markloveys.com
Open in
urlscan Pro
192.0.78.24
Public Scan
Submitted URL: https://www.netpower.co.nz.loveys.net/
Effective URL: https://markloveys.com/
Submission: On September 14 via api from US — Scanned from NZ
Effective URL: https://markloveys.com/
Submission: On September 14 via api from US — Scanned from NZ
Form analysis 5 forms found in the DOM
GET https://markloveys.com
<form action="https://markloveys.com" method="get"><label class="screen-reader-text" for="cat">Categories</label><select name="cat" id="cat" class="postform">
<option value="-1">Select Category</option>
<option class="level-0" value="31779">Accountability (2)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="93860">Billing (45)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="69816">Cloud (73)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="1214">Communication (33)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="9204">conferences (1)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="150766">Cortex (18)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="11420981">Datagate (61)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="33383940">Datasquirt (20)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="33170068">Enprise (16)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="33876581">Enprise Job Costing (28)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="13790">ERP (64)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="3085406">MSPs (20)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="2349739">Multi-tenant (24)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="186199958">MYOB Advanced (10)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="25801886">MYOB EXO (29)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="7426">Networking (7)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="56430432">New Zealand IT Industry (50)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="77073420">NZAX (5)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="1743308">Project Costing (25)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="17927">SaaS (21)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="897727">SAP Business One (37)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="29212127">Sap Isv (30)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="49818">Social Media (10)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="3115">TELCO (45)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="1">Uncategorized (8)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="10266">Utilities (11)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="40559">Virtualization (18)</option>
<option class="level-0" value="598798">Water Utilities (5)</option>
</select>
</form>GET https://markloveys.com/
<form method="get" id="searchform" action="https://markloveys.com/">
<div><input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s"><br>
<input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search">
</div>
</form>GET https://markloveys.com/
<form method="get" id="searchform" action="https://markloveys.com/">
<div><input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s"><br>
<input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search">
</div>
</form>POST https://subscribe.wordpress.com
<form method="post" action="https://subscribe.wordpress.com" accept-charset="utf-8" style="display: none;">
<div class="actnbr-follow-count">Join 62 other subscribers</div>
<div>
<input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Enter your email address" class="actnbr-email-field" aria-label="Enter your email address">
</div>
<input type="hidden" name="action" value="subscribe">
<input type="hidden" name="blog_id" value="12525766">
<input type="hidden" name="source" value="https://markloveys.com/">
<input type="hidden" name="sub-type" value="actionbar-follow">
<input type="hidden" id="_wpnonce" name="_wpnonce" value="eda576df4f">
<div class="actnbr-button-wrap">
<button type="submit" value="Sign me up"> Sign me up </button>
</div>
</form><form id="jp-carousel-comment-form">
<label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-comment-field" class="screen-reader-text">Write a Comment...</label>
<textarea name="comment" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-textarea" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-comment-field" placeholder="Write a Comment..."></textarea>
<div id="jp-carousel-comment-form-submit-and-info-wrapper">
<div id="jp-carousel-comment-form-commenting-as">
<fieldset>
<label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-email-field">Email (Required)</label>
<input type="text" name="email" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-email-field">
</fieldset>
<fieldset>
<label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-author-field">Name (Required)</label>
<input type="text" name="author" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-author-field">
</fieldset>
<fieldset>
<label for="jp-carousel-comment-form-url-field">Website</label>
<input type="text" name="url" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-field jp-carousel-comment-form-text-field" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-url-field">
</fieldset>
</div>
<input type="submit" name="submit" class="jp-carousel-comment-form-button" id="jp-carousel-comment-form-button-submit" value="Post Comment">
</div>
</form>Text Content
MARK LOVEYS
Commentary on Billing Systems, Accounting Software and Cloud Computing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“WHITE LABEL” TELECOM SERVICES ARE THE BETTER OPTION FOR MSPS
April 1, 2024
At Datagate, we’re constantly talking with Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
about their strategies for providing telecommunication solutions to their
business clients, including VoIP, UCaaS, mobile solutions and data connectivity
solutions.
We see first-hand that MSPs around the world are generally very successful at
selling and providing telecom services to their business clients. This is only
logical, because they have a closer “trusted advisor” relationship with their
business clients in comparison to their larger telco competitors. Furthermore,
businesses generally want to minimize complexity – and it’s much easier and less
complex to source your IT and telecommunication services from a single source –
your MSP.
MSPs with little or no telecom expertise and/or their own telecom infrastructure
are best advised to resell the services of a specialist wholesale telecom
provider.
There are two fundamental types of wholesale telecom provider models. These are
the “Agency” model and the “White Label” model.
Under the Agency model, the MSP refers their clients to the telecom provider and
gets paid a commission on whatever services the providers sells and supplies to
the MSP’s client. Under the White Label model, the MSP sells the services of the
provider to the client under their own name and bills the services on their own
invoice, along with any other non-telecom services.
