Field of dreams

Paul Cobley, managing director of Besttel, discusses the benefits and drawbacks of running an ambitious VAR from a field in Cumbria

The dawn of the internet and the relative democratisation of long-distance travel have, we are often encouraged to believe, ensured that we all live in a global village. And if one empty buzz word is not enough for you, it's worth remembering that, in the age of the cloud, work is now a thing we do, not a place we go.

Nevertheless, the thousands of resellers who operate outside the M25 have good cause to bemoan the south-east bias of the tech industry and UK plc as a whole. And there can be few resellers as out on a limb as Cisco-focused VAR Besttel.

North star
The small town of Carnforth on the Cumbria-Lancashire border, well over 200 miles from London, is not renowned for bleeding-edge datacentre technology providers. In fact, (and apologies to any Carnforth residents) it is probably not renowned for very much; at least not since its railway station played a starring role in the classic 1945 movie Brief Encounter.

And yet it is in these environs, surrounded by cows and the stunning Cumbrian countryside, that a typically ambitious channel player is taking root (Besttel's office is pictured below left). Founded two years ago, Besttel was set up by Paul Cobley, who worked at VAR ABSnet for many years before its 2008 sale to Capita. Cobley claimed his firm is "the only active Cisco partner in Cumbria", adding that he had worked to build the brand locally through events at nearby venues.

"We find the delegates there want to deal with a local business. The fact there is a Premier partner in Cumbria [is a big selling point]," he said.

"We are not into the hard sell; we educate them about datacentre technologies. It is all about consultative selling.

"We went to a customer recently and told them that their £90,000 SAN was flashing red, which put the project we went to talk to them about on the back burner. But it is about building for the longer term."

With the tech talent pool so skewed towards the capital and the home counties, attracting and retaining good staff is arguably the biggest challenge facing Besttel. Cobley claimed he hopes to surmount this problem by developing relationships with education establishments.

"I have just been interviewing, and there is a big pool of people out there who want to work only in the south-east," he said. "We are trying to work with local colleges to find apprentices. We want to get in apprentices who we can build up."

Andy Brocklehurst, regional sales manager for Cisco UK and Ireland, pointed to the measures his company takes to ensure partners outside of traditional tech hotspots have access to the tools needed to progress. A mixture of hands-on attention and depth of virtual resources is key to ensuring resellers from far-flung corners of the country receive the attention they need, he added.

"Business away from the City and Thames Valley is as important as that contained within, and there are a number of things we have done at Cisco to address this very point," said Brocklehurst.

"The first is we have regionally based sales advisers whose very job is to reach as many partners face to face as possible to help them navigate a company as large as Cisco, improving their sales and technical capability along the way.

"At the same time, a new partner is provided with a virtual resource that calls the partner and helps them understand the programmes, systems and resources. From a simplification perspective we have flattened the pricing with our Fast Track pricing on our fastest-moving items to make it far easier to price and have predictable margins on sales."

Cobley insists he is determined to lead Besttel to further growth.

"There is an end game, but it is not two or three years down the line," he said.

Having gained Cisco Premier partner status this year, as well as the vendor's unified fabric specialisation, Besttel plans to get accredited on the networking giant's unified computing system (UCS) range of servers and related technologies. The VAR is also looking to ramp up sales of Cisco Smart Care services.

Looking ahead
"I am not really chasing after Silver or Gold, I would rather concentrate on specialisations," said Cobley (pictured right). "Smart Net is very reactive. [But with Smart Care] we can go to a customer over a period of time and get to know them and their network far better.

"The next specialisation we get will be unified compute. There is more traction in the market for Nexus [switches] than there is for servers. Our sweet spot is the Nexus B and C series."

While intent on growing the company's geographical reach, Cobley wants Besttel to maintain its focus on its existing customer base.

"We stand by those relationships," he said. "There is no better way of getting business than through referrals. We have just won a support contract in New York through a referral. Existing customers lead to referrals, and that allows us to build the business, hopefully using apprentices."