Tellumat appoints top telephony player as first ShoreTel reseller in KZN
Plessie takes all-round benefits of IP communications to 1 200-strong customer base
Tellumat Communications Solutions, the exclusive distributor of ShoreTel unified communications (UC)and Enterprise Contact Centre (ECC)systems, has added to its growing channel with the appointment of Plessie as its first ShoreTel reseller in KZN.
Enduring relationship Leon Rusch, channel manager at Tellumat, says the company has had a relationship with the top-ranked Pinetown-based firm for more than 10 years – originally as a reseller for its Polycom range of DECT cordless phones and Tellumat-manufactured PABX switches.
Now, Plessie’s customers will also have access to leading Internet Protocol-based(IP-based)UC and ECC technology.
Rusch says Tellumat chose to extend Plessie’s portfolio, as the reseller offers wide market coverage and good technical skills.
Plessie has a distinguished record selling telephony and Contact centre systems stretching back more than 10 years. Boasting a customer portfolio of 1 200 companies across industries and segments, it covers all of KZN, serving the entire spectrum of small one-site businesses through to big multi-site deployments, including government departments and big corporates.
Excellent technology
Rowan Purll, CEO of Plessie, says after looking at a range of IP-based systems, including the open source-based Asterisk, Plessie’s choice fell on ShoreTel.
Free of legacy technologies, the ShoreTel Brilliantly Simple distributed architecture, pure IP-based systems offer all-round ease of installation, integration, training, support, modular system growth and user interaction, thereby increasing customer efficiency and profitability.
This has led research firm Aberdeen Group to rank the ShoreTel solutions as having the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO)among all top-brand competitors.
ShoreTel further offers its channels (distributor and resellers) excellent sales and knowledge resources to serve the market and support customers, and consistently ranks highest among its peers in customer satisfaction surveys, as illustrated by a Nemertes survey and the company’s Net Promoters Score rating.
Growth prospects
Purll says the partnership offers exciting possibilities as customers increasingly embrace the rich communications potential of unified communications (single-interface telephony, video, collaboration, instant messaging, email, conferencing etc).
The company will offer onsite as well as hosted, managed service delivery, allowing small companies to obtain high-end UC functionality without undergoing a big upfront capital outlay.
Swelling the ranks
Bennie Langenhoven, managing executive at Tellumat Communications Solutions, says Tellumat has been a distributor of ShoreTel’s solutions since 2009, but of late demand has increased markedly.
“The appointment brings our ShoreTel reseller base to Seven – one in Cape Town, five in Gauteng and one in KZN
Tellumat will continue to assess new partnership opportunities from established regional and national resellers with a solid skills complement and implementation record.
Tellumat will provide lead-generation, pre-sales, sales and after-sales support to its technology partners, and offers training and joint marketing spend.