I always recommend the White Label model to MSPs who don’t have the resources
and inclination to provide their own telecom services, but are serious about
growing and maximizing the value of their businesses. Below are the reasons for
my recommendation.
“Sticky” Clients
The more services you provide your clients, the more complicated and difficult
it is for them to move their business to another service provider.
Branding Control
1.
With the White Label model, you have the opportunity to brand the solution as
your own. This means you can establish your brand identity in the market, build
brand recognition, and foster customer loyalty. Selling as an agent often means
promoting someone else’s brand, which may not align with your business goals and
does not build your own business value.
Flexibility and Customization
White Label solutions typically offer more flexibility and customization
options. You can tailor the services to meet the specific needs of your clients,
adding value and enhancing the overall customer experience. As an agent, you may
have limited control over the services and features offered, which can restrict
your ability to meet client demands effectively.
Higher Margins
Selling White Label solutions often allows for higher profit margins compared to
selling as an agent. Since you have more control over pricing and service
delivery, you can set your own margins and maximize profitability. As an agent,
you may earn a commission or fee for each sale, but the margins are typically
lower compared to reselling White Label solutions.
Ownership of Customer Relationships
When you sell White Label solutions, you own the customer relationships. This
means you have direct communication with your clients, which can lead to better
customer retention and upselling opportunities. As an agent, the provider
typically maintains control over customer relationships, which can limit your
ability to build long-term partnerships and maximize revenue.
Scalability and Growth Opportunities
White Label solutions offer scalability, allowing you to expand your business
and reach new markets more easily. You can white-label multiple services under
your brand umbrella, offering a comprehensive suite of solutions to your
clients. This scalability fosters business growth and diversification
opportunities that may not be available when selling as an agent.
Maximizing your Business Valuation
Eventually you will want to sell your MSP business and will want to maximize its
sale value. Valuations of MSP businesses are often based on a multiple of
recurring top-line revenue. The White Label model gives you a much higher
top-line revenue result than the commission received from the Agency model.
At Datagate, we work closely with White Label wholesale telecom providers in the
United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. We are happy
to talk with MSPs interested in this subject and make recommendations and
introductions where appropriate.
Posted in Billing, Datagate, TELCO | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Business, Datagate, Datagate America, digital-marketing, entrepreneurship,
technology, Telecommunications
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSPS: DON’T LEAVE VOICE ON THE TABLE!
September 21, 2022
Earlier this month I was at the ConnectWise IT Nation Connect Asia-Pacific
conference on the Gold Coast of Australia, along with Liston Pinto and Datagate
Telecom Billing – as a booth sponsor of the event. There were 550 MSPs and 30
booth sponsors in attendance, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, and we were
pleased to meet up with so many Datagate customers and/or partners from that
region.
The overall mood of the conference was positive and the general message was that
this is a good time to be a Managed Service Provider (MSP), given the world-wide
shortage of IT professionals, the global security challenges, and the fact that
businesses of all sizes everywhere are outsourcing their IT Services and
Communications Services to MSPs – which brings me to the subject line of this
blog post.
Notwithstanding the positive headline messages of the conference, there was also
an undercurrent of concern among many of the MSP attendees regarding one of
Australia’s major telco’s who has started pro-actively marketing their MSP IT
Support Services to their business customers by leveraging their existing voice
relationships. In effect, the telco is doing in reverse, what so many MSPs have
been doing so successfully for years – extending their existing MSP relationship
as an IT Provider, into also becoming the voice provider. Now it’s the voice
provider extending into IT!
Don’t leave voice on the table!
Increasingly, businesses are choosing to buy their voice solutions and services
from their MSP. MSPs who don’t provide voice services to their customers are at
risk of losing those customers to another MSP or telco who does offer the full
MSP service including voice.
I came away from the conference with the words of the Australian MSPs etched
into my mind “Don’t leave voice on the table!“. It’s risky to not sell voice
(UCaaS VoIP etc) and yet today it’s so easy (unlike it was in the past).
Other reasons to not leave voice on the table are:
* Voice services provide a stable source of recurring revenue (every business
requires a phone system)
* The extra top-line recurring revenue of voice services, increases the
valuation of your MSP business.
* By providing a business with IT and Voice services, the customer is more
reliant on the MSP and therefore less likely to switch to another provider
(ie the relationship is more “sticky”).
* Providing the whole suite of MSP services (including voice) lets you “own”
the customer relationship.
* Selling voice is easy to business customers where you’re already providing IT
services.
If you are an MSP interested in selling voice services, please contact my team
at Datagate Telecom Billing info@datagate-i.com where we will gladly make
introductions to white-label wholesale telecom partners in your region. In the
United States, this includes partners that specialize in telecom tax and
compliance.
