Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Cherie Howlett

Cherie has over 15 years’ experience in IT marketing and was promoted to Head of Marketing for MDNX post purchase of Griffin. She was Marketing Manager for 5 years and Head of Marketing for Griffin for 2 years setting up a marketing department and strategy for connectivity, data networks and cloud-hosted solutions. During her time at Griffin, the company won 7 Channel ISP of the year awards, 5 Sunday Times Tech Track 100 awards, 2 Deloitte Fast 500 EMEA awards, 1 Deloitte Fast 50 award and 1 Channel Expo award. Cherie built brand awareness in the channel from 0% to 95% using an integrated strategy consisting of online, print, electronic and face to face marketing. Cherie had previously spent 2 years in a Marketing Manager’s role at Pipemedia before it sold to Business Serve in 2006. At Pipemedia she built a VoIP brand called PipeCall using a combination of PR, direct marketing and an online ordering and provisioning portal with plug and play hardware and electronic point of sale units. Cherie’s early career was in International Marketing working for software house AceCad Software and IBM in the European sales division.

Recent Posts

Effective use of video

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 02-Aug-2017 15:35:33

Video is playing a bigger part in digital marketing strategies, so how can it be used effectively without breaking the bank?

Video doesn’t have to be expensive

There is software available you can rent, to create your own content from templates and there are companies who will help you to create short branded videos from their own content libraries, with voice over for as little as £100.

Equally marketers are filming and editing content on their iPhones, capturing key messages and creating step by step guides, which are being uploaded to YouTube channels and shared via social media.

What does video add to the mix?

Video is a great way to put a face to the company and reflect your brand values. If your brand is built on trust, expertise and personal service, video clips demonstrating problem solving can be highly effective.

Videos are great ways of attracting attention and drawing crowds especially at trade events. Facebook Live clips promoting product launches and offers can generate new leads.

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Topics: Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd

Are you measuring the right things?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 20-Jul-2017 16:22:54

What do you measure as a business? What measures are important to you?

Most businesses will track revenue, profit, margin and cash in the bank and some go further and measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), linked to overall business objectives. These companies tend to measure company-wide, departmental and individual KPIs such as ticket response times, call answer times as well as order lead times. Each KPI paints a picture and together they provide a dashboard to quickly identify areas of success and often more importantly areas to be improved.

For example, in marketing, there is a lot to measure, monthly unique web visitors, Twitter followers, retweets, LinkedIn connections, likes and shares etc. which give us an indication of who has seen our content and how they responded. However, without more detailed analysis of how the engagement relates to leads, conversions, ARPU and ROI, we can’t really draw conclusions.

The same can be said for response rates. Tickets and calls may be answered quickly, but without linking this information to cost, customers, cases and suppliers we don’t see the full picture and may not be able to identify key underlying issues holding back the business. Conversely, companies that try and measure everything end up with a very busy dashboard making it hard for departments to understand their priorities.

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Topics: Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd

Why sell hosted voice?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 19-Jul-2017 18:37:00

Demand

According to a recent report by Zion Research, hosted voice services are set to grow rapidly over the next few years, reaching £112 billion globally by 2021. Demand from the SME market is growing and they are turning to trusted IT and telephony suppliers for help.

Technology

The cost of dedicated, private circuits for connecting businesses securely to the Internet has reduced dramatically. SMEs no longer have to rely on broadband with best-efforts fix times, fast fibre broadband is widely available and secure, reliable circuits with dedicated bandwidth are available for less than £200 a month in some areas.

Hosted telephony solutions are feature-rich with auto attendant, busy lamp fields, Office UC, Skype for Business plug-ins, Go Integrator, shared call appearance hunt groups, hot-desking and music on hold as standard at the fraction of the cost of managing legacy systems.

Cost savings

Budgets are tight for many businesses so when phone systems come out of contract the ability to pay per seat per month for a hosted solution that includes calls and does not require hardware costs upfront or ongoing maintenance costs is very attractive, especially when supported by their existing supplier.

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Topics: Hosted telephony

How did channel suppliers outperform major UK telecoms providers?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 19-Jul-2017 16:00:00

According to a recent report by Megabuyte.com, BT, Talk Talk and Virgin Media are being outperformed by much smaller channel suppliers who are reporting healthy growth, with profits and share prices on the up.

