Azzurri achieves O2 Excellence

Consultancy throws its weight behind the O2 message as it becomes a Centre of Excellence

Seal of approval: Azzurri is now an O2 Centre of Excellence

VAR Azzurri Communications has cemented its special relationship with carrier O2 by securing Centre of Excellence status.

The move will mean managed services specialist Azzurri will give up its other direct network relationships and commit its mobile focus almost entirely to O2, as it manages a base of directly acquired O2 customers as well as its existing customers.

Under the partnership, Azzurri’s customers will in turn benefit from additional resources, support and access to products such as the iPhone, Palm Pre and Blackberry smartphones.

Gordon Matthew, chief executive of Azzurri Communications said: “We’ve made an important decision to align our business strategically with O2 in order to underpin our mobility offering. Our focus is entirely on ensuring our customers can be as agile and as efficient as possible and we believe O2’s network coverage, product strategy and vision are the most compelling of all the UK mobile operators, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

“As leaders in the mobile space, with more than 21 million customers, I believe we are going to be working with a winning team. Their market-leading retention figures, and extremely low churn rate proves that putting customers first gets results.”

Ben Dowd, business sales director at O2, said: “We are delighted to welcome Azzurri as an O2 partner. Azzurri has already demonstrated its capability by securing the largest corporate win ever within the partner channel and we look forward to winning more in this space. Our Centre of Excellence partners continue to set the benchmark in the UK and have access to increased investment from O2.

“Our business is continuing to evolve. As we move from being purely a mobile brand to a connectivity service brand, we want to partner with the best people and this announcement is another big part of that plan," he added. "We are dedicated to evolving the Centre of Excellence principles ensuring we involve all our partners in this process through an open dialogue. We believe it is only through these true partnerships that our channel solutions will succeed.”