Posted in Datagate, MSPs, TELCO, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tags: Datagate, Datagate Innovation, Datagate Telecom Billing, Telecom Billing,
UCaaS, VoIP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFERENCES ARE BACK!
November 10, 2021
Last week I attended the Channel Partners conference in Las Vegas with
Datagate‘s North American sales & marketing team. In almost two years, this was
the first time I’d flown in an airplane, been outside British Columbia, been in
person to a business event, and the first time I had the chance to catch up with
so many industry friends, partners, clients and contacts.
I must admit that leading up to the event, I was somewhat nervous about the
more-complicated processes involved in getting the Canadian members of our team
in and out of the United States, and the question of how many people would turn
up to the event – would it be successful? Other concerns included, what would we
do if one or more of our team tested positive at one of the Covid-19 tests? As
it turned, my concerns were unfounded and everything went smoothly.
The flight into the United States required us to take a rapid antigen Covid-19
test within three days of departure, and provide proof of vaccination status
upon arrival at Vancouver airport. The flight back to Canada required the same
via the ArriveCan app, except that the Covid-19 test needed to be of the more
expensive PCR variety. No quarantine or isolation was required for any part of
the journey, thankfully.
The Channel Partners conference was very successful, and they had a record
number of attendees (I believe it was over 6,200 people). People there were
generally in high spirits. Glad to be out at an in-person conference again and
glad to be catching up with their friends and business contacts. Surely a good
sign that life is getting back to some kind of normal.
*
*
For Datagate the conference was valuable on a number of fronts. We connected
with a large number of new sales opportunities, met with clients, partners and
prospects, and furthermore we had the opportunity to get our North American
sales & marketing team together in person for the very first time. Our team was
also able to meet with Datagate board member Eric Hernaez, who was also at the
conference.
*
*
*
We announced Datagate’s sponsorship of Train our Troops who do great work for
military veterans, helping them with training and certifications for their
civilian business careers. It was great to meet the guys from Train Our Troops,
and “Juan Rico” their friendly explosives detection canine.
This week Datagate team members are back at two more in-person conferences,
which are the Compliance Solutions conference in San Diego, and the Connectwise
IT Nation Connect conference in Orlando.
In 2022, we’ll start off the year exhibiting at the ITEXPO conference in Fort
Lauderdale FL February (8-11) and then the SkySwitch Vectors conference in
Orlando FL in March (27-30). Following that, we will be back at other
MSP/telecom events including Channel Partners, DattoCon, Canadian Channel
Partners and more.
If you’re attending any of these events, please come and say hello to the
Datagate team!
Posted in Billing, Communication, conferences, Datagate, MSPs, TELCO | Leave a
Comment »
Tags: conferences, Datagate, Datagate America, Datagate Innovation, MSPs,
Telecom Billing, TelecomBilling
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEARNING FROM OUR INTERNATIONAL TELECOM MSPS AND PARTNERS
April 29, 2021
One of the things I enjoy most about Datagate Telecom Billing, is that we are an
international business, with an international team and international partners,
serving an international group of MSP clients. With an ecosystem like we have at
Datagate, we’ve learned, and continue to learn so much about how the MSP Telecom
business operates around the world.
The MSP industry itself is strong on networking, learning and sharing
experiences & knowhow. This is evident in the online forum Reddit and in the
great selection of well-attended MSP industry conferences, such as IT Nation,
DattoCon, ConnectIT, Channel Partners, ITExpo, Canadian Channel Partners and the
list goes on.
At Datagate, we’ve established a series of monthly webinars called “Talking VoIP
with Datagate” where we talk with selected partners and clients about their
experiences, offerings and business in general. This month we’re talking with
Allegiant Technology about telecom offerings to the MSP community, and next
month we’ll be talking with Eric Hernaez, the founder and former president of
SkySwitch, who recently joined Datagate’s board of directors and is now the CEO
of a new technology business called RabbitRun.
Our observations – what is common to all and specific to some MSP geographies
Here is some of what Datagate has observed about the MSP Telecom industry in the
countries we operate in, which are the USA, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia and
New Zealand.
1. Worldwide, the demand for MSP services appears to be at an all-time high.
Most MSPs serve businesses, and the Covid-19 pandemic has increased business
reliance on IT and communication systems. The main challenge for most MSPs
appears to be keeping up with demand.
2. More and more businesses are preferring to buy their telecom systems and
services from their IT provider. Increasingly, IT and telecommunications are
becoming one and the same.
3. In the United States, telecom tax and regulatory compliance is a big topic
and major concern for MSPs who sell telecom services. This is why Datagate
has invested so heavily in this area, supporting the best telecom tax
engines and partnering with the best telecom tax & compliance service
providers. Tax and regulatory compliance is not a major concern for MSPs
outside of the United States, however.
