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Dealers
April 8, 2013
New £150k platform to drive convergence in mobile with the aim of making 2,000 connections per month before 2014
Micro-P has set out plans to become a major airtime distributor in the UK with the launch of its new £150,000 online partner platform ‘Conect’ – targeting 2,000 connections per month by the end of the year.
Conect, which took six months to build, is part of the firm’s ‘connected service strategy’ and will be aimed at Micro-P’s 9,000 plus IT resellers and 600 plus mobile resellers.
It will soft-launch during April and will initially offer airtime connectivity to EE, Vodafone and Three only.
Additional products and services will be added throughout the year, starting with fixed line by the end of May or early June.
Other services will include hosted PBX, managed print solutions, videoconferencing as a service and Office 365.
According to Micro-P managing director Gerry O’Keeffe (pictured), the new purpose-built, “future-proof” platform offers resellers a “totally new experience” to that which they have experienced with other airtime distributors – and provides a “unique” opportunity to add new revenue streams all from a single location.
Removing barriers
O’Keeffe, who was speaking exclusively to Mobile News, added that the platform’s simple design removes the “historical” barriers its mobile and IT customers have faced when breaking into new converged markets.
O’Keeffe said: “Conect brings everything together in a way resellers can deliver a full suite of services through a single portal and on a single billing system. A reseller, be they in IT, mobile or comms, can expand the range of services they can provide to their local community and their customer base.
“We know there have been barriers and struggles from the IT side breaking into and understanding mobile airtime, but this is a very intuitive system which lets them build a deal and see the commission they make and see clearly what profit they will get from the sale.
“It’s completely flexible in being able to take call data records at source through to straightforward managing commission payments. It’s very simple.”
Training and commission
Micro-P is not new to airtime connections, averaging around 400 per month with EE, Vodafone and Three.
O’Keeffe admitted airtime has not previously been a focus for the firm and it has never actively pushed or promoted the offering.
But he said with the new platform in place, now is the time to expand, adding he expects to more than quadruple this figure to around 2,000 connections per month by the end of the year.
O’Keeffe said commissions will be competitive, and guaranteed dealers will always be paid on time, stating none of Micro-P’s partners faced delays during the recent well-documented problems surrounding EE.
Micro-P will offer resellers full training across all products and services through site visits and continuous quarterly and regional workshops. Soft-skill training will also be offered to help partners close deals.
The firm has also appointed 10 new BDMs and three airtime staff to support the growth. Resellers will be able to incorporate Conect within their own website or be rebranded under the Conect banner. Resellers’ business details will also be displayed on the Conect website.
“Now is the time for us to do it,” said O’Keeffe. “There has been a lot of interest from our resellers in both mobile and IT, so we know there is a demand.
“There is an evolution taking place. Mobile distribution has changed. A few years ago, we weren’t involved in mobile at all. Today it’s a completely different landscape.”