Business Grade Connectivity

1. Business Grade Connectivity The way UK businesses work is always changing. This guide can give you ways that you can provide your customers with the connectivity that they need to keep up to speed.

2. A seemingly paradoxical shift is taking place within UK businesses - and connectivity is key. Midshire Telecoms are required to work within extremely tight budgets whilst moving forward, key initiatives such as mobile working and hosted solutions, both of which are becoming increasingly important to business growth. It is dependant on Midshire Telecoms to satisfy both these criteria's. This guide will provide you with ways that Midshire Telecom look to resolve our customers needs to ensure that we provide them with them with the best products and services that are available. Business grade connectivity provides the route to enabling new ways of working, and provides the solution to the contradictory challenge of reducing costs whilst investing to meet growth and business goals.

3. The Cost of Connectivity The need for business grade connectivity is growing. With multi-site and remote working becoming increasingly prevalent across UK businesses, online applications and hosted services are now critical to efficient and successful business processes. Logically, all these factors should combine to create the perfect storm of more costly connectivity. Here is why this doesn’t have to be the case… 54% of employees use tablets for business and personal reasons Bring Your Own Device (BYOD ) is another work life/home life trend that continues to grow, with a recent report stating that 54% of employees use tablets for business and personal reasons. However, currently, less than a third of employers have plans in place to reimburse employees for data usage This means that business connectivity is an essential product to have to ensure that where ever you, and whatever device you are using you have speed, reliability and most importantly CONNECTIVITY!

4. As a business grows in terms of the amount of information shared, the ways in which individuals share it and the wider geography it is shared across, bandwidth needs to grow to accommodate these processes. Midshire Telecom have put a plan into place to ensure support and to optimise connectivity. Businesses are now technology savvy and forward looking, therefore it is important that as a company we adapt quickly and effectively to their changing needs without missing opportunities Although budgets are being cut, or at best, remaining static, this does not have to hold businesses back. As the strain on business’ IT connectivity increases, so does the need to ensure an organisation has a tailored, best fit solution to support its requirements. A recent Gartner webinar found that 40% of the participants polled did not have costs broken down in sufficient detail to identify savings – it is this detail that is absolutely essential to identifying and selecting cost reduction opportunities.

5. Midshire Telecom business strategies call for a combination of growth and operational efficiency. Technology will be at the centre of the growth. Midshire Telecom will use it to amplify enterprise strategy and operations, and eliminate the internal distortion that drives cost, complexity and a less than

6. Connectivity for Midshire Telecom customers So, in the face of economic uncertainty and the continued need to grow their businesses, what Our customers main concerns are and how we can help them overcome their reticence? 1 Cost constraints 2 Future technology 3 Reliability 4 Managing complexity 5 Go the extra mile

7. Customer Concerns Price is always a concern when it comes to a customer, as they are always under intense pressure to reduce costs. In terms of business, to share more information remotely and over hosted solutions, they need a network security solution delivered by a data centre specialist to assist with control, manageability and mitigation of risk. Few individual businesses can afford levels of protection Customers will be requesting for more and more bandwidth to accommodate new ways of working and the bandwidth expenses are expected to increase by 15. Subsequently, connectivity audits and upgrades can no longer be deferred.

8. What Midshire can do There are a number of ways that Midshire can help our customers with cost savings and its by taking a holistic approach to connectivity. A detailed free network is to route identifying potential savings for your customers. As a first step, Midshire will look to focus on the audits on voice and data convergence, which can generate saving of approximately 30%. This can then be followed up with a guarantee of simple and transparent pricing structure. End-user need an accurate bandwidth forecast to help them identify cost-savings and reduce IT and telecoms spend. Midshire regularly contact our supplies and ensure that the service that we are providing is at the best rate available. Investigate the option of rolling up several business unit contract to one overarching contract. But, crucially, the partner channel itself needs granular breakdown of the components they purchase and sell on. They need to be able to compare like for like, ad get to grips with where their money is spent. they It is essential that we as a company ensure that the service that we provide is Investigate the option of rolling up several business unit contracts into one over overarching contract. But, crucially, the partner channel itself needs a granular breakdown of the components they purchase and sell on. They need to be able to compare like for like, and get to grips with where their money is spent, component by component, to understand how these cost savings can be passed on to end-users. Visibility of your whole cost base, line by line, is vital.

9. FUTURE TECHNOLOGY Our Customer Concern Midshire Telecom understand businesses not only need to adapt to accommodate pressure of the here and now, but to future proof networks and processes in order to allow flexibility in line with business growth. Businesses are outgrowing their current technology therefore Midshire Telecom need to develop faster, more accessible communication systems to support expansion, for example, through acquisition and mergers. Therefore we have developed a strategy to support mobility and the consumerisation of IT, without the need for costly upgrades and additions

10. Midshire Telecom solution Our strategy is to led customers towards adopting innovative new technologies, while highlighting the crippling effect of their disparate legacy connectivity. 70% of IT budget is spent on legacy connectivity and it is Midshire Telecom who can now change customer mindset offering them so much more and ensuring that our customers see the advantages of investing now in order to prepare for the future. Midshire Telecom offer migration plan to a consolidated and converged solution. Avoid the inclination to gold-plate their network, which results in the business paying more bandwidth than they need in the immediate term. Instead, we ensure that current connectivity without causing any disruption to the business. We allow our customers to understand that chasing short term profits can lead to long term losses.