4. MSPs who provide IT and Telecom services commonly use a PSA (Professional
Service Automation) system, such as ConnectWise Manage, Datto AutoTask,
Kaseya BMS and others. They typically want to process and be able to see
both their IT and their telecom business in the same PSA environment. This
is actually why Datagate is so successful, because our strategy is to enable
telecom billing for these PSA’s.
5. Inside the United States, the most popular accounting system for MSPs is
QuickBooks by a big margin. In second place would be Xero.
6. Outside the United States (particularly Canada, UK, Australia and New
Zealand), MSPs more commonly use Xero for their accounting system, by a big
margin.
7. Globally, most MSPs resell UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) or
VoIP telecom services provided by a wholesale provider. Wholesale providers
can either be “White Label” (where MSPs sell the service to their customers
on their own invoice and take responsibility for the tax and regulatory
compliance), or have an Agency or Referral model (where the MSP effectively
outsources the billing, tax and compliance to the provider). Examples of
White Label wholesale providers are SkySwitch (US & Canada), OITVoIP (US),
Gamma (UK), Access4 (AU) and Spark Wholesale (NZ). Examples of Agency
wholesale providers are Allegiant Technology (US), MedTel Communications
(US) and WaveFly (US).
8. Microsoft Teams is a very strong driver of business for MSPs and the ability
of Teams to act as a softphone for making telephone calls through a Cloud
PBX is the most popular product offering around for MSPs around the world.
The interesting thing about Teams is that it further unifies the worlds of
IT and communications – so much so that we’ve added the ability to bill
Teams calling to the Datagate telecom billing engine. Microsoft Teams is
introducing a lot of MSPs to the world of telecom. TeamMate Technology in
the US are doing great things enabling telecom providers to support Teams,
as are TeleSmart (NZ & AU) with their Teams calling offer to MSPs. Teams
calling is now a “must have” and most of Datagate’s telecom partners are
offering this.
It’s a great time to be part of the MSP world, and we look forward to continuing
our learning process, especially through Datagate’s “Talking VoIP with Datagate”
monthly webinar series. I hope you’ll join us.
Posted in Billing, Cloud, Communication, Datagate, MSPs, New Zealand IT
Industry, SaaS, TELCO | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Datagate, Datagate Innovation, MSP, MSP Conferences, MSPs, PSA, Telecom
Billing, VoIP, VoIP Billing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW WEBINAR SERIES: “TALKING VOIP WITH DATAGATE”
January 25, 2021
One of the great things about the telecom – MSP industry is that there is no
shortage of interesting topics within it to learn about and apply to your
business to make it more successful. These include technical, product, business
and regulatory subjects (yes, regulatory subjects can be interesting too).
This year Datagate has decided to run a series of webinars called “Talking VoIP
with Datagate” where we delve into what we believe are the most interesting
subjects to us and our MSP community. In effect, it’s a learning exercise that
we want to share with anyone who wants to join us and we will be talking with
some of the most interesting and qualified people in the industry on the topics
we cover.
At the time of writing, we are still compiling our list of topics and guests for
the year, but our first topic will be “Using Microsoft Teams as a softphone” and
we’ll be talking with Micah Singer of TeamMate Technology. TeamMate develops the
software that connects Microsoft Teams to phone systems and so Micah is on the
cutting edge of what can be done with Teams and telecom.
Other topics that we’re considering for the series include “Building a
successful telecom business”, “Telecom tax and compliance in the United States”,
“Digital marketing for MSPs”, “Data analytics for MSPs”, “Adding value with
professional voices” and others. We’re open to suggestions for further topics
that would be interesting to our MSP community.
I hope you’ll join us in this series. It should be fun, interesting and
educational.
Posted in Billing, Datagate, MSPs, Networking, New Zealand IT Industry, TELCO |
Leave a Comment »
Tags: Datagate, Datagate America, Datagate Innovation, Microsoft Teams,
TeamMateTechnology, TeamsCalling, VoIP, VoIP Billing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020 – A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER AT DATAGATE
December 17, 2020
At the start of this year, we thought 2020 was going to be “special” because it
marked the start of an exciting new decade for Datagate. While that might still
be the case, that particular aspect of 2020 was about to be overshadowed by what
unfolded in the coming months with the global Covid-19 pandemic.
2020- A year like no other
For Datagate, being an international business, a major impact of Covid-19 for us
was finding that we were restricted from travelling, both locally and
internationally, and we were forced to do 100% of our meetings and interactions
on-line. All our staff suddenly had to work from home, and we soon found that
working from home was actually more productive and efficient than working from a
city office. We’ve now decided to stay with the work-from-home model, as it
works better for our staff and our business.
The whirlwind that was 2020
Despite all the Covid-19 carnage and disruption around the world, and being
forced to work from home and not travel, the Datagate team, along with our
partners and clients, managed to achieve a lot.