Some of the larger providers were affected by accounting errrors and overseas pressures and the channel saw high levels of growth from hosted voice and mobile. Of course channel suppliers still buy from carrier wholesale divisions, but continue to win business from their direct sales teams by collaborating with their partners.

What are they doing differently?

Growing with partners

Channel-focussed suppliers are becoming smarter in helping their partners find and close business, growing average revenue per customer and building new margin streams. Resellers do not see them as a threat and so are relaxed about letting them help directly with customers and with lead generation campaigns.

Multi-carrier portals

Channel suppliers have built relationships with all the major networks and suppliers giving partners more choice for their customers. Partners can quote and order internet connectivity with hosted voice seats, handsets and extras as well as mobile SIMs within a single platform. Hosted voice and mobile services have their own management portals, so resellers can provision and make changes giving them the control they need to support their clients. SMEs are not restricted to just one carrier and benefit from the personalised service they are getting from their trusted supplier - supported by their channel supplier.

Competitive offerings

Channel suppliers have crafted competitive bundles, packaging market-leading hardware and software, designed to suit every pocket with clearly defined USPs. They have added service wraps such as training, white label pre-sales support, white label technical support, billing and collateral to enhance partner offerings.

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Topics: Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd

Top 5 questions from partners about JolaMobile

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 18-Jul-2017 11:39:16

Demand for mobile solutions is escalating and more and more partners are asking about JolaMobile. We put together a blog answering your top 5 questions.

What types of JolaMobile SIM cards are there?

In terms of SIM-size, we offer all the usual SIMs including nano, micro and standard. We offer a range of voice and data SIMs or data-only SIMs as well as multi-network roaming SIMs that pick up the best network available and are designed to be used outside the UK.

Can I have static IPs?

They are coming soon. We are currently trialling static IP SIMs on Vodafone with other networks to follow.

What are managed SIM cards, APIs and CDRs?

We refer to our data SIMs as managed as they come with Mobile Manager, where you can activate, deactivate, SIM swap and check usage, via APIs we have directly into Vodafone and O2. There is a small data delay to be aware of, however the portal allows you to set alerts and manage usage to help avoid bill shock.

API stands for Application Programming Interface and is a set of commands, functions, protocols and objects that programmers can use to create software or interact with an external system. It is a short cut so developers don’t have to start writing code from scratch integrating external systems.

CDRs are Call Detail Records, also known as Call Data Records, which are used to rate and bill calls.

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Topics: Mobile

How can I compete?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 07-Jul-2017 14:10:44

'How can I compete?' is a question we get asked regularly by new hosted voice partners. They understand the value of the market, they have experienced a rise in demand for the product and know the alternative solutions they are up against. We recommend the following;

1 Focus on your USPs

Why do your customers choose to buy from you?

By identifying why existing customers buy from you and how they first became a prospect, you can start to list types of organisations you already have an advantage with. Have you developed an expertise in any particular type of company or sector that you can leverage? This might be a piece of software, an accreditation or just knowledge of how their business runs and how they buy. Also you might be surprised at how willing some sectors are to recommend you to other companies in the same field. 

We partner with companies who are known locally as experts in their field. Customers choose likeminded companies they trust with their IT, who are on hand to resolve issues quickly, should anything go wrong. Companies are also recommended by local trade associations or networking groups they are members of.

We help partners to identify their USPs and focus on uncovering opportunities within their sphere of influence, tailoring solutions to exactly meet requirements. We built our solutions to suit any pocket, with all the features you would expect included in the licence and a few more besides. Optional extras such as hardware, to amplify ring tones in loud environments, PCI & FCA compliant call recording and CRM integration software can be added as required.

2 Support the product

Use the research you have found on competing solutions and your own USPs to sculpt your proposition and promote this on your website. Make sure your staff are fully briefed about the product and have materials to hand when enquiries come in. Support your sales people so they have the knowledge and tools available to demonstrate products and can put together professional competitive proposals. Imagine your materials being reviewed at board level against competing offerings, do they stand out for all the right reasons?

3 Stay close to your customers

Your customers already have a relationship with you. Regularly communicate with your customers so that when they are ready to upgrade their telecommunications you are best-placed to help them make the transition. You need to be competitive on price but your customers already value you beyond supplying a basic commodity. Compelling propositions often include a better solution that meets all current and future requirements and saves them money.