11. Reliability Customer concerns Customers are concerned that the solution you offer must keep their business data 100% secure and risk free. Additionally, they are concerned about the disruption that migration will cause their business – the need to avoid down time is critical, both during the transition and in day to day business operations. Midshire Telecom solutions We encourage clients and prospects to drive business efficiencies through web applications, and therefore need to ensure that connectivity we are providing is fail-safe. Whether offering broadband, Ethernet or EFM deliver it through a secure and safe IP VPN – ensuring that we can guarantee a built in resilience so that we can offer service reliability. This means a fail safe connection: should one circuit fail, Midshire Telecom provide an automatic failover to another circuit to another site or location, ensuring that service continues. Not only is business continuity critical in terms of the technology its delivered through, but service plays a big role in ensuring that losses are minimised if an unexpected fault occurs. Our customers need Business Grade support: Midshire Telecom are a provider that is committed to quickly fixing their connections in the event of a shut down, on a 24/7 basis.

12. Customers don’t want to spend hours micro-managing their IT and telecoms. With disparate legacy systems and patchy connectivity, they need a solution that consolidates relevant legacy systems and new technologies onto one, manageable platform. IT decision makers need a secure, manageable platform. IT decision makers need a secure manageable portal to be able to easily access all their networks and data in one place. Midshire Telecom’s solution to our customers concerns is by converging all applications onto one IP operating system, businesses have the opportunity to consolidate and streamline their operations. In the process Midshire Telecom take the opportunity to identify potential cost savings and ensure that connectivity is scalable to the business strategy for growth. Midshire Telecom offer our customers transparency cross their networks and manageable, intuitive portals. Companies should be able to monitor network performances remotely in order to be proactive in identifying utilisation and bandwidth optimisation opportunities, and to quickly identify circuit failures to meet the SLA’s guaranteed to your customers. It is essential that the partner channel gets up to speed, and fast, and over-reliance on legacy technologies and a reactive approach to the adoption of new applications could cost your customers in terms of productivity and revenue. It could also compromise partner competitiveness in technologically dependent times and could put our relationships with customers at risk.

13. Concerns Customers require easy migration, updating or replacing legacy systems is a huge upheaval for a business of any size. They want ongoing first rate service. End users are looking for proactive, engaged partners that understand their business unique systems and quirks. They are looking for a partner that adds value and can provide tailored solutions best suit their needs Midshire Solutions Midshire Telecoms understand that you need to be able to provide smooth and seamless switchover. By taking the time to fully understand the unique need of your customer, you can potential pain points in migration and pre-empt issues with their new solutions. End users need a proactive partner that can understand their business, the reassurance of ongoing accounts reviews and reliable, user-friendly portals. Put these in an SLA and command the time you need with CIO and other IT decision makers.

14. What Midshire Telecoms can offer you? What customers need from their provider? Unified communications and the convergence of applications such as voice, data and video will be critical to creating business efficiencies and enabling productivity in a mobile workforce. However this does present a big market opportunity for partners that can confidently sell and market both hosted solutions and the connectivity to deliver them over. This is too big an opportunity to miss and therefore Midshire Telecom steer customers to the right direction offering new hosted applications that will inevitably emerge over the next decade. With Ethernet and EFM now widely available and affordable for business in the UK, along with secure, resilient and scalable Data CentreSpace: hosted solutions are no longer a pipe dream. The range of Business Grade connectivity options that are on offer enable the partner channel to offer support to customers in upgrading patchy legacy systems and infrastructure. The partner channel needs a provider that can guarantee the quality of their systems, as well as the reassurance of excellent service, which is passed onto our customers. However, this does present a big market opportunity for partners that can confidently sell and market both hosted solutions and the connectivity to deliver them over. This is too big an opportunity to miss: the onus is on the partner channel to steer customers in the right direction. Those that do will be best placed to take advantage of the new hosted applications that will inevitably emerge over the next decade.

15. Business is better off with business grade We offer our customers true business grade connectivity. This means we are able to reassure our customers about the bug issue of contention and guarantee that their bandwidth will not be compromised. It is essential that as a telecommunications company we can offer a network with a wide geographical reach and a resilient architecture to capitalise the opportunity offered by Business Grade technology to improve efficiencies and boost productivity and profitability. Midshire Telecom offer flexibility providing a range of scalable options to grow with their business as they seek to gain a competitive advantage in their sector. It is essential that as a provide we offer a transparent and straightforward pricing structure, allowing you to choose the service and price point that best meets unique bandwidth needs, whilst bringing clarity to the business case and sale. Midshire Telecom offer a straightforward service that is available for any of our potential customers. It is important that we are in urging a prospect or existing customer to align and update legacy systems, and consolidate their applications on a one to one platform, and therefore it is essential that we provide a quick and easy migration, ensure a seamless transition in terms if business continuity and minimise any disruption to the day to day business process. With increasing business demands accelerating the needs to converge voice, data and video onto a unified communication network, businesses will need to evolve their strategies in order to support employees in accessing new technologies in an efficient and secure way. Business grade connectivity is relevant now and adaptable into the future. Connections need to be established with flexibility in mind to evolve and upscale with the changing and increasingly demanding needs of business users.