Avenir Telecom

Andy Tow, managing director

Avenir Telecom exposes all on the eve of its twentieth birthday, with Andy Tow, managing director

Where?

Avenir House, Studio Way, Borehamwood, Herts WD6 5NN. www.avenir-telecom. co.uk www.avenir-telecom.co.uk/contact 020 8731 4400

What are the key areas your business concentrates on distributing?

Avenir is well known as an airtime distributor, and we’re set to reach our twentieth anniversary later this year. We specialise in the B2B space, and we also distribute a variety of associated products and services, such as mobile and fixed line broadband, handsets, laptops and accessories.

What is your company’s USP?

I believe we have three: stability, innovation and partnerships. I’d like to think we’re one

of the most stable and enduring businesses in the European mobile marketplace, hence making a celebration of our impending twentieth birthday. At the same time, innovation is key, whether it’s being ready to support our dealers on sales of mobile apps, M2M or location based services, or whatever’s coming over the horizon next! Our partnerships are also a USP, from operators to manufacturers, dealers and resellers.

Where are you investing in or expanding your portfolio?

We have been expanding our portfolio by offering mobile broadband, expanding our accessories offer and investigating the best applications for our B2B arena. We’ve also been working on expanding this year into new areas, most notably with Opal, the B2B division of the TalkTalk Group, on fixed line broadband, and with Beewi on accessories.

What are the hot trends going forward for distribution in your area?

Mobile applications are the most obvious choice, I suppose. There are so many innovative applications and they are generating such positive mass media momentum that it can only help our industry. I also think accessories will play a major role. The hottest trend for dealers is the ability to package up and cross sell a whole suite of services, with apps, airtime and accessories all in one bundle.

What are your top tips for dealers selling your products?

The first tip is to communicate with us. We have a whole team who are experts in the mobile arena and they have one key job in mind; to help our dealers make sales! Another tip is that by partnering, we share our USPs, of stability, longevity, innovation and so on.

When was the tipping point for applications in mobile, and what are the opportunities for dealers in this area?

I’d say the tipping point was Apple leveraging the goodwill and popularity of the iTunes Music Store to make an online sales point for applications that was simple, seamless and integrated. It means that both consumers and businesses now understand the ease with which they can add applications to devices and that makes selling to them so much simpler.

What are the hottest apps out right now?

It’s certainly something that gets everyone talking. I’ve seen the Sunday papers interviewing film stars about their favourite mobile apps! For me, it’s the A Level, the iPhone’s virtual spirit level because it actually replaces a piece of traditional hardware, for small jobs at least. For the business market the new location based applications such as Verilocation are key. Ade Abunbiade is our expert in this area and what he doesn’t know about mobile applications isn’t worth knowing!

What do you see as the best mobile out there for business right now, and why?

There are two that we’ve had great feedback on from our dealers in the last few weeks. The Samsung Bound is really standing out in the tough phone space. But the Sonim XP and Airo A25 from Airo Wireless Equipment are also worthy contenders. For office-based businesses, the Nokia E75 has got a good reaction and the latest smaller BlackBerry Curve 8900 or Javelin as it is commonly know, is great if you are on the move.

Should dealers pay more attention to accessories, and why?

Yes, definitely, because sales, especially in a recession, are all about cross selling new products to existing customers. And that’s what accessories are there for.

Do you have a green policy, and if so, what’s it about?

We are constantly reviewing our green policy and looking for ways to make our telecoms world ‘greener’. Whether it’s special chargers or green handset deployments, it all helps the channel tackle its customers’ corporate social responsibility objectives.

Key personnel

Adrienne Watt, the new head of services and internal sales: “This is a very exciting time for us. We are undertaking a whole host of new initiatives in order to aid our clients to drive their sales in order to benefit the whole channel. We have installed new systems, such as Focus , and have enhanced our processes in the past six months since I have been with the company and it is really paying dividends for all. Our job is to make our clients lives as easy as possible.”

Airtime: O2 - Orange - 3

Handsets: All major handset manufacturers including: RIM – Nokia – Samsung – Airo - Sony Ericsson

Accessories: We have our own ranges of accessories via our pan European group operation which means we can offer extremely competitive pricing on all of the latest accessories and can provide own brand accessories, if necessary. Our group buying power also means that we can obtain excellent prices on all of the big brands such as Parrott and Belkin. We have a dedicated team that is purely focussing on this area: Michael Welsh and Anna-Marie Constantinou.