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Topics: Hosted telephony

Why are IT companies getting into telecoms?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 06-Jul-2017 13:18:12

1 Increasing demand

IT companies are trusted suppliers and are seeing a rise in demand for hosted telephony and mobile data from their customers. Cloud-based services fit well with their skill sets and 4G is starting to replace satellite and broadband, especially in areas of poor fixed-network coverage. These new products offer recurring revenues and increased ARPU.

2 Simple propositions with management portals

Hosted voice is contracted usually on a per seat per month basis although bundles with handsets are also available on longer contracts. A large range of features are included with premium licences and options such as call recording, CRM integration and call reporting are easy to add as required. Mobile data SIMs are available on 30 day contracts and come in a range of sizes with bolt-ons as required. White label management portals are available for both.

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Topics: Hosted telephony

Need white label technical support?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 28-Jun-2017 15:27:27

Adding new products and services to your portfolio can be challenging. What is the current demand? What products should I add? How much will I sell? What price should I sell at? At what margin? Who should I partner with? How do I manage the billing and technical support?

Dealer Model

Many companies start on a dealer model with their chosen supplier to get a feel for demand, packages and pricing. They work with suppliers on marketing campaigns, often taking suppliers with them to customer meetings and using the quoting and ordering tools available. Billing and technical support are managed by the supplier with dealers receiving regular commission/margin share.

Reseller Model

Moving from a dealer to a reseller model provides better control and improved margins, however resellers need to manage their own contracts, materials, billing and support. For those that don’t already have the necessary resource in-house it can be costly and risky to hire and train new staff to support a product, which may never make it to core product status. Using a generic 3rd party support service is an option but there are set-up costs and you pay for calls by the minute. If your new platform is unreliable or generates early-life calls, the first month charges could wipe out 12 months margin.

Existing suppliers

The most qualified and experienced technical support teams use the products themselves and already support them for end-users of channel partners nationwide. They already operate a UK-based call centre 24/7 and may well offer a white label service.

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Topics: Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd

Need a good billing service?

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 28-Jun-2017 14:51:47

Voice and data companies can improve ARPU by supplying new products to loyal customers. Research shows that SMEs prefer to buy from existing suppliers, they trust. Until there is sufficient demand to justify investment in support, billing and marketing, the supplier will often partner with a specialist on an introduction and commission basis. Moving from a dealer to a reseller model provides better control and improved margins, however there are billing challenges.

Billing

Billing can be especially problematic for IT companies that want to start reselling fixed, mobile and hosted telephony products. Alongside monthly service charges they will need to process monthly CDRs (Call Data Records), rating each call type and producing itemised bills and variable invoices. It can be difficult and risky to try and adapt existing in-house billing systems and purchasing and managing specialist billing software is not always feasible.

There are some good third-party billing products available, however the set-up fees, monthly standing charge and billing percentages mean the reseller often needs to take several orders before the margin covers the monthly cost of billing.

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Topics: Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd

IoT is not for me

Posted by Cherie Howlett on 21-Jun-2017 15:14:43

I hear this phrase a lot when we present the IoT opportunity in partner training sessions. Some partners get fed up of hearing the latest buzz word. They immediately think of smart meters when we reference the predicted 28 billion devices to be connected globally over the next three years. When we get to the part about the worldwide market for IoT solutions predicted to be worth £5.6 trillion, they have switched off completely because they don’t believe they will see a penny of it.

Current opportunities

Other partners in the room are engaged. They have customers connecting mobiles, tablets and routers to 4G already. They are productising satellite replacement services in rural areas of traditionally poor fixed line services and are offering cost-effective 4G replacements. They have customers wanting short-term connectivity contracts for temporary offices on building sites and have customers with recording equipment travelling abroad at a moment’s notice. They have the knowledge and experience in-house to create bespoke solutions, sourcing hardware from multiple suppliers and already have JolaMobile SIMs and Mobile Manager.

Future opportunities

These partners have forward-thinking customers looking to connect other devices such as CCTV cameras and vending machines and are asking about fixed IPs. CCTV customers are asking to view their cameras remotely over the internet in real-time. Vending machines now take cashless payments and can be managed remotely to check they are working. Low stock alerts are sent in real-time. The ability to connect devices to the internet has changed behaviour, increased efficiency and improved the customer experience.

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Topics: Mobile

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