Comms Leaders #5: Gamma and Digital Space

This episode of Comms Leaders brings together Will Morey (Gamma) and Richard Beeston (Digital Space) to explore how the channel can better serve its customers and move from service-led agreements towards experience-led agreements without losing accountability and visibility. They also discuss how to remove technical jargon and acronyms from the sales process. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello and welcome to this, the latest episode of Comms Dealers, Comms Leaders, a new platform that lets us sit down with those in the channel to discuss some of the industry's burning topics, and I'm delighted to welcome my guests for today's episode. We have Will Morey from Gamma and Richard Beeson from Digital Space. Hi, thanks for having me along. Well, thank you both for coming. Uh Rich, I don't think we've properly caught up since uh we shared a panel at Comms Vision. How have things been since yeah, good, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

We continue to do the work we described at Comms Vision, so re-implementing lots of systems, working on our own business, but then also um happily winning some deals, which is you know part of the reason why we exist, making customers happy, servicing them, rolling out projects. So um, yeah, it's been a really exciting time within our business and a very, very busy time.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Fantastic. And Will, the tan suggests you've just come back from an exotic holiday. Is that the truth?

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Not that exotic, uh just playing lots of tennis with the kids. So uh yeah, great weekend, a little bit of golf. So uh yeah, was out in the sunshine a lot. At least it's gone from red to slightly less red.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

So fantastic. And and just talking to Rich about Comms Vision there, I I'd only sort of realised that we're we're replaying the panel we did we did up at Comms Vision this year, us us two and uh a couple of other guys from the industry. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it'd be nice to I think naturally we're gonna get into our burning topics, and some of those actually dovetail really nicely into that conversation, which was at the time about OVBs doing more for customers and sort of making outcomes more tangible, and that's pretty much the best segue I can think to give you Rich to go into go into your burning topic.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I think it's a good segue into both of them, to be fair, because you used a uh TLA, so um we're gonna get to that in a minute. Um so yeah, the the the topic that um I've sort of been wrestling with in our own business, and I think we've we've we've yet to solve as as a as a channel or as an industry, whatever that is, is how we keep using things like SLAs, service and agreements, um, because they are important, but are they as important as an experience level that we deliver to the customer? So we know lots of our sales motions and lots of our conversations with customers are around what outcomes they're looking for. Why are you doing this project? We know has been discussed on on previous iterations of this podcast. The the the market's kind of difficult at the minute. Buying behaviour is is often stagnated or slowed down where people really are checking why they're doing a project. So we have to, you know, through the sales cycle, understand what's the driver behind that, what's the business benefit of doing something. Great, do that, sell something, deliver it, and then we're kind of back into the old world of going, yeah, but you've got a 99.9% uptime on this and an 85% SLA attainment on there, and it's still sort of out of alignment with what we've talked to the customer about. Um, we've made some strides in that space, as I, you know, I think Sarah alluded to on the last uh podcast we had at MainTel as well, in terms of really relating that back to what we've discussed with the customer. But I think certainly in in digital space, we've still got some work to do in in terms of aligning that contractually, making sure that our staff really understand that. We've got a big programme of work going on at the moment where we've got people doing a day in the life of in our clients' site. So we've had people working in pubs, for example, or you know, other such uh endeavours to get us much closer to the customer so we can really understand the impact of what we deliver to those customers. But then subsequently, I'd like to tie that into metrics that we can turn up you know to service reviews or you know, executive reviews with clients to go, you bought whatever the solution is on this business outcome, we're delivering against that. The experience level agreement that we designed as part of that is displaying that we are meeting those targets, and that could be my Wi-Fi's great so my IT team look like rock stars, it could be I can process card payments, it could be my call abandonment rates lower, therefore my uh net promotion scores improved by my customer, all underpinned by SLA, because you know, if you haven't got some sort of SLA, you can't have that. But taking it to that next level, I think, is where we move away from perhaps what we'll discuss in a minute, a sort of IT channel waffle to actually putting it in real terms for people whose day job isn't selling network connectivity, unified comms, and whatever else we do.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Well, I mean, thank you for referencing Sarah's podcast. That means we've we found our one viewer. Um of course joking. Uh, but um I I guess where the naysayers would come in around XLAs is um you hear a lot of people saying their customers want to engage in those conversations, but the two things they fear getting lost are accountability and visibility. Do you do you sort of run into that at all with customers?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Uh yes, visibility I think would be the biggest challenge for us to solve, and I think perhaps as an industry to solve, um we've got all of us collectively things like customer portals where you can download billing information or look at your SLA achievement or raise a ticket. That's kind of table stakes of being an MSP. Um having described the XLA up front appropriately and designed it with the customer, that's the start of the process. The end bit is being able to play that back regularly and giving that visibility to go, this is how we're performing over time. So the key to that is in data, which in turn is having good process, good people, good systems that are all linked together, where we can truly understand the impact of data quality on how we're delivering to customers. And then accountability is I guess on one hand, again, table stakes for an organization like ours. We we are we exist to serve our customers, and therefore we should be accountable for the service we deliver to those customers. I think the nice difference between an SLA and XLA is SLA can feel straight out of the bat quite negative and punitive. You know, if this doesn't do that, then I will get something. Whereas an XLA is we'd love to do this, this is how we want to take our business, we need it to perform in this manner. Are we doing it? It's a just a slightly for me, it feels more of a positive, collaborative way of working than you know, straight out of the back with a big stick going, You've not you've not done something, so I'm gonna get some credits.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Absolutely, and Will, I mean, we talked in in previous sessions a lot about that piece of uh closeness to customer understanding and the role data plays. You know, how how do you see this burning topic?

