Q&A: Inside Anittel's advisory board

CRN speaks to Anittel executive chairman Peter Kazacos and Mathew Dickerson chairman of its newly announced advisory board  to discuss what the board means for small businesses and the Australian channel.

CRN: Why did you launch the advisory board?

Mathew Dickerson: The point is to come up with more customer focused solutions. The whole idea of an advisory board is to get clients to use the process and to find out what the pain points are for them. We can ask what keeps you up at night? 

Peter Kazacos: The key thing is to enable the right products for the small business market. Many people have been thrusting products out to businesses that aren't right for them. We're flipping things the other way. We're asking, 'What do you need for your business?'

This is taking managed services to the next step from a small community to a national board.

CRN: Why do you need it?

Kazacos: Here we are taking grassroots customers with 10 PCs to 500 PCs. The fact that we have end-to-end technology offerings means we're not focused on a narrow band - the board will show us how to develop new products.

We need to be highly competitive. Small businesses are more dependent on technology. They can't afford to put in a technology that is obsolete tomorrow because the vendor has gone out of business.

Another angle for the advisory board is that we give customers a chance to test bleeding edge technologies. We will be closely monitoring that.

Dickerson: Vendors can gauge reaction to clients with new technology instead of doing market research. I don't know any other orgnaisation that has the full mix of IT and telco at the small business level. We need to get the mix right.

We don't want the board to let anything go out to market without it being absolutely critical.

CRN: What will you gain from it?

Kazacos: We want to understand what regional small businesses want. We've got to take the brunt of [something] not working. It's a fundamental lifeline we have with our customers.

CRN: Who is on the board?

Kazacos: We're only announcing Mathew [Dickerson] and myself today. We're in the process of selecting the members. People interested in joining the board can approach Mathew [Dickerson].

We may have some competitors on there too.

Although we see ourselves as a leader, the space is too big to dominate. We want to be the premium provider of small businesses and work with other partners.

Dickerson: It may be a reseller who wants to see technology that they wouldn't normally see in that environment

CRN: You mentioned you'll be using telepresence for two out of the four yearly meetings. Why?

Dickerson: People on the board will be busy people and travelling four times a year is unrealistic.

I've had conversations with the department of Industry and Investment to use telepresence rooms. Literally it would mean I could go to a local office and use the facility for say $100 an hour.

Kazacos: It's an opportunity to try out technologies in that area. The gap is reducing between the premium telepresence solutions and the entry-level.

If you separate the situation between maximising sales to customers and doing the right thing [with telepresence] - business only need to rent facilities, not buy the Rolls Royce.

We want clients who are willing to try things. A lot of small business don't get to try any of this stuff. There is no compulsion to buy it. 

Stay tuned for part II tomorrow where Kazacos and Dickerson discuss the Anittel sales strategy and data centres.