Comms Business Magazine met up with Xarios founder Steve Donovan and recently appointed Managing Director Chris Harris to find out more about the Manchester based telephony applications developer and how their products can enhance sales potentials for resellers.
Comms Business Magazine (CBM): Tell me about the company and what you do. I hear it’s all about the ‘Application of Telephony’.
Xarios: That’s right. We are a provider of communication solutions with over 10 years industry experience of working with leading telephone system manufacturers. The company provides solutions designed to increase the performance and visibility control in any business where telecommunications is a core function.
Our philosophy has always been to produce intuitive and reliable solutions that are flexible to customer’s requirements and integrate with existing business systems. Key to this approach is designing systems that are not only easy to install and configure but are also simple to use and maintain. This means that Xarios is a perfect partner for channel resellers.
CBM: Give me a snapshot of your product portfolio and where does it fit in the market?
Xarios: Our products are used by small businesses right up to multi-site enterprises so the answer is that they are highly scalable. The portfolio includes desktop telephony integration (CTI), automatic dialling applications, interactive voice response (IVR), call recording and management reporting. By providing a full range of CTI technology applications, Xarios can help resellers implement complete, fully integrated solutions rather than just single elements of a customer’s telecommunications requirements. This results in higher value sales, more wallet share and stickier long-term users for our partners.
Our objective is to put a telephony system to work in an organisation with software applications that drive staff performance, deliver a compelling return on investment and provide the management information needed to make the right decisions. That way we can really bring out the best from a phone system to the commercial advantage of the end user.
CBM: I understand there has been a recent development with one of your key vendor partners?
Xarios: Indeed there has. We have been working with Mitel for many years and have just announced the commencement of an OEM partnership agreement to supply the Xarios Phone Manager with all future shipments of the Mitel MiVoice Office 250. The new product will be called Mitel Phone Manager.
Xarios Phone Manager improves the user’s interaction with their telephone to the point where they don’t need to touch the telephone at all and with the objective of improving productivity. The application provides a user friendly environment which needs minimal training and contact directories - all benefits of an easy to use CTI client.
Xarios has been supplying the Phone Manager application with UK shipments of Mitel MiVoice Office 250 (formerly Mitel 5000 and Mitel MiVoice Office) since 2007 and this new agreement extends the reach of this supply agreement to all shipments of MiVoice Office 250 worldwide.
The existing arrangement has proved to be a successful partnership for the two companies as well as resellers with more than 4000 sites deploying Xarios Phone Manager in the UK to date.
CBM: What can we expect to see from Xarios in 2015?
Xarios: The supply of the Mitel Phone Manager is the first step in an on-going program to add further components of the Xarios application portfolio as fully integrated components of the Mitel Mivoice Office 250 product range.
We are making significant investments in the future of our company that will translate in to new products, new features for existing applications and an underpinning of Xarios’ commitment to the channel.
Most recently we have recruited two new regional channel account managers that are already Mitel trained. To this we have added a sales office manager who is already Xarios and Mitel trained, versed in the channel and understands the needs of the reseller. We are also looking to recruit five new developers/testers.
In terms of new products expect to see a new extension side call recording application with transfer and segmentation of call recordings plus speech analytics options. Plus much more!
CBM: And finally, what are your observations on the market right now?
Xarios: We are in a market that is dynamic and changing before our very eyes. Traditional hardware sales are declining but application sales are growing. The value of hardware is falling whereas the applications values are rising.
Our challenge remains to continue to make applications that are easy for the resellers to understand and sell.