In January we formalized our new and very successful distribution partnership
with SkySwitch – a leading US white-label wholesale VoIP, UCaaS provider for
MSPs, who are based in Florida.
In February, prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, we attended what was to be our last
in-person conference for a while, the ITExpo in Fort Lauderdale FL, where we met
with a number of our partners and clients.
In March the Covid-19 outbreak took hold, and our plans for travelling and
industry conferences came to an abrupt halt. At the same time we could see that
our MSP clients were becoming even more busy than usual. The world had changed
and the demand for VoIP and UCaaS solutions from businesses everywhere was
skyrocketing, to enable staff to work from home. Fortunately for us, being a
Cloud-based business, we could keep up with this higher level of demand under
our new working-from-home configuration.
Our MSP-Telecom industry conferences started announcing that for health & safety
reasons, they were “going virtual”, so that meant we became booth-sponsors of
Canadian Channel Partners 2020- virtual, Cloud Connections Summit, Channel
Partners 2020 Virtual, and ConnectWise‘s IT Nation Connect 2020. We found that
virtual conferences were a great option when there are no in-person conferences,
but they really are not as good as the real thing for the purpose of connecting
with people. We certainly missed all the great MSP & Telecom conferences that we
normally attend, and look forward to when they restart.
In addition to SkySwitch, we also signed Datagate distribution deals with
OITVoIP of Miami, Florida and Access4 of Australia, so we now have three strong
white-label VoIP -UCaaS providers selling Datagate telecom billing solutions to
their MSP resellers.
During the year we also formed a number of new integrated-product partnerships –
all of whom we consider important to our MSP customer base. These include
Avalara and their AvaTax for Communications tax engine, ConnectBooster and their
popular payment automation solution, the quoting solution Quoter, payment
solutions IPPay, Stripe and Authorize.net and MSP analytics solution,
Cognition360.
We produced and participated in MSP-focused webinars with AdavantageIVR
(professional voices for phone systems) and Cognition360 (advanced analytics for
ConnectWise and Datagate), as well as with ConnectBooster, SkySwitch, OITVoIP
and Avalara.
Geographically, we expanded our footprint in 2020 to include Sydney, Australia
and London, UK. These added to our existing locations of Jacksonville Florida,
Vancouver Canada and Auckland, New Zealand. We’ve also added five new staff to
our North American customer services team, to increase capacity to serve our MSP
clients.
Further to all the above, we did a lot of great work in collaboration with our
established industry partners (in no particular order): ConnectWise, Microsoft,
CCH SureTax, Compliance Solutions, GSA/CLA, RTC, Xero, QuickBooks and others,
It’s been quite a year!
Happy New Year! Roll on 2021!
Posted in Billing, Cloud, Communication, Datagate, MSPs, SaaS, TELCO | Leave a
Comment »
Tags: 2020, Avalara, CCH SureTax, Compliance, ConnectWise, Covid-19, Datagate,
Datagate America, Datagate Innovation, MSP, MSPs, Telecom Billing, VoIP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DATAGATE FEATURING AT IT NATION CONNECT 2020 – VIRTUAL
November 2, 2020
Next week (November 10th, 11th & 12th) Datagate will be a gold-level booth
sponsor for the fourth time in a row at the ConnectWise IT Nation Connect
conference, which is traditionally held in Orlando, Florida each year.
This year, due to Coronavirus-related health & safely concerns, the event will
be “virtual” for the first time, instead of in-person. This presents a great
opportunity for MSPs around the world to “attend”, what I believe to be the
greatest industry event for MSPs, without the expense and time commitment that
is normally required.
Datagate wins “Best Newcomer” award at IT Nation 2017 in Orlando, Florida
Datagate’s first appearance at IT Nation was in November 2017, which marked the
first time that we connected face to face with American MSPs and started to
understand their requirements for a telecom-billing solution that would
integrate deeply with ConnectWise Manage and handle the inclusion of numerous
telecom taxes at the federal, state, county and city level.
We also won the “Best Newcomer” award from ConnectWise and along with that,
received a lot of publicity within the ConnectWise MSP world.
We came away from IT Nation 2017 with over a hundred sales leads for MSPs
wanting a solution like Datagate, that would save them days of work each month,
share its data with ConnectWise Manage and make the complicated task of telecom
billing very easy and quick.
This started the ball rolling for Datagate with ConnectWise, and since then
we’ve grown to serving over 150 MSP clients using Datagate for telecom billing
with ConnectWise Manage. We’ve sponsored each IT Nation Connect event since
then, and this year we’re doing the same – except for the first time, it will be
a virtual event.
Anyone wanting to virtually attend IT Nation Connect 2020 can register here.
I hope to see you there.
