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| Carl Churchill, Commercial Director of murphx |
In the last quarter of 2009 wholesale connectivity carrier murphx were ranked 35 on the Deloitte Fast50 technology list and a very impressive 18th place in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. Comms Business talks to Commercial Director Carl Churchill to find out why in such a competitive market they have been so successful.
2009 was the first time murphx made Deloitte’s prestigious top 50 list of fastest growing technology companies in the UK and comes as no surprise when the business has reported 960% growth over the last five years. Founded in 2001, the company’s sales have grown on average 94% a year from £1.6m in 2006 to £11.5m in 2009.
murphx Commercial Director Carl Churchill is quite rightly proud of the achievement, “To make the Deloitte Fast50 is yet another achievement for the hardworking and talented murphx team. We have had a great few months winning ISP of the Year, jumping from 45th to 18th position in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 listing and now this latest accolade. We are on target to hit £20m turnover this year and have continued to deliver against our commitment to growth.”
murphx’s success in the last year has seen 25 new staff members recruited at the company and a number of key moves being implemented including an expansion into the European market with the recent addition of David Guy as Strategic Development Manager.
Churchill added: “It’s a time for growth in the UK and wider telecoms market. murphx is the fastest growing wholesale connectivity provider in the UK, we’re an ambitious team and have a relentless focus on making murphx the leading provider throughout Europe.”
Comms Business: murphx is a relatively new channel player isn’t it?
Carl Churchill, “The early years of the company were focussed on laying the
foundations for an innovative, reliable service delivery platform that would add real value for our customers. We didn’t want to rush to market and we are pleased with the results of the time spent developing our platform which truly breaks down the complexities of the relationships and product portfolios of the Tier One carriers for our channel partners. The murphx services delivery platform integrates seamlessly with every aspect of carrier functionality. As a highly professional aggregator what this means for our customers is that we can provide a wider range of solutions but with the added benefits of a greater flexibility for us to tailor and bespoke solutions to exactly fit our customers’ requirements.
Murphx is a big network operator in its own right; carriers deliver wholesale services to us and we add value such as traffic prioritisation for VoIP and video applications. A significant benefit for our customers is the efficiency savings they can realise through having everything under one roof, just one relationship to access multiple carrier services.”
Channel
Comms Business: From a standing start in the channel three years ago murphx was voted ISP of the Year in 2009. How can that be explained?
Carl Churchill, “Our first major outing in the channel was the Convergence Summit at Sandown Park, Esher in October 2006. We had originally intended to just visit the show but decided to take a stand and become an exhibitor. We spent most of the time handing out flyers and materials to anyone that would talk to us – we were a totally unknown entity in the channel at the time! For the Manchester Summit this March we have a double stand just so we can accommodate all the people that want to talk to us. It’s been quite a roller coaster ride.
There are a number of reasons why we have been so successful. We have done many things well; first and foremost amongst these has been service reliability. In 2009 we achieved 100% up time. With connectivity being increasingly considered as a commodity this level of service availability is unprecedented in our sector.
Reliability such as this becomes part of a self propelling and compelling proposition for reseller partners that is difficult to ignore and further evidence that we were correct to spend our formative years in developing such a reliable service platform that was ready and fit for purpose when launched.
Another factor that draws admiration from our customers is our openness. Like any company that experiences fast rates of growth we have had the occasional pain points. The difference with murphx however is that we were very open and honest about these hiccups which our customer’s found a uniquely refreshing experience.”
Products
Murphx is a wholesale connectivity partner supplying Ethernet, leased lines, virtual private networks (VPNs), co-location services, and both fixed line and mobile DSL based broadband products and services. The company provides ADSL2+ services with speeds of up to 24 Mbps, Annex M ADSL2+ with upload speeds of up to 2.5Mbps and is a triallist for BT’s Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC)
Comms Business: How is FTTC going?
Churchill, “It’s going very well actually but I am also excited about Ethernet connectivity solutions. Here murphx is selecting Ethernet services from a range of carrier products to provided fast and flexible solutions that best suit the individual needs of our channel partners and their customers. For example, in resilience based applications users are taking more than one carrier service to ensure business continuity.”
Comms Business: Tell me about the co-location services, that’s new isn’t it?
Carl Churchill, “It is and represents a big investment in the future of our company and our customers. This month sees the transition of murphx to a true solutions provider business with the launch of our own data centre facility based on the south coast. We’ll be launching value added services such as software as a service (SaaS) within our own facility by entering the hosted market space.
A key murphx strength has always been our ability to be a professional facilitator of services and now, with this move, we will be able to offer applications and other services over our own network.
This is a big step and we intend to go in to the hosting and applications services market on a huge scale. We believe that the market is fundamentally set to change and that in three years time our revenues will be primarily generated by applications services. On day one our data centre will have the capacity for 200 racks and the ability to readily expand to 2000 racks. Users of our facility will be assured to know that we have two resilient entry points to the electricity grid; with the capability to supply and cool 100 Amps to each of our racks. Having said that we have also focussed heavily on our carbon footprint and our responsibility to being carbon efficient. So whilst we are power dense we are also the most the power efficient data centre in the UK with solar power supplying our communal areas, office space and build rooms.”
Comms Business: And I noticed you mentioned mobile as well as fixed line broadband?
Churchill, “Well spotted. More and more people and organisations have recognised the flexibility that mobile working affords them in terms of a better quality of life and their business with regards to increased productivity and responsiveness.
We are therefore now giving mobile broadband connectivity the murphx touch by providing ‘point and click’ supply of mobile data broadband on our XPS platform.
Together with our proven and award winning existing product portfolio all these new and exciting initiatives combine to make murphx a truly complete wholesale connectivity partner for our customers. With the recent adverse weather conditions highlighting the need for remote working our hosting services, fixed and mobile broadband supply and VPNs on our own 10 Gig backbone make murphx an even more compelling proposition for the channel. We really do have an answer for every question!”
The murphx Platform
murphx, with its in-house team of developers, has built its own XPS service delivery platform hosted in diverse locations in London Docklands and Fareham, Hampshire. The company has five points of presence (POPS) in London, three of which are ‘Super POPS’ which means no single site is dependent on another. The in-house development team is a major investment in and commitment to innovative and reliable customer service delivery. The murphx platform provides a high degree of control and service management for their customers who include resellers and other wholesalers.