Resellers must adapt or face extinction
The market is changing and resellers must change with it says Ingram’s Obang-Oyway
Dealers - James Pearce
June 8, 2015
Call centre investing in a new MVNO and will target SMEs with a requirement for 50 or less connections
Telesales firm SLM Connect is investing £1 million in a new MVNO as it aims to enter the B2B market and safeguard its future.
The Manchester-based call centre was formed in 2008. It provides telesales services for retail and network partners, including EE – connecting on average 100,000 consumer contracts a year.
Six months ago, the firm partnered with Daisy to launch its own Vodafone-run MVNO called SLM Mobile which will launch a B2B offering later this month – targeting 20,000 connections within the next 12 months.
SLM Connect technical consultant Abdul Alim (pictured) claims the move will provide some stability and not leave it at the mercy of networks’ decisions surrounding consumer.
“We’ve been doing what we do for many years, and been doing it well, but there is no stability to what we do,” said Alim. “If we stopped selling connections, our income is dead because we don’t get a recurring revenue, and we cannot upgrade those customers.
“We are putting aside a million pounds to really drive the B2B side of SLM Mobile. We don’t have a choice because if the consumer market takes a nose dive we don’t have a business.”
The company is targeting SMEs with a requirement for 50 or less connections with an offering that includes no credit checks and 12 month terms. It will eventually begin offering handsets through Plan.com when the telecoms distributor begins handset sales later this year.
