Watson will be responsible for driving sales through the channel and ensuring partners have all the support they need to take Viatel's offerings to their customers. Watson brings over 20 years' IT and telecoms experience to the role and will be in charge of a 10 strong channel team. Viatel is looking to build a strong foundation and grow its channel programme to match its ambitious growth strategy.
Prior to joining Viatel, Watson was channel manager at Colt, where he led the channel programme for two years. Before this Watson was a founding member of the BT indirect channels team and he played a key role in building the indirect channel from nothing to £800 million in nine years. In July 2003, Watson was appointed general manager and was responsible for specialist sales and the new partner programme at BT. He led a team responsible for engaging new BT partners and supporting the channel with sales expertise.
"Neil brings extensive experience to our team and we believe that he will be a key driver in our future growth," commented Sue Davidson, senior VP sales & marketing, Viatel. "We have big plans moving forward and as we see new technologies like VoIP really taking off, the channel will be an important part of these plans. As such we felt that it was essential to bring in someone with Neil's experience and talent to lead the indirect team to enable us to make the most of the opportunities available and be able to provide a comprehensive solution and support to our channel partners."
Over half of Viatel's new sales are being provisioned through the channel and with its growth plans for the future this percentage will also grow. Viatel offers a comprehensive range of data and voice communications including broadband, VPN, security and VoIP, so there is a huge opportunity for partners to offer some or all of these services to customers. The voice portfolio is one area that Viatel is seeing considerable growth in and with its flexible and complete solutions there is an opportunity for partners to provide this on top of the traditional data services.
"I have been really impressed with the Viatel team and am glad to be joining at such an exciting time of product development and growth. There is a lot of potential in the data and voice markets and Viatel is uniquely placed as many competitors are downsizing their channel initiatives," said Neil Watson, Viatel. Partner sales are a fundamental part of our sales strategy with the investment in the indirect team and the product development roadmap directly reflecting this."