Telecommunications reseller and franchisor, Telcoinabox, has appointed John Pellew as CEO to head its UK operations and launch the business into its next phase of expansion.

Since officially opening its offices in London over a year ago, the infrastructure is now fully functional, contracts signed with top telecommunications suppliers Gamma Telecom (fixed wire and mobile), Opal, Openreach and Tiscali, and with the back office service and technical support up and running, the company has set its sights on growth through signing new franchisees and wholesale service providers.

Pellew enthused: "We are in a prime position for growth in the UK. Although the market is mature, there is room for a fresh offering that fits between the niche players and the major carriers. We see ourselves as the alternative to a major phone company. While we act exactly like a phone company, we just added an extension to the traditional model.

"We have our own billing system, we offer high volumes of minutes at wholesale prices and provide the full spectrum of telephony products, as well as first and second line technical support. In addition we offer an off-the-shelf business package ready to go for franchisees and wholesale service providers with an entrepreneurial flair."

Joining the company in October 2009, Pellew has been working alongside Damien Gould who came from the Australian headquarters to set up operations in the UK. Damian Kay, founder of Telcoinabox, said: "Under his leadership we have signed our first UK franchisee and we are in negotiations with the two largest real estate businesses in London, an inventory management company and a pre-eminent hardware store that serves more than 1.3 million customers."

Pellew says demand for the Telcoinabox offer both as a franchise and wholesale service provider in the UK is high. "We have received in excess of 140 serious enquiries the first three months from potential franchisees and we haven't even started a concerted marketing effort yet.

"The feedback has been people really like the fact that all they need to do is just add customers and you secure a recurring revenue stream. Also, they don't need a shop front to operate or assume someone else's brand. They can create their own brand name, look and feel, or simply leverage their existing brand if they are an established company. Our offer is nothing like a traditional franchise system."

The company has recently secured the status as an approved franchise model among UK's major franchise lending banks, RBS/Natwest, Lloyds TSB and HSBC, with another two banks soon to follow.

"To be seen by the banking sector as a ‘low risk' franchise is a huge plus. This means that the Government will provide a guarantee to underpin up to 75% of bank's security requirements in support of franchise working capital finance," said Pellew.

He says his focus for 2010 is to pitch the Telcoinabox wholesale-to-resale business model to the franchising fraternity. "There are more than 800 franchise systems in the UK who could financially benefit from becoming their own telecommunications reseller. In fact, we are currently in discussions with one of UK's leading ‘man in a van' industrial services franchises to do exactly that.

"Their interest in our model is to take better control of their internal communication, so inbound calls and call data is managed within the group."

In only 12 months Telcoinabox UK is turning over £1million starting from a zero base and the company expects to grow a further 100% by 2011.

Vaioni has launched a new set of Ethernet services across the UK, offering extended reach at a more competitive price point, claims the firm.

Every leased line purchased through Vaioni comes with a 4hr fix, 99.96% SLA, a managed Cisco router (where applicable) with support engineers on hand 24/7.

The Ethernet product set has 4 zones, A,B,C and D and comprises of a Wholesale Layer2 service (backhaul circuits) with QinQ hand-off at a Vaioni demarcation point for wholesale customers.

Sachin Vaish from Vaioni says: "This National Leased Line product set offers a fixed price for a 10mb and 100mb practically anywhere in the UK. We are excited with this launch and hope The Channel finds the product set really useful as we are expecting great demand for the service.

Despite optimistic outlook, survey of 550 IT professionals reveals IT departments are also braced to meet challenges of compliance, integration and staffing issues this year

• Top priorities of IT departments are security (46%) and strategic projects (44%)
• But 50% say the helpdesk and supporting end users takes up most of their time
• 80% of IT teams support at least three sites; but 62% still rely on desk-side visits to manage their IT estate

London, UK - 11th March 2010 - Strategic projects, simplifying the delivery of IT services and driving efficiencies into the IT department are the top three goals of UK IT professionals in 2010, according to a new research report from Kaseya. The study of 550 IT professionals, available to download today at http://www.itsurvey.eu/thebusinessofit , also highlights the key challenges facing UK IT departments this year, with the top three issues cited as: integration (43%), staffing (37%) and compliance (34%).

Challenges in 2009
Kaseya's report, Understanding the Business of IT, also looked back over the past 12 months to uncover the key pain points of IT professionals in 2009. These were managing increasingly complex infrastructures (39%); justifying IT spend to the board; and coping with demanding end users (36%). Over half (59%) of IT professionals also experienced at least one critical issue in 2009, with 26% handling a virus attack and 24% the theft of a PC or laptop.

What takes up the IT department's time
When asked about the tasks that take up most of their time, there was a clear winner among IT professionals, with 50% highlighting the helpdesk and supporting end users. The number of dispersed sites and the way they manage the IT estate is another drain on resources. Four out of five (80%) of IT professionals support end users in at least three locations and 62% rely on desk-side visits to manage their IT estates. The survey also reveals a lack of integrated management processes, with 24% mainly managing their IT estate manually, and 50% using a wide variety of different point solutions. Only 15% use a centralised systems management tool.

The perceived value of IT to the organisation
However, the study does reveal some more positive results, with as many as 82% of IT professionals believing the IT department is valued by the organisation, and 41% of these saying their work is valued a lot. However, there are stark differences between vertical sectors. Perceived value is high within education (88%), manufacturing and engineering (84%) and financial services 83%, but this is a marked contrast to those working in local government (67%) and transport and travel (68%).