Posted in Billing, Communication, Datagate, MSPs, New Zealand IT Industry, TELCO
| Leave a Comment »
Tags: ConnectWise, Datagate, Datagate America, Datagate Innovation, ITN20,
ITNation, MSP, MSPs, Telecom Billing, VoIP, VoIP Billing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSPS SEE STRONG REVENUE GROWTH IN BUSINESS VOIP DESPITE COVID-19
September 28, 2020
Computers and phones have converged, so the providers of IT services, known as
“Managed Service Providers” or MSPs, are now selling VoIP phone systems as a
natural and profitable extension of the managed services they provide to their
business clients.
From the strong revenue growth we at Datagate see through these MSPs, even
during a global pandemic, it is clear that businesses around the world like to
buy their telecom and IT services from the same source – their MSP. This is
hardly surprising, given that the network technology is common to both, and
nothing can be more frustrating to a business customer than having multiple
technology providers pointing to each other when something goes wrong.
After some recent conversations with Ken Davis, the president of ConnectWise BI
& Analytics provider Cognition360, I was inspired to look more deeply into the
numbers to draw insights into what is happening to the MSPs using Datagate for
telecom billing, especially during this complex time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cognition360 now has the capability of providing analytics specific to Datagate
telecom billing within a ConnectWise Manage database – which I am very excited
about.
To date, Datagate has signed up over 150 MSPs who use our SaaS billing solution
to bill VoIP services, spread throughout the United States, Canada, UK, Europe,
Australia and New Zealand (with most in the United States).
In calculating the following numbers, we looked at the period from August 2019
to August 2020 and we only included MSPs that had been with us longer than the
measured 12 month period. Six of the twelve months in this period included
international Covid-19 restrictions which only appears to have had a somewhat
negative effect on New Zealand and Australian telecom revenue.
The international average revenue growth rate for MSPs billing telecom services
through Datagate over this period was 33%. In the Australia-New Zealand region
the average growth was down to an average 25%, while in the United States, the
average was a whopping 77%.
Obviously, achieving a high percentage revenue growth gets harder, the larger a
business is, and is was notable that our larger MSPs were still achieving
impressive growth rates, with large dollar value increases.
Internationally, Covid-19 seems to have made our MSPs busier, helping their
business customers reconfigure for staff working from home, and implementing
“Unified Communications” VoIP systems.
My conclusion from looking at these high-level numbers, is that selling VoIP and
Unified Communications, is a solid high-growth opportunity for MSPs which seems
to be mostly resilient to the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Posted in Billing, Cloud, Datagate, MSPs, New Zealand IT Industry, SaaS, TELCO |
1 Comment »
Tags: Cognition360, ConnectWise, Covid-19, Datagate, Datagate America, Datagate
Innovation, MSP, MSPs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIRTUAL EVENTS FOR MSPS IN 2020
August 28, 2020
Covid-19 has eliminated in-person conferences for the foreseeable future, and
this has forced the conference industry to “go virtual”. In addition to
virtual-conferences, we’re also seeing an increased quantity of webinars and
podcasts.
Whilst there are obvious advantages to the in-person events, there can also be a
different set of advantages to the virtual events, if they are done thoughtfully
and well.
Virtual-events are a relatively new phenomenon, so the industry is still early
in its learning curve. I’m noticing that as time goes on, the conferences are
getting more successful. It’s as if there is a collective learning process
happening within the industry.
Last month, my company Datagate (telecom billing for MSPs) was a
sponsor/exhibitor at OITVoIP‘s Cloud Connections Summit 2020 (#CCS2020)
What impressed me about #CCS2020 was the impressive line-up of very interesting
and relevant speakers, over and above the sponsors, including myself, who also
got to present. My team and I attended many of the presentations because they
had such good material.
OITVoIP’s President, Ray Orsini did a great job as host, and Sean Lardo
(OITVoIP’s VP of Channel Development) was also great as co-host and counterfoil
to Ray, with constant amusing banter between the two of them.
Ray Orsini, Presdent OITVoIP
It was noticeable that the audience tended to move around together to attend
whatever was the current presentation, rather than wander around the virtual
conference center on their own, visiting booths etc. I think Ray picked up on
this early on, and ensured that the group not only attended the presentations,
but also visited the sponsor booths. This was done, for example, by organizing
and announcing a demonstration at the Datagate booth at a preset time, that was
complementary to the event’s main schedule. It worked well.
As an attendee of the virtual conference, it played out much like a big
television show, where you had the ability to self navigate through the virtual
conference center, between or during presentations. I could see it was important
that they had gaps in the schedule, similar to ad breaks in a television show,
so that attendees have the ability to do what they need to do from time to time
throughout the day (after all, they are all really sitting at a computer screen
at home, so plenty of potential distractions).
At the end of the conference, Datagate came away with a list of contacts who
expressed interest in our telecom billing solution and a good level of promotion
and exposure to our target market – MSPs who sell VoIP. Maybe not the same level
of personal interaction we would have had at an in-person conference, but still
a good level of promotion, considering we didn’t have to fly across the country
to get there!