SPEAKER_03 6:53

I think uh as a channel organization, we're naturally very aligned and have deep uh relationships with our partners where our our teams, yeah, well we always think a good sign of success is that the typically the BDM or different parts of our team should feel completely embedded into our partners' organization where they're an extension of their business. And because of that, because of the nature of the fact we've got deep long-term relationships that, you know, I'm still dealing now with people that I was working with in 1997 when I joined the comms industry, and I still have strong relationships with those people. Because of that, we've always worked very much on the kind of the outcome. Uh, where are you trying to take your business? And we've touched in podcasts before on Gamma's program around, we call it partner experience, a PX program, where we very much encourage partners to share with us what is the strategic direction of your business, where are you trying to get to, and how can we play a meaningful role in that journey that forms an underlying plan with that partner. That plan is then worked, reviewed on a quarterly basis, and there we then look at the the outcomes, and then often there'll be pricing incentives attached to that, all of those different things come together. And so I think we're naturally very aligned to that way of thinking, with, as you say, the importance of underlying SLAs. Because I don't think it's an either-or conversation, it's a it's a it's very much both and, and so you have to have that underlying foundation maybe of SLAs, and then the the layer, and hopefully, yeah, the sort of the more motivational layer, as you said, because often SLAs are a means to fall out rather than work together sometimes. It it's it's a much stronger kind of relationship in a in a channel or a wholesale environment that I think we can manage with that that outcome value bonus mindset.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Yeah, absolutely. And and Rich, you sort of mentioned uh verticalization in their early doors. Is that the most natural way to sort of deliver this?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Uh I don't know if it's natural, it's kind of the the way our business has gone. Um, we can pick up use cases for particular sets of our clients that are broadly similar because they're in specific verticals. Where myself and a few of our colleagues have looked at the solutions we provide. You often find, if you if you sort of put it on a grid, your solutions the same, the service models broadly the same, the customer pain points can be similar. The language in the middle of why they want to do something is different between verticals because they do different things, you know. Law firms and billable hours isn't translatable into retail and hospitality particularly, but they might have a similar, similar pain point that's driving a solution. So um I think verticals for us is is a way of describing what we do to clients, but again, I don't think that's really a technology conversation, it is more about empowerment of their business to say we keep the lights on at X or we enable petrol stations to keep um pumping fuel or shipping containers to come through the port or something like that. It's that that's what that business does. We just happen to help them, because we're an intrinsic part of their supply chain, do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Yeah, and and I suppose part of this conversation, uh, as we alluded to there was moving past some of the more technical pieces of conversation, some of the technical jargons, and and will that moves us nicely on to onto your burning subject.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah, I I suppose I related to this this sort of question and discussion as you know the TV series Room 101 with Paul Merton and I think others, it's like if you could take something and put it in and it and it would disappear. Yeah. So my my view is that there is way too much jargon and too many acronyms used in our industry. And I suppose my my my thesis on this is that essentially we create barriers with with the customer and barriers with people joining our businesses, we were talking about it earlier on, where we we just spout this nonsense of of TLAs and acronyms and God knows what. And you know, I I love the fact, yeah, we've got lots of different types. We've got the straight, you know, there's uh there's uh maybe VOIP. People will use that. Then some people will call it VoIP. So we'd like to pronounce the acronym as well. Then you've got yeah, the utterly confusing UCAT, which