The legend that is the Gamma Road Show has just completed its 12th tour of the UK with Ian Hunter attending the final event of the ‘Gamma at the Movies’ themed series at held in the BFI Imax Theatre, Waterloo. Popcorn at the ready?
This was, I think, the fifth or sixth annual Gamma Road Trip I had attended and there were some commonalities; well organised, very well attended and an open look at what Gamma had in store for their channel partner over the coming 12 months.
Essentially, following a final introduction by the soon to retire CEO Bob Falconer (although we did not know that for another 24-hours) Gamma approached the day with twenty minute segments from all their product areas highlighting where they had got to, where they were going and ending with a timeline with a channel call to action for each segment.
Falconer said that Gamma believes in achieving growth organically and that their focus would be on markets where, in a fairly flat market overall, significant growth could be achieved. He highlighted IP Voice (growing at 20% PA), Data, which he termed an ‘enabling technology’ (50% Growth), IaaS (32% Growth) and Mobile. The latter he said was a flat market but within that FMC was growing at 60% PA in other regions such as Scandinavia.
Falconer said that Gamma would continue to help channels further penetrate these markets through marketing and support, training and operational support and product differentiation.
Managing Director Daryl Pile specifically addressed these markets, particularly SIP trunks where he said that 60% of the market had shifted to SIP but that still left a lot more to do.
Likewise. the hosted telephony market where Pile said that 80% of firms were still using some form of CPE based PBX. He estimated that there were still some 15 million extensions left and that most these would be converted to cloud based telephony.
Pile said that retaining customers will become key and significant in the future and that Gamma would be helping channels with programs such as their Accelerate market plans for channels and their Academy which will help partners raise the quality of service excellence.
Overall Gamma announced many sales incentives that will also be rolled out to help partners and their customer make these technology moves.
Pile concluded by saying, “Today is all about driving value, building a fortress and taking the rest.”
The 20-minute product segments were snappy, to the point and covered, SIP Trunks, Horizon, Gamma Mobile, Data, Cloud Compute, and Connect.
If we look closer at just the Cloud Compute segment Gamma provided three takeaways for channels; get on the next cloud accreditation webinar, create some quotes on the Gamma portal and sell some simple backup to get started.
In essence, Gamma is making it really easy here for channels to understand AWS and quickly come up with competitive quotations for their customers.
In the Mobile segment, there was a lot of focus on their Connect product which looks to be a disruptive service in that it really is a true, seamless, frictionless and easy to use Fixed Mobile Convergence solution that actually delivers a great outcome for users.
Speaking to channel partners revealed a very positive attitude towards what Gamma was trying to achieve.
Tony Court of TSI Voice & Data said, “Working with Gamma sales specialists allowed us to put together a competitive bid reflecting the strengths of us and Gamma together, which worked out to be mutually beneficial for all parties. The technical sales, bid and commercial support was a key part of this from Gamma.”
Mike O’Shea, CEO at Square One, told us that the Gamma portal had enabled his company to deal with customer queries in a swift and timely manner.
“Manage My Mobiles enables our users to have a self-service platform and has been a perfect fit for customers of all sizes.”