Phil Sansom, Vice President UK Sales, Kaseya comments: "IT professionals are keen to deliver more strategic projects that benefit their organisation, but are caught up with managing increasingly complex infrastructures and carrying out day to day tasks to keep the IT cogs turning. Faced with staffing issues, dispersed locations and ever-demanding end users, it's no wonder that driving efficiencies into the IT department is a key goal. However, by adopting a more centralised approach to IT systems management, using automated processes and remote control, IT teams can take care of key tasks and processes so they can save valuable time and money to focus on the bigger projects."

The Kaseya report, Understanding the Business of IT, presents the findings of a survey of 550 IT professionals, alongside the results of two focus groups with private and public sector IT managers. It provides analysis of the research and offers practical advice and recommendations to help IT departments adopt technologies that will deliver boosted efficiency and productivity.

Download the research report at http://www.itsurvey.eu/thebusinessofit.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

For further information, please contact
Laurie Glimmerveen
Wildfire PR
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8339 4420
Email: kaseya@wildfirepr.co.uk

About Kaseya
Kaseya is the global standard for IT automation, empowering IT service providers and IT departments in 32 countries. Kaseya's IT automation platform provides a unified set of tools that proactively monitor, manage and control IT assets remotely, easily and efficiently from one integrated Web-based platform. For a free 30 day trial of the Kaseya solution, please visit http://www.kaseya.co.uk/download

The first category vendor to integrate social networking tools with its software suite, Cornerstone honored among year's best in learning and talent management innovation

Santa Monica, Calif., March 11, 2010 - The first learning and talent management vendor to integrate enterprise social networking and collaboration tools with its comprehensive software suite, Cornerstone OnDemand today announced that it has won the a 2010 Bersin & Associates Learning Leaders Award in the "Vendor Innovation in Learning and Talent Management" category for its Cornerstone Connect platform. Based on detailed criteria compiled over years of research, the Learning Leaders Program, now in its fourth year, recognizes organizations which have developed and implemented effective and efficient approaches to employee learning and talent management, resulting in significant business improvement.

"Cornerstone's smart and innovative approach to enterprise social networking and collaboration succeeds in taking traditional talent management strategies to a whole new level," said David Mallon, principal analyst of Bersin & Associates. "By integrating collaboration tools with its core talent suite, Cornerstone is helping organizations transform and dramatically improve existing initiatives for employees and the extended enterprise. This includes connecting with new hires during the onboarding process, engaging former employees through alumni networks, and supplementing training programs with social learning."

Premier organizations such as Advantage Sales & Marketing, Bright Horizons Children's Centers, London Business School, Money Advice Trust, Oberthur Technologies, RSA, Sanford Health and Virgin Media have invested in Cornerstone's comprehensive enterprise social networking solution to drive workplace collaboration, foster informal learning and innovation, capture valuable corporate knowledge, and engage and support external customer and partner communities. Features include rich user profiles, communities of practice, status updates, live feed views, content rating and sharing, expertise location, blogs, wikis, and much more.

"Connecting geographically dispersed trainees in a workplace community where they can get to know one another and share experiences enriches the training and development process," said Wendie Whelan, Manager HRMS, Talent Development for Advantage Sales & Marketing, which is integrating Cornerstone Connect with Cornerstone's learning management platform to foster informal learning as part of its ACES (Accelerated Career Excellence in Sales) sales and leadership development program. "In addition to being a valuable information resource for our company, Cornerstone's social networking tools also are accelerating the participants' abilities to connect with senior leadership early in their careers, which helps to foster employee trust and loyalty."

In addition to Cornerstone's win for Connect, global workforce management services leader Kelly Services was honored as a 2010 Bersin Learning Leaders Award recipient in the "Learning Organization and Governance Excellence" category. Kelly uses Cornerstone's comprehensive software suite - including platforms for onboarding, learning, performance, succession and compensation - to manage and develop its 700,000 temporary and full-time employees around the globe.

"We are honored to be recognized by Bersin & Associates as a top innovator in the learning and talent management software space," said Adam Miller, President and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand. "We also congratulate our client partner, Kelly Services, for its industry-leading achievements in organizational and governance excellence."

The Bersin & Associates report, "Learning Leaders 2010: Lessons from the Best," provides an in-depth look at the best practices of Cornerstone OnDemand and the other award winners. Click here to receive a complimentary copy.

Learning Leaders program partner Elearning! magazine also features Cornerstone and the other 2010 winners in its March special issue.

For more information about Cornerstone OnDemand, visit www.cornerstoneondemand.com. To read Cornerstone OnDemand's talent management blog, visit http://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/blog. To follow Cornerstone OnDemand on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/cornerstoneinc.

About Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone OnDemand empowers people around the world with on-demand, integrated learning and talent management software and services for connecting, developing and performing in the workplace. Cornerstone's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based solutions span the workforce lifecycle, including onboarding, learning, social networking, compliance, performance, compensation and succession planning. The company also provides extended enterprise solutions to help companies better train and collaborate with customers, vendors and resellers. Available in 16 languages and supported by global, 24x7 customer care, Cornerstone is used by more than 3.3 million active subscribers in 141 countries. The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and has international offices in London, Paris, Munich and Tel Aviv.

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Cornerstone® and Cornerstone OnDemand® are registered trademarks of Cornerstone OnDemand Inc.

Media Contact:
Michelle Haworth
Cornerstone OnDemand
Phone: +1 (310) 752-0178
mhaworth@cornerstoneondemand.com