AYC refocuses efforts abroad
Vendor unveils plans to redirect its sales and marketing resources to the US and Asia Pacific
AYC Telecom is pulling away from the UK market after admitting demand for its IP telephony technology was not as high as the company initially anticipated.
The UK-based vendor will continue shipping through the channel in its home market, but will now redirect its own sales and marketing resources to the US and Asia Pacific.
Paul Howard, chief executive of AYC, told CRN: “The UK market is not as advanced as we hoped and we are refocusing our sales efforts on the US and Asia Pacific. IP telephony has been out there for a long time, but I think the European market is still pretty cautious.
“We put a lot of time and effort into growing the UK business and we now need to push that onto our distributors and resellers and build it that way.”
AYC, which has re-jigged its distribution line-up several times over the past two years, currently works through MyPhoneCall and Zycko. Howard said the vendor was looking to add a third distributor to strengthen its presence in the telecoms channel.
Dave Smith, senior vice-president at rival Swyx, denied IP telephony uptake had trailed expectations in the UK.
But he said: “IP telephony vendors need to put a lot of marketing effort into the UK.
“If people don’t know your name then they won’t buy from you, whereas in the US and Asia Pacific, people are more willing to try things out.”
Scott Dobson, managing director at former AYC distributor VComm, argued that AYC’s progress had been hampered by price-performance issues.
“AYC was struggling with the way it was selling its technology,” he said. “It is a very inexpensive product but it needed a gateway in front of it that cost the same price.”
Howard admitted that price-performance had been an issue, but said that AYC, which focuses on the six to 25 user market, had recently moved to reduce the cost of its package by introducing its own internal analogue card.