, portals, people and service.

Adrian Sunderland, Jola’s CEO, commented, ‘I am happy with our NPS score and the feedback we received from partners. We have over 1400 resellers choosing Jola as their preferred mobile connectivity supplier. Our relentless product development continues with a list of unique products you can’t buy from anyone else designed to help partners differentiate and win bigger deals. We continue to grow and invest in people, products, platforms and processes. We have a fantastic team dedicated to supporting our growing partner base and it was great to see so many of them named in the survey.”

Split Licences

The move to split licenses will have an impact on the channel. A greater choice presents both opportunity and the potential for confusion in the channel. More time will be spent choosing the right options for each customer and new documentation will be required. On the flip side, this could make the market more competitive. The unbundling of licences will create price rises for some customers, which may lead to new opportunities as customers shop around for the best deals.

Opportunities

Microsoft Teams continues to provide opportunities for resellers and MSPs. End users benefit from using Teams as a phone system and collaboration tool. Using one app makes life simple. It’s quick to roll out and allows users to work from anywhere.

Certifications

Microsoft certifications have two main advantages for resellers. Firstly, they demonstrate knowledge of the product set, key features and benefits for a wide range of customer requirements. Secondly, they ensure the development of in-house skills required to maintain complex customer solutions.

That said, automation is driving that minimum requirement down and enabling more resellers to support customers in easily deployable solutions. This drives down the cost of providing those services, benefitting the channel in terms of margin, and end-customers in value for money.

Adrian Sunderland, CEO of Jola, announces another senior appointment. Joseph Kirk is promoted to Chief Architect reporting directly to him.

Joseph will be responsible for software architecture, strategy, and development.  He has been with Jola for over 10 years holding several key positions, most recently as Software Development Manager.  He has driven innovation, improved systems and enhanced user experience.

Joseph commented, “I look forward to managing and developing our cloud infrastructure and software to meet partner requirements, now and in the future."

Adrian Sunderland, Jola’s CEO, commented “Both Robustel and ZoHo have recognised Joseph for driving innovation. I have worked with him for many years. I am confident in his ability to deliver unique solutions, which are easy to manage, save customers money and generate healthy recurring margins for our partners.” 

As Adrian Sunderland takes over as Jola’s CEO, Ben Merrills has been promoted to Chief Technical Officer.

Ben has been Head of IP Telephony and Development at Jola since 2022 and was previously the Managing Director of Zapappi, a company Jola acquired the same year. Ben has worked in the channel for over twenty years developing innovative in-demand solutions, which are easy to manage in real-time fully automated portals.

Ben commented, “I am excited to take on the role of CTO and look forward to contributing to the company's continued growth and success."

Adrian Sunderland, Jola’s CEO, commented “I have worked closely with Ben for many years and am confident in his ability to develop and deliver differentiated solutions creating profitable, recurring revenue streams for our partners.”

Promotions have also been made in Sales, Finance and Development to support Jola’s growing partner base.

The channel has an essential role in educating businesses to adopt new technologies. It is our responsibility to highlight products being switched off, such as 3G and PSTN, to help companies prepare, with improved, more cost-effective solutions.

Traditional telephone lines will cease to exist leaving vulnerable people in care homes and hospices without a working phoneline unless we step in. Vehicle trackers, payment terminals and industrial handheld devices will stop working as 3G is switched off unless companies are presented with a future-proof solution.

5G is becoming more widely available and 5G hardware is reducing in price, making 5G a viable alternative to fixed line connectivity in some areas, offering customers a faster, more reliable solution.

Improving online security is becoming more of a priority with Denial-of-Service attacks on the increase. Jola has been running Fixed IP traffic over Cloudflare for many years protecting connected CCTV cameras and smart devices from attack.

Trusted advisors

End-user businesses don’t ask for information about a product, they ask for help solving a problem. The supplier who understands the challenges and proposes a simple, cost-effective solution, becomes the go-to advisor for similar challenges in the future.

Support

MSPs and resellers partner with aggregators and experts in their fields to allow them to deliver the widest range of solutions at the best possible prices. They look for partners with automated portals so they can retain control of their customer experience. They look for suppliers who can help them identify and win new opportunities. Jola partners benefit from their MRG™ programme, a proven process to target and close opportunities, maximising customer satisfaction.

Mobile data solutions are a huge growth area for the channel because they can replace traditional fixed lines as well as provide reliable connectivity for a plethora of new M2M applications, of which digital signage, ANPR/CCTV cameras and tracking are just a few examples. Book to bill is days rather than months and recurring margins are reasonable. Most MSPs and resellers partner with a single mobile data MVNO and aggregator, rather than try and deal with the MNOs directly. Specialist aggregators have developed differentiated channel products that end users cannot buy from the MNOs directly and are better priced. The best suppliers will have a suite of intuitive software tools and a portal to make the management of multiple suppliers easier, and less risky with maximum control and margin realisation. Recent innovations in global multi-network SIMs and QR codes offer the channel innovative solutions that their customers need which will save them money.

New Capabilities

Using a single UK number, Jola partners can access multiple networks in the UK and Ireland, for voice, data and SMS. This innovative roaming product can be steered or un-steered and is available via eSIM, triple-cut plastic SIM and, uniquely, a simple QR code.

The first QR implementation saw thousands of handsets go live in minutes simply by using the phone’s camera to scan a single QR code. There is no alternative quite like RoamNet Voice on the market, and certainly nothing else available to resellers and MSPs.

Jola partners have a genuinely differentiated product to win against the Mobile Networks with great recurring margins and real-time management and control via Mobile Manager.

3G/5G

One of the biggest frustrations for resellers is customers who simply delay making a decision. The sunsetting of 3G and the PSTN switch-off are compelling events, forcing businesses and public authorities to act. 3G networks must be upgraded and this means major projects to swap physical SIM cards or use QR codes. Resellers and MSPs should be looking for these networks. 4G Advanced and 5G are providing reliable speeds often above fixed-line alternatives and now cover more than 95% of the population.

Building a mobile offering

Choosing the right supplier will tick all the boxes for resellers and MSPs to move quickly into selling mobile data products. Wholesale suppliers will need to give channel partners the tools to uncover and win deals, usually competing with the direct sales arms of the mobile networks. They must be an aggregator with access to all the networks and ideally, they will also be an independent MVNO. Most importantly everything must be automated, with real-time APIs offering zero-touch provisioning and management through a single self-service portal. 

The most successful of these will be highly innovative, with a constant stream of relevant mobile data and IoT products that the networks would otherwise take years to develop and launch. When you partner with the right channel supplier, mobile data is easy to sell, support and bill.

The prospect for the channel is significant. ICT resellers already enjoy strong relationships with businesses and the public sector having sold them a range of IT and telecoms infrastructure. Within this customer base, opportunities for mobile data solutions exist in asset tracking, digital signage, mobile WiFi, monitoring and utilities. 

Adrian Sunderland, Jola’s CEO, took part in a 100-mile charity bike ride from Derby to Skegness on Saturday 18^th May 2024. He raised over £12,000 for the Derbyshire Children’s Holiday Centre and Derby Kids’ Camp. To find out more about the charities, please click here.

Adrian Sunderland commented, “As many of you know, this is no real hardship because I love riding my bike anyway and it’s for a great cause. Derbyshire Children’s Holiday Centre and Derby Kids Camp provide some of the most disadvantaged and deserving children with opportunities and experiences they would otherwise be unable to access.”

To donate to this wonderful cause, please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/page/sunders-sea-and-skeg