INTERVIEW Mark Russell - Swyx
“The strategy of the company will always be channel focussed, we are not interested in building up a
user base and dealing direct with end users.” Mark Russell, Head of Operations, SWYX
SWYX-ing to an OPEX model
SWYX Head of Operations talks Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne through the last 12 months for the communications
provider and where he sees the market developing
According to Mark Russell,
Swyx are on a mission
to rise to the top of the
pile of UC providers in
EMEA.
Traditionally in the VoIP
game, the comms provider from
Germany is cooling o after a
busy year-or-so that has seen the
company buy Sentile, a French,
multi-tenancy public cloud
provider, as well as joining
Voiceworks in the Netherlands
and Zuma in Spain under the
Within Reach Group umbrella.
“In the middle of last year
we acquired Sentile, who’s
biggest customer has 260,000
users and oer a dierent
proposition, voice over the
internet and cloud which we
bolt on to our business. Shortly
after that we joined Within
Reach Group.
Within this group all of the
brands have stayed the same,
there is a branding exercise
going on but the overall aim
of the group is to become the
largest unied communications
as a service provider in Europe.
SWYX has grown from a
£35m company to about £175
million business, employing
over 650 employees in ve
European countries and we are
not stopping there, we are going
to continue to grow.”
Russell declined to talk more
about any new brands that we
may need to keep an eye out
for however he did disclose
that, from SWYX’s point of
view, their growth was going to
come from capitalising on new
payment models.
He said that he has noticed
a shift in the industry for
companies to move o a
CAPEX model and look to
embrace an OPEX approach
and, according to the head of
operations, forms one strand
of the SWYX business model
moving forward.
“e OPEX model is the
model that more and more
people are getting their heads
around, which has been driven
by things like Oce 365 and
Apple, and, as far as end users
go, it is very attractive.
People want to get rid of
that CAPEX. Ten years ago, a
telephony salesman could go
out to a large corporation and
that large corporation would
think nothing about signing a
cheque for £40,000 £50,000
£60,000; that just wasn’t a
problem. ese days, even
a small company isn’t going
to sign a cheque for £10,000
when they are being oered
something that will cost them
£400 a month.
We’ve launched an on
premise version of SWYX
which is similar to our
traditional oering but with a
dierent purchasing model so
that you can buy the equipment
but pay for it the same way you
pay for cloud.
So you put the equipment
in your data centre, in your
building, you’re not using
cloud, it’s your on premise
system but you pay for it the
same way you pay for cloud
which I certainly believe is a
market disrupting solution.”
However, despite focussing
on what the end users’
buying habit are, SWYX is
remaining a channel-focussed
organisation.
“e strategy of the
company will always be
channel focussed, we are not
interested in building up a user
base and dealing direct with
end users, we want to work
with the channel and we think
that’s the right way.
You have to understand
the end user’s business, the
customer relies on the trusted
relationship of their IT
provider, or telecoms provider
and unied provider who
provide a personal touch that
you don’t get when you’re
dealing with a large company.
e channel understand
the end user’s business, they
are part of their business, they
have the relationship and chose
our products because it delivers
what they need.
How could one account
manager for us look after
the nance industry or the
construction industry or the
medical industry of any other
for that matter?
at’s why the channel is
important, they understand
the end user, they have the
relationships and we deliver the
right kit for them to deliver the
right solutions.”
48 | Comms Business Magazine | September 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
/www.commsbusiness.co.uk