Winning Feeling

Winning Feeling: Crane’s Tim Brookes picks up the 2005 Award for Training.

Past winners of the Comms Channel Awards let us know what it meant for their company to be singled out as a WINNER!

Around 9.30 pm on Tuesday 12th April this year over six hundred guests at the Comms Channel Awards Gala Dinner were waiting for the results to be announced by Rory McGrath. You could not hear a pin drop. It was getting tense - Chelsea were playing Bayern Munich in the second leg of the Champions League that night and in the earphones of their die

hard supporters the match was drawing to a close with more text messages per square metre of carpet than a teenage sleepover. A nemesis by the name of Liverpool awaited Chelsea the following month but the seventy awards finalists would know their fate in the next few minutes.

Sitting in the audience and about to collect the first of two awards for his company, David Grant, CEO at Crane Telecommunications commented, “Against an overall standard of excellence, scooping two industry awards such as the Distributor of the Year and Best Training operation in April 2005 was a morale boosting achievement for Crane Telecom.

The awards recognised the strength of Crane’s achievements and proved our relentless focus on customer satisfaction and training had paid off. Challenging industry competitors and emerging as the undisputed market leader in two key areas felt wonderful.”

Alison Burrows, Marketing Manager at Networks First said that following their award for Channel Service in 2005 the award logos were a valuable marketing tool which were utilised on the web and in print throughout the year.

“Winning the Channel Service award at the Comms Channel Awards 2005 has been very positive for Networks First. We were thrilled to win our first ever award and it immediately raised our profile within the channel and has assisted greatly in the growth of our business this year. It has also provided us with additional kudos and credibility. Our salesmen have found winning the award a useful talking point when meeting new potential partners and we believe that it has definitely been a factor in recruiting 12 new partners to the Alliance Partner program in the 6 months following the Awards.

The award and finalist logos have been extensively used on our emails, website and all sales collateral and our trophy is on display in the reception area.”

Another two time winner is Echo Communications who in 2004 won the Convergence Solution Award for projects up to £100k and this year got the full set for winning the same award in the over £100k category. Managing Director Richard Bampfylde explains, “Winning the Convergence Solution – Large Enterprise award was excellent for the business. Internally it boosted morale, confirmed that we are as good as or better than our peers and has given us confidence going forward.

Externally, with new clients, it has proved a differentiator at the point of sale and proof from an independent source of our technical expertise and capability. Numerous organisations claim to be able to implement leading edge converged solutions - these awards go someway to showing we do and have been recognised accordingly.

It was important that it was acknowledged as a team prize and not an individual prize hence the project team collected the award this year. Lastly, we have used the award on our website, corporate brochure, press releases and PowerPoint presentation to new and existing customers. In summary, we were delighted and honoured to win the award and it has made a significant difference. We fully intend to submit entries in 2006.”

The last word goes to Ty Gardner of Universal Group who in 2004 won the Best Reseller of the Year in the category for companies with a turnover exceeding £5.0 million and the Overall Reseller of the Year where they beat off the other category awards winners.

“Every email that goes out from our company notes the fact that we won these awards, it’s mentioned on our music on hold messages, our web site and our company newsletters. It gives Universal extra credibility when we are talking to end users. With many competing companies trying to sell solutions users can see we are number one in the UK.”