if you said to something like, what the hell? Yeah, the average person in the street. And we just constantly talk in this kind of techno bubble. And I think it's really damaging to our industry and to the way we can talk to end users. So I I created a program, I've been kind of championing this for a while, and I came up with a word to describe it, which is simplificationalism. Because we dig something really simple, and we make it bloody complicated. And it picks up exactly what you were talking about a minute ago. People who run a shipping container business want to move shipping containers. They don't want to think about, talk about, worry about UCAS or network or Wi-Fi or it that's just background noise in their business. And I think we've got to get far better as an industry on focusing exactly in the way that you said, and I think it does relink really well to that sort of XLA thinking of what are you actually trying to do? You're trying to shift more shipping containers or or you're trying to uh service more people through a petrol station or whatever the example is and remove the barriers. And I think in the channel uh as an organization, yeah, we we don't contribute because we all get together as a community and we all like to out techno babble each other and yeah, talk talk techno jargon all of the time, and and we'll we'll we'll do that. And I think we've got to get away from techno speak to plain speaking, yeah. And it it does link back in my mind to the old school sales training that everybody went through around features and benefits. Talk to the customer about the benefits, don't talk about the features. And I sometimes think that what underlies this in our industry is a lot of people come into it and they maybe don't have the foundational knowledge of understanding how the technology actually works. And because of that, they exist solely on this surface layer of techno jargon because it enables them to mask a complete lack of understanding of how any of this stuff bloody works. And it is complicated. I'm not saying for a second I understand everything, but I think we've got to get to the point, you know, that the old edge about can you explain this to a six-year-old or can I explain it to my mum or whoever it is that you've got in your mind? That's where we've got to get to as an industry. Be plain speaking, make sure we're really clear on the actual benefits, and how's it going to help them shift more shipping containers? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It's uh it's a good example. Can you explain it to you to your mum? I was sort of thinking about how we change the language of our business, and that was the exact same thought process. And a good a good example that led us down that was SASI. So an acronym within itself that's been entirely sort of invented by industry. And it also happens to be made up of things like CASB and ZTNA and SD1 and you know some other some other sort of mystical things. And if you if you did have to explain that to someone outside the industry genuinely, you're more or more you're right or something, they would think you were talking in griddles because it is utter nonsense. Yeah, and most most people really just want to go. I'd love it that if my users who who are all sort of disparate and remote and whatever could connect securely to the resources that they need to connect to in such a way that they can do their job seamlessly, but we can also make sure that that's done in a secure manner and we can tell if they're downloading stuff that they shouldn't be downloading.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Okay, that's really easy. What you need is this thing, not oh, you need zero trust network access and SD1 and blah blah blah. It's just confusing and crazy to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So we absolutely what you said when we do our sales enablement. I think our our role almost as an MSP and with some of the teams that that we have with our product and trading teams and our marketing teams is to be that translator of going, right? We know we're probably never gonna stop large international vendors from just coming up with this stuff. Yeah. But what our role is, is to translate that so that our teams can understand what it is that we are trying to do, and then subsequently explain that into a way to for a customer that allows them to go, oh yeah, that's actually gonna solve my problem. So we're we're kind of yeah, we're an aggregator of technology, but we should also be a translator of nonsense into actual real world need and real world.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

