INTERVIEW
A Different Approach
Richard Potts, Managing Director of Leicester based North Supply, says we are already seeing Supermarket
dominance result in fewer local shops and stores and established high street retailers going into liquidation.
The question is – are we in the comms industry set to follow this trend or are we still looking to offer customers
the choice?
As technology becomes
ever cheaper, users
or customers tend to
become less respectful of
the costs manufacturers must
invest in their headlong rush to
continue development at pace.
It is in the interests of major
players in the market to set such
a relentless pace to add newer
features and services as they
can bene t from the economy
of scale needed to sustain the
pricing models.
ere is a widely held
perception that the larger
organisations get the less
personal they become. How
many times do you get an email
from one of these organisations
that you cannot reply back to,
or where sta are protected by
complex call centre routing
where you need to weave your
way through tiers of routing
to allow you the privilege of
talking to a di erent person
every time?
I have enjoyed being able
to visit my local shop in these
disruptive times and selected
products a little di erent
from those I can get in the in
supermarkets, and in previous
times selected a shirt from
a hanger and tried it on as
opposed to having all my
excitement zzle away when I
realise I have to send back an
online purchase because I did
not appreciate Italian XXL is
really only a UK L.
What relevance does this
have to IP Telephony I hear you
ask? To many it means nothing
as they will take comfort in
partnering with the big players
in the market and be happy
to o er the same products as
other local suppliers, often with
margins set by the giants in the
industry. To some, they may
wish to di erentiate both in
terms of products and service,
and it is those we feel may be
ready to do business di erently.
Products and services need to
compete, but many customers
still want reliability and useable
features and may not be ready
to pay a price premium or be
ready to embrace leading edge
technology. ere is a huge shift
towards cloud deployments
as it does o er many bene ts,
Richard Potts, MD at North Supply
but we are still seeing many
who still wish to ‘own’ their
communications system and
take full advantage of the cost
savings once a lease has been
nished. It therefore seems
sensible that partners are able
to o er customers a choice of
on premise, private and public
cloud solutions via both Capex
and Opex models whilst still
being able to o er a migration
path that allows them to retain
their customers when / if they
change in the future.
It is great that there are
pioneers in the industry that
consolidate in the pursuit of
larger market share, but in
their quest to achieve this
we as human beings crave
variation and di erentiation
and I believe this helps smaller,
more agile and more customer
focussed suppliers o er viable
alternatives.
As a relatively new arrival
to the UK telephony market,
North Supply have looked to
do things a little di erently.
Although we have been working
in the telecoms industry for
over 25 years, we have done
so by providing a high level of
customer service, using tried
and tested products with sta
that take responsibility and who
value your business.
We now partner with
vendors that have proven on
premise and cloud products
and with our expertise as a
peripherals supplier can o er a
range of value add products and
services that complement the
core o erings and help increase
the overall one stop solution to
our partners We are able to o er
solutions to meet all customer
deployments and we have our
own UK based cloud platform
- so moves and changes, trials,
demonstrations and partner
support can be actioned directly
by our own sta .
We are geared to supporting
our partners and believe we
have the expertise to provide a
high level of customer service
to those partners who value the
ethos we have ingrained in our
organisation.
e question is, do you want
to follow the trends or are you
ready to look at doing business a
little di erently?
28 | IP Telephony 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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