INTERVIEW Nathan Marke - Digital Wholesale Solutions
“When normal service resumes, we will have conversations like ‘Do you remember when we had to wait for 6
weeks to find a date we could all make for a meeting that would then cost us all a fortune to travel to with all
that wasted travel time, stress and environmental impact?’.”
Nathan Marke, Chief Digital Officer - Digital Wholesale Solutions
DWS - SIP2Teams
In this interview Nathan Marke, Chief Digital Officer at Digital Wholesale Solutions spoke to Comms Business
about how partners can leverage the power of Microsoft Teams with a well placed Direct Routing proposition
CBM: What have you
witnessed from the market
through this unprecedented
period?
Nathan Marke (NM):
Amidst the awfulness of
Covid-19, it’s wonderful to
see how the telecoms industry
has been able to help. e
mass move to home working
has brought the essential
nature of telecoms into sharp
focus. Dismissed, the longheld
view that telecoms are
just the plumbing behind the
smart stu, the applications,
software and clouds. It is
now self-evident that without
those dumb pipes, none of this
would be possible; the better
your broadband and mobile
performance and reliability, the
more that is possible.
CBM: What kinds of
technology spikes did you
see earlier in the year as the
lockdown was enforced?
NM: In DWS, we saw a spike
in sales of VoIP based telecom
services in March, spurred by a
rush for businesses to ll in gaps
to enable home working. ere
was then a frenzy to make all
the tech work. And then things
went quiet as, united, we settled
in for the long haul, playing
our bit parts in the global home
working experiment.
When normal service
resumes, we will have
conversations like ‘Do you
remember when we had to wait
for 6 weeks to nd a date we
could all make for a meeting
that would then cost us all a
fortune to travel to with all that
wasted travel time, stress and
environmental impact?’. It’s
madness! I’m not sure we will
all want to work from home
all the time, but I’ll be betting
we’ll be doing it much more
than before.
CBM: What should resellers be
thinking about right now?
NM: As the national debate
shifts from ‘how do we protect
the NHS’ to ‘how do we get
the economy going again’, it is
evident that we are entering a
new normal; less business travel,
more digital collaboration -
driving sustainable growth in
telecoms investment for the
medium to long term.
So as a reseller, now is a
good time to think strategy;
to line up your pieces on the
board and ensure you have
the right playbook to grab
post-Covid-19 growth. ere
is perhaps no more important
a play to decide on than your
response to the dramatic rise
of Microsoft Teams. Just a year
ago, Microsoft was talking
Nathan Marke, Chief Digital Ocer
at Digital Wholesale Solutions
about 13m daily users. During
Covid this has risen to 75m…
meaningless, large numbers
I’m sure hugely boosted by
online learning in schools and
FE, but we know that there are
lots of our shared customers
in those numbers. 365 is now
just too prevalent in the SMB
community to ignore, and with
several big decisions to be made
by our customers over the next
three years to address the PSTN
switch o, the bre rollout and
5G, it’s only a matter of time
before your customers ask you
why, if they are using 365 for
everything else, why not Teams
for voice. It pays to be ready, to
go on the oensive.
CBM: Is the Teams product
ready for that transition yet in
reality?
NM: e thing is, love or hate
Microsoft, they have hardly put
a foot wrong recently. It’s hard
to fault Teams. It does a pretty
solid job of Meetings, Chat,
Document Sharing, Managing
Channels, Projects, Calendars
and Conversations. And the
bots are pretty cool. What’s
missing? Most customers aren’t
yet using Teams for their phone
14 | Comms Business Magazine | June 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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