And I think it's partly a plea to the industry really to invest more in training people as they come into the industry. I I I spent yesterday morning with about 20 new people joining Gamma and they spend time with with uh leaders from across the business. And yeah, I I set them a challenge with them in that, which is if you catch me using an acronym, pick me up on it, ask what it is, because we use it and it's so easy just to fall into that pattern of of constant acronym talk. So it is about training people effectively from the start with a foundational knowledge so they don't have to rely on talking nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Yeah, I think it's a great point about holding each other accountable. In fact, I remember on stage at Comms Vision, yeah. Uh I mean, and this is where we are also guilty as media, you know, we dressed up doing things simply as OVBs. That's you know, and you turned to me on stage and after the first question went, what's an OB OVB again? It's a great point. So um and and you're right, it it is this sort of big lie we tell ourselves of it's it's making life easier for us when it is just masking things. I mean, I I came from uh gardening before the industry, so SLA was sort of level acidity to me. Um you know, you then transfer into the world of IT managed services and and cybersecurity, and you get your socks and your knocks and everything, but it's Dr. Zeus' book, isn't it? Um but no, I think I think the accountability point is is is very true. The uh and then how that filters into actually talking about outcomes as opposed to getting lost in in jargon. Um the last part is sort of a burning thought based on the conversation we've had. Uh something key that the that the listeners should take away, maybe start to think about applying to their businesses. Uh Richard, anything anything sort of stick out to you?

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Uh yeah, I kind of liked it. Was that Springer's final thought, wasn't it? For those who've old enough who are watching Jerry Springer. Um, although I don't think the crowd would be going to be jumping up and running quite. I don't know. We live in hope. We live in hopes. Um I think um it's it's often said it takes a village to raise a child, right? Um I think as trite as it might sound that that also applies to my experiences of being in the channel, so it's super intoxicating to think, oh, I'm gonna go into a role and I can solve all these problems on my own and you know turn the world around. This channel, whatever way we want to describe it, has got loads of super experienced, enthusiastic three-letter acronym using individuals in it, who um are really helpful. We've all got you know decent knowledge and networks, um, and I would encourage anybody listening to use those networks, build on them, um, and use them to help solve problems either that you have in your business in the way that you described as how can we rethink channel partner models such that it isn't just here's a volume commitment of something and we'll just smash you over the head until you meet it. Um or is it collaborating with other MSPs to go, well, you do something that I don't do, I do something that you don't do. We're not necessarily uber competitive, let's have a joint go-to-market strategy that actually opens up different markets for us. So I would encourage everybody to use your network and um the accessibility of this industry to collectively push us all forward.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Thank you very much. And Will, what about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 18:45

I think it's it's very much focused on what I was talking about a minute ago, which is really investing in the new people coming into our industry and really giving them the support and the help they need to understand things at that foundational level and yeah, leaning into the relationships that that uh yeah everybody has a little bit as as you said, where actually lean into the community and yeah, work with the gamma team, uh work with whichever of your vendor teams you're you're you're you're aligned with to be able to help you train those people, get them to a base level of understanding, and and just keep each other honest on the techno techno nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Brilliant. Well, I appreciate you both taking the time out to sit and talk about outcomes, talk about the industry. Um been a pleasure. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thanks, Jens. Cheers.