Welcome to Interpreter, the Damovo e-newsletter designed with you, our customer, in mind.

'Communicating’ Damovo’s vision for 2007

It has now been six months since my appointment as Managing Director of Damovo UK, so I wanted to share my thoughts on the year just gone and our plans for the year ahead.

My arrival at Damovo in August 2006 began with an immediate analysis period and planning for Damovo’s future. During that phase I observed, learnt and was impressed! Damovo’s 30 years’ experience in delivering voice, data and mobility solutions is outstanding; we really do have some of the best people in the industry. This coupled with a broad and loyal customer base and the highest levels of partner accreditation with leading vendors, such as Ericsson and Cisco Systems, have all contributed to making Damovo a success. 

Last year saw the winning of new customer contracts and the deepening of our reputation not only as a voice applications specialist, but equally in the converging world of data and IT. New associations were made and we are proud to highlight our appointment as a Gold Certified Partner of Microsoft in the growing area of Unified Communications. Our continued service and support of over 1 million end users throughout the UK goes from strength to strength. The technical expertise of our support organisation is being dramatically enhanced as we move to highly proactive communications network monitoring and management services across the whole converging enterprise ICT spectrum.

However, the rapidly evolving ICT market, driven increasingly by convergence as well as the consolidation of suppliers, has meant an increasingly competitive marketplace. Players of all sizes now need to differentiate themselves and Damovo has also had to adapt to these market changes. At the end of 2006, we underwent a company restructure; this included reducing headcount in some areas, a difficult decision and one that was not taken lightly. However, these changes do crucially include the strengthening of other areas of the business, as we recruit people with specialist client facing skills and continue our absolute focus on maintaining underlying growth.

You may have seen that Damovo Group has been at the centre of recent media attention regarding its financial restructure, culminating in the often mis-reported, but in fact, consensual transfer of ownership from Apax Partners to a number of key bond holders. At a local level Damovo UK, like other Group members, has continued to trade with a healthy balance sheet and I’m pleased to report, industry leading credit ratings and EBIT performance.

As we enter 2007, Damovo UK’s profitability puts us in a strong position for future development and achievement. I look forward to building an even greater awareness of who we are, our heritage and industry expertise. We will continue to invest in and evolve our portfolio, offering new services to meet our customers’ changing needs, ensuring innovation and value. We will continue to broaden our specialisation of technologies and expertise in industry sectors – delivering the insight for our customers’ success.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a prosperous 2007, and look forward to a continued relationship as your trusted business communications provider.

Nick Dean, Managing Director, Damovo UK

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Education and the IT challenge

Over the past 12 months there have been numerous discussions in the national and trade media around IT in further education; from the British Education Communications and Technology Agency’s (Becta) new procurement deal through to the IT skills shortage – according to the Government, one in five UK companies face an IT skills shortage and the education sector suffers more than most.

Schools and colleges are not renewing their IT infrastructure fast enough to keep up with changing technology, according to The 2006 Becta Review, which was published in the first half of 2006, which found that despite progress in the availability and use of technology in education, there is still considerable variation between individual institutions, and plans to refresh infrastructure are patchy. The new procurement deal will not only bring millions of pounds worth of savings to schools and colleges on their IT budgets, but also facilitate compatibility between old and new IT equipment.

The technology issues vary at both ends of the educational spectrum, for example there are often high expectations from children who have technologies at home but not at school. Stephen Crowne, chief executive of Becta said in a recent article in The Guardian: “Kids are now going to school with very high expectations of how you use technology because they’ve been doing it from home – around 80% of homes have broadband take-up. There’s a credibility issue for education.”

IT in education is now not only being seen as leading edge, but is more about education catching up with how technology is being used universally. As students transition from school to higher and further education the expectation for greater levels of technology becomes a key factor when choosing a college or university.

Damovo is leading the way and helping many further education institutions deploy converged network solutions. Aston University in particular can claim a head start over the competition, becoming the first higher education institution in the UK to deploy a converged voice, video and data network system. This network provides Aston with the potential to schedule live broadcasts and offer new, interactive services for students in the future.

Following Aston’s lead, a number of universities and colleges are also implementing converged networks, including University of Sunderland, Manchester Metropolitan University and Lambeth College. As communications technology is constantly evolving and demands for higher bandwidth increase, it is imperative that the education sector stays ahead of the game with their IT infrastructure, in order to maintain competitive advantage.

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Damovo are top for satisfaction

Already a Cisco Systems Gold Certified Partner, Damovo has also been recognised by Cisco as achieving Excellence for Customer Satisfaction. This is the highest distinction a Cisco channel partner can achieve for customer satisfaction.

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Are the days of office conversation numbered?

Damovo carried out a survey which has shown the need for greater unified communications in the office as UK workers’ communications habits diversify. Read more...

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Take the first step to IPT expertise now

We’ve put together a unique two step IPT Starter Pack enabling you to assess the value of IPT for your organisation, as well as provide the knowledge required to make informed decisions about your future communications strategy. Read more...

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Creating a call centre for the future

Gloucestershire County Council puts customers’ needs first with Damovo, improving council services and internal efficiencies. Read more...

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How Healthy is your Network?

Get complete network visibility and dramatically cut your operating costs by taking advantage of our FREE offers of a Network Monitoring Seminar, including live demonstration of our network tools and an on-site Network Infrastructure Health Check. Read more...

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Ericsson Corporate Telephony (ECT)

Enterprises are going mobile and as a consequence employees expect to have instant access to key applications on their phone, PDA or laptop wherever they are. Ericsson Corporate Telephony (ECT) is enabling enterprises with a Microsoft-based communications strategy and/or a need to mobilise the workforce in order to improve efficiency and productivity. It provides an easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy solution for mobile extension users and Ericsson Corporate Telephony is part of Ericsson’s vision of Unified Communications. It allows enterprises that utilise the Microsoft’s Live Communications Server (LCS) solution to integrate the MX-ONE telephony features and functions into the Microsoft Office Communicator client software. This enables a single interface point at the desktop where users can access all their communication needs providing efficiency and productivity gains for the user.

For more information on Ericsson Corporate Telephony contact talktous@damovo.com

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Damovo UK signs Mitel Platinum Partner Agreement

Damovo UK has attained Platinum Partner status with Mitel for their 3300ICP product range. This shows Damovo’s continued commitment to the Mitel partnership and our intention to always achieve the highest partner status with suppliers.

Damovo recognises Mitel as a key supplier of IP Telephony systems in the UK and this agreement dovetails into the existing agreements with Cisco & Ericsson giving Damovo access to the leaders of IPT systems in the UK.

The agreement was signed by Nick Dean, UK Managing Director of Damovo UK and Graham Bevington, EMEA Managing Director, Mitel on 31st January 2007.

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Thank you to all of you who have forwarded suggestions for subsequent instalments of Interpreter, these have been duly noted. Please keep up the suggestions and feedback to talktous@damovo.com