USA expansion
Simwood Partner is initially a UK
proposition, competing in the fairly unique
channel space, but the Sipcentric platform
will be expanded across the entire
Simwood network footprint and offered to
users in other markets. As Woodhead says,
“the USA is the first port of call, as we have
existing leads there. The model is slightly
different - more agent than white-labelled
reseller - and the market is absolutely huge!
By the time your magazine goes to print
we should have engaged approximately 40
agents but we want to grow that quickly.
We’re targeting 2,000 by the end of 2020.
The US is, of course, a massive focus for
the wider business. Simwood Inc has made
great progress in recent months in building
the technical and regulatory foundations
for a great business. We’re now registered
with the Secretary of State in 46 of the
50 States - equivalent to 50 countries as
they each have different processes. At the
Federal level we’re now licensed to conduct
international Carrier business. That took
longer than expected as the Department of
Justice, Homeland Security, and Department
of Defense all needed to sign-off on our
application given we’re foreign-owned.
Achieving this approval as a foreign
business, particularly under the current
administration, is a massive achievement.
We’re already a licensed carrier in one US
State and are actively pursuing that in others,
notably the most populated. This status
gives us ground floor economics and control,
whilst giving us the authority to demand
access to last- and mid-mile connectivity
in licensed States where we desire it. It is a
huge thing.
We’re able to compete in the US now as both
a local and national carrier at the wholesale
level, and offer Simwood Partner through
agents, plus a few other exciting angles.”
UK wholesale
“Back home in our core market, we continue
to grow very strongly. There are a number
of new entrants to the market and I’m
delighted that they’re almost universally
choosing Simwood to build their business
on.We’re pushing ahead with our BTZero
project, meaning more traffic in and out of
the network is exchanged directly with peer
networks, and is transiting BT to a greatly
diminished extent. This is great for quality,
availability, and arguably security (both
technical and our own financial security).
We’re also hosting number ranges for
eighteen other operators in the market,
many of whom are growing strongly. There’s
only a handful of us in the market with
infrastructure that host number ranges
actively and, again, Simwood is where the
action is.
Lastly, we are doing wonders with our
termination. Historically the price was driven
by cost and followed a strict algorithm.
We’ve not only refined how we define ‘cost’
to be more accurate, but we’re now actively
tracking competitor prices and we have
sophisticated systems that price match
where we can so our customers can be sure
of great value across the entire A-Z. Early
signs from this are very encouraging.”
The future
“We’ve got lots going on! We’re now vertically
integrated, which is where we’ve wanted to
be for a good while. We still need to fill the
mobile shaped hole, but we’re addressing
that. There’s some integration work to be
done but we’ve brought in some amazing
people in the last year that gives me huge
confidence in that being done. So I see us
with owned infrastructure at every level of
the supply chain and huge opportunity ahead.
Oh, and don’t forget SimCon 3. We’ve set the
date for February 6th/7th 2020 in Bristol.
Last year was a huge hit and our special
guest host (Miss Rachel Riley) did a fantastic
job with the SimCon Awards. I’m not quite
sure how we’re going to top it this year but
you’ll need to be there to find out.”