Another virtual event that worked well for Datagate in early July, was a webinar
we held in partnership with ConnectBooster (the automated payment collection
portal). Datagate and ConnectBooster are complementary products, both aimed at
MSPs, so holding a joint event meant that we both benefited from each other’s
community. We had around 80 attendees, which resulted in some good sales
activity afterwards.
Ryan Goodman
President ConnectBooster
The webinar featured presentations from Datagate and ConnectBooster, including
ConectBooster’s president Ryan Goodman and me.
A video recording of the Datagate-ConnectBooster webinar is available online,
here.
A short while later, Ryan and I recorded a podcast interview that will be
released on ConnectBooster’s web site soon.
Early next month, Datagate will be a sponsor-exhibitor at Channel Partners
Virtual 2020. If you’d like to join us, click here for a free or discounted
pass.
With all this activity… I sometimes have to remind myself that, well – it’s all
virtual. We haven’t actually gone anywhere to do this…
Posted in Billing, Cloud, Datagate, MSPs, Networking, SaaS, TELCO | Leave a
Comment »
Tags: CCS2020, Channel Partners, ConnectBooster, ConnectWise, CPVIRTUAL,
Datagate, Datagate Innovation, MSPs, OITVOIP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20 YEARS ON: EXONET – MY FIRST MAJOR SOFTWARE START-UP EXIT
July 30, 2020
In July 2000 I was on top of the world. My co-founders and I had just sold
“Exonet”, our New Zealand-based financial software start-up, to an Australian
listed company called “Solution6” for AU $30M.
It was the culmination of a fast and furious two years since we started the
business. I was the developer who had the outlandish idea to start writing an
accounting system and bring in co-founders Maurice Bryham and David McKee Wright
to help build a business around it.
Exonet was a “new generation” ERP client-server accounting system with a Windows
interface, running on an SQL database. It was all new technology back then, when
most accounting systems for SME businesses were still running on MS-DOS with
proprietary databases.
Exonet opened offices in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. Hwa Lian Tan led
our business in Singapore and Simon Butler led our Australian business. Simon’s
M&A experience was invaluable in our negotiations with Solution6.
Due to widespread fears about how old accounting software would handle the year
2000 and the market’s desire for the new technology that Exonet was built on,
our sales “went ballistic” from the start and exhibited the upward “hockey
stick” sales trend that software start-ups still aspire to. This was what
attracted Solution6 to acquire us.
Exonet’s main investor was a VC company called IT Capital. At the time of the
exit, I recall they had been with Exonet for about 18 months, had invested NZD
$1.5M and effectively owned about a third of the business. A $12.7M return on an
18 month investment of NZD $1.5M – that’s still got to be one of the best
investments ever made in the business history of New Zealand!
Following its acquisition of Exonet, Solution6 merged with another large
Australian software business called MYOB (“Mind Your Own Business”) and so the
Exonet software was renamed to MYOB-EXO. Today MYOB-EXO is perhaps the most
widely used of the mid-market ERP accounting packages in Australia and New
Zealand, with many thousands of companies using it.
Some of the lessons I learnt from the Exonet experience are;
1. Success comes from a combination of skills, lots of hard work and lots of
luck.
2. Much of the skill required is in recognizing the luck that surrounds you,
and knowing what to do with it.
3. Business success invariably comes from a team of people; specifically, the
combined skills, motivation and dedication of those people and the interplay
of how they work together.
4. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.
After the exit, I worked for the Exonet business within Solution6 for a short
while and then decided to take some time out, away from business. It was during
that time out I realized that, although I reached the destination of an exit, I
still missed the journey of getting there. I missed the energy and engagement of
the business world, so I dived back in again and co-founded two new software
businesses; Enprise and Datasquirt.
> Much of the skill required is in recognizing the luck that surrounds you, and
> knowing what to do with it.
Enprise became of a group of businesses, of which two operated internationally,
with a particular emphasis on the United States. One of those was EMS-Cortex, a
SaaS software provisioning system that we sold to Citrix in 2011 for US $11M.
Also in 2011, we sold ASX-listed Datasquirt to Silicon Valley-based LiveOps for
a similar price.
The international software business experience and contacts I gained through
Enprise and EMS Cortex set me up for my current role as CEO of Datagate, where I
am now based in Vancouver, Canada. Datagate is a SaaS billing solution for MSPs
who sell telecom services, which we sell into the USA, Canada, UK, Europe,
Australia and New Zealand.
Another thing I’ve learnt over the last twenty years since the Exonet exit; it
normally takes much longer than two years to build a good business!
