With two acquisitions in three months and the appointment of a new Commercial Director to drive channel sales, managed network solution provider EvolveODM is primed for transformative growth. James Goulding finds out more from
Since it was founded in 2005 to provide connectivity and Guest WiFi to multi-site retail and hospitality businesses, end-to- end managed network solution provider EvolveODM (Evolve) has undergone a number of step-changes in its growth and development.
One of these was in 2013 when Directors Alan Stephenson-Brown and his son Ryan joined the business, adding managed network services to the company’s product offering and giving it a new growth engine that today generates 70% of the company’s business (when the value of bundled Evolve services, such as connectivity, are factored in).
“We spring-boarded Evolve from predominantly doing Guest Wi-Fi and connectivity to also offering a fully managed network solution that now includes services like a Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) and not just basic connectivity but managed connectivity,” explains Alan Stephenson-Brown.
“Today, the three mainstays of our product portfolio are our SD-WAN and managed network solution; connectivity services; and Guest Wi-Fi. Some customers will just take one of these services, but the vast majority take
all three.”
Another big step-change for the Wigan- based company occurred in February 2019, with the recruitment of fellow Director Rob Brown, who has used his significant experience in large corporate entities to transform the company’s operations to meet the high service and support standards demanded by customers in the retail, hospitality, leisure, fuel and food-to-go sectors, including brands and franchises like KFC, Starbucks, ESSO, BP and Leon.
Stephenson-Brown estimates that 70% of the company’s business is ‘operationally focused’, so gaining expertise in operations, from order fulfilment to customer support, has been vital for the company’s growth and provided a solid platform for the ongoing expansion of the business (see box copy).
New opportunities
In the last three months, EvolveODM has taken its third big step forward in 10 years with the acquisitions of two businesses and the appointment of a Commercial Director, Neil Muttock, with the aim of expanding its network management footprint from 7,500 locations to 15,000 within the next three years.
The acquisitions of managed IT services provider GB3 in November 2022 and B2B mobile telephony provider 4G Voice and Data in January 2023 take EvolveODM closer to its goal of being able to offer customers a full service offering and a one-stop-shop for connectivity, with significant cross-sell opportunities between all three customer bases.
“GB3 offer managed IT services but they don’t provide managed network connectivity, which most of their customer base wants, and we had customers asking us if we could provide managed IT services, so the two businesses coming together is a great benefit for both businesses and both sets of customers,” says Stephenson-Brown.
“It’s the same with 4G Voice and Data. We haven’t provided mobile phone services to customers on the connectivity side (bar a backup M2M SIM offering), so it’s a great opportunity to provide those services to our existing customer base, while meeting demand for SD-WAN and networking services from 4G customers, a lot of which are in new sectors for us like construction and manufacturing.”
Full fibre
In addition to these opportunities, Neil Muttock, previously Account Director at TalkTalk Wholesale, is focussing on growing Evolve’s existing connectivity services, with a particular focus on expanding its full fibre offering to meet the needs of customers who might require higher speeds for Guest Wi-Fi or online kiosks for food orders.
He is adding to the relationships Evolve has with 50 network infrastructure providers around the globe, including Talk Talk Wholesale Services and BT Wholesale, by working with alternative network providers (Alt-Nets) to offer more choice and to speed up the provision of full fibre services to customers in areas not covered by the major players.
So far, Evolve has signed up four Alt-Nets that have networks in London and rural areas, including the North- West, enabling it to offer a choice of fibre speeds, from 1 Gigabit to 10 Gigabit, from different carriers.
Stephenson-Brown points out that with the addition of 4G Voice and Data, Evolve has the opportunity to offer customers 5G connectivity as well.
“We’re already looking at options for 5G services from a data perspective, not just a mobile phone perspective. Owning a business called 4G Voice and Data, which also happens to own the name 5G Voice and Data, gives us a great stepping stone into that market.”
Reseller recruitment
Muttock’s other priority is to reinvigorate and expand Evolve’s partner network with the launch of a new reseller channel in Q2.
Evolve already has eight partners that resell the Mako Networks cloud-managed networking solution which forms part of Evolve’s managed SD-WAN offering and for which Evolve is the only Platinum Partner globally. However, from April, it plans to make its core product offering available to a wider reseller community, providing partners with a one-stop-shop for managed network services, connectivity and Guest Wi-Fi.
To that end, it has taken on additional account management and marketing staff, implemented product training and is developing a dedicated portal through which partners can check product availability, place orders, manage orders, support their estate and access white-label marketing material and thought leadership pieces.
Evolve will be leading its reseller proposition with SD-WAN, which Stephenson-Brown says offers huge potential for resellers.
“The actual penetration of SD-WAN services in the UK market is very low
– probably less than 5% – but there’s enormous scope for growth as multi-
site organisations make the move from legacy MPLS technology or rationalise connectivity solutions that they might, over the years, have bolted on to what was already there. Lots of people are now looking at consolidation so instead of having five lines on a site, providing different services, they have one line and a fully managed SD-WAN solution to provide that consolidation and the security segregation they require.
“The beauty for partners is that they will have access to our 24 x 7 support operation as well, which we see as critical in this marketplace, especially when you’re looking at multi-site food service and hospitality organisations that work in the evenings and at weekends and want full 24 x 7 support from someone on the end of a phone.”
Muttock adds that resellers and
their customers also benefit from SD- WAN’s flexible OpEx model and rapid deployment due to the investment it has made in process automation: “We believe that is a real point of difference against our competition, which really does fit well with the fast-paced nature of the hospitality sector.”
Over the last four years, EvolveODM has put in place a robust platform for future growth that will enable resellers to reduce complexity, cut costs and increase uptime for their clients. To find out more about becoming a partner, please visit:
—————————————————————————–
Built for success
Alan Stephenson-Brown attributes much of EvolveODM’s recent success, including organic growth of 43% last year, to the investment it has made in business operations, including its multi-lingual, Wigan-based support desk and its internal software development team, both of which he sees as key market differentiators.
“One of the key things we do as a business is to make sure the services we offer are managed and monitored 24 x 7 by our support desk in Wigan. We’ve got eyes on screens 24 x 7, monitoring alerts, reacting to alerts and being proactive, ensuring that our customers don’t have to call us. Ninety per cent of calls are outbound to our customers and just 10% inbound.”
He adds that when issues do occur, 99% can be fixed remotely, which he attributes to the company’s internal software and development capability.
“Having our own development team is a big differentiator for us. It enables us to create bespoke screens in our Operations Centre, showing alerts from different systems and showing which alerts are Category One. It also enables us to script quite a lot of alerts, so we get consistency. Most of our competitors in this space don’t want their own development team or if they do have one it’s usually offshore.
“Everything our development team does is about offering customers a better service from a resolution perspective and enhancing our operational expertise.”
In-house development, currently running at around 200 man-hours per week, also makes it easier for Evolve to add new products to its portfolio, because they can be interfaced with the operations team very quickly, and automate key business processes, saving time and boosting efficiency.
“When an order comes in from a customer, we stage that equipment, allocate that equipment, send it out via a courier and track that courier. That whole process has now been automated.”
Other recent developments supporting EvolveODM’s next growth phase include the move to a purpose-built office in Wigan, with capacity for 3x business growth, and the addition of a larger warehouse with staging facilities and equipment storage.
“We don’t want to get caught out by future chip shortages, so we took the decision to make an investment in equipment as well. If a customer comes to us tomorrow and wants a large- scale deployment, we’ve got the equipment to be able to deliver that potentially within a couple of days.”
Be First to Comment