Posted in Billing, Cortex, Datagate, Datasquirt, Enprise, ERP, MYOB EXO, New
Zealand IT Industry, SaaS | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Datagate, ERP, exo-net, Exonet, MYOB, MYOB EXO, Solution6, Telecom Billing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
« Older posts
*
* September 2024 M T W T F S S 1 2345678 9101112131415 16171819202122
23242526272829 30
« Apr
* PAGES
* About
* Press
* What is an MSP?
* CATEGORIES
Categories Select Category Accountability (2) Billing (45) Cloud (73)
Communication (33) conferences (1) Cortex (18) Datagate (61)
Datasquirt (20) Enprise (16) Enprise Job Costing (28) ERP (64) MSPs (20)
Multi-tenant (24) MYOB Advanced (10) MYOB EXO (29) Networking (7) New
Zealand IT Industry (50) NZAX (5) Project Costing (25) SaaS (21) SAP
Business One (37) Sap Isv (30) Social Media (10) TELCO (45)
Uncategorized (8) Utilities (11) Virtualization (18) Water Utilities (5)
* RECENT COMMENTS
Tony Noble on MSPs: Don’t leave Voice…MSPs see strong reve… on MSPs see
strong revenue growth…Season's Greeti… on Managed Service Providers
(MSP…Simon Walter on Datagate well received at IT N…Simon Walter on Success
with Usage-based …
* BLOGROLL
* NBR Articles
* WordPress.com
* WordPress.org
* RELATED WEB SITES
* Computerworld Enprise Articles
* Datagate Innovation Ltd
* Enprise Australia
* Enprise Group
* Enprise Group (ENS) on the NZAX
* Enprise New Zealand
* Enprise Software
* MYOB EXO
* NBR Articles
* Satellite Spies
* The Exonet Story
*
* ARCHIVES
* April 2024
* September 2022
* November 2021
* April 2021
* January 2021
* December 2020
* November 2020
* September 2020
* August 2020
* July 2020
* June 2020
* May 2020
* April 2020
* March 2020
* February 2020
* January 2020
* December 2019
* November 2019
* October 2019
* September 2019
* August 2019
* July 2019
* June 2019
* May 2019
* December 2018
* November 2018
* October 2018
* September 2018
* June 2018
* May 2018
* April 2018
* February 2018
* January 2018
* December 2017
* November 2017
* October 2017
* August 2017
* July 2017
* June 2017
* May 2017
* April 2017
* February 2017
* January 2017
* December 2016
* November 2016
* October 2016
* May 2016
* April 2016
* March 2016
* February 2016
* December 2015
* November 2015
* October 2015
* September 2015
* August 2015
* June 2015
* May 2015
* February 2015
* January 2015
* December 2014
* November 2014
* October 2014
* April 2014
* February 2014
* November 2013
* September 2013
* August 2013
* May 2013
* April 2013
* March 2013
* January 2013
* December 2012
* October 2012
* September 2012
* May 2012
* December 2011
* October 2011
* September 2011
* June 2011
* May 2011
* February 2011
* December 2010
* October 2010
* September 2010
* August 2010
* June 2010
* May 2010
* April 2010
* March 2010
* TOP POSTS & PAGES
* "White Label" telecom services are the better option for MSPs
* MSPs: Don't leave Voice on the table!
* Conferences are back!
* Learning from our international telecom MSPs and partners
* New Webinar Series: "Talking VoIP with Datagate"
*
* TAGS
Accounting Software ASUG Billing Business Call Centers Call Centres CCH
SureTax Citrix Cloud Cloud Control Panel Communications Compliance
ConnectWise Contact Centers Contact Centres Cortex Datagate Datagate America
Datagate Innovation Datasquirt Datasquirt CONTACT EMS-Cortex Enprise Enprise
Anywhere EnpriseAU EnpriseGroup Enprise Group Enprise Job Enprise Job Costing
Enprise New Zealand EnpriseNZ Enprise Software EnpriseSW ERP Exonet Facebook
HANA Hosted Applications Hosted ERP Hosted Exchange Hosting Hyper-V Job
Costing Microsoft MSP MSPs MYOB MYOB Advanced MYOB EXO New Zealand PC Direct
Project Costing Provisioning SaaS SAP SAP Business One SAP HANA SAP ISVs SME
SME ERP SMS Social Media SureTax TELCO Telco Billing Telecom Billing
Telecommunications Twitter TXT Virtualization VoIP VoIP Billing XenApp
XenDesktop Xero
*
* BLOG STATS
* 33,283 hits
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.Valid XHTML and CSS.
* Subscribe Subscribed
* Mark Loveys
Join 62 other subscribers
Sign me up
* Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
* * Mark Loveys
* Customize
* Subscribe Subscribed
* Sign up
* Log in
* Report this content
* View site in Reader
* Manage subscriptions
* Collapse this bar
Loading Comments...
Write a Comment...
Email (Required) Name (Required) Website