“In business, it’s all about standing out in the crowd and, in our case, we are committed to ensuring that that goes for us and our reseller partners. It’s like: ‘Why be a pigeon when you can be a flamingo?’” says Stephen Glaister, Channel Development Manager at leading UK-based hosted telephony provider NTA, whose compelling offer is the perfect case in point. “There are many things which we think set us apart, and we believe they all play an equal part in not only driving growth for our resellers, but also enabling their end user customer organisations to leverage the commercial gains that come with the digital transformation of their unified communication technology. When things click for all parties in that chain, everyone benefits.” In the case of NTA in particular, it is an eye-catchingly-creative service provider pricing model that justifiably takes the most credit for the robust productivity and profitability of its reseller network. Critically, as well as offering more traditional monthly-recurring, three and five year pay-per-seat options, it can also bill based on call concurrency. “Our partners can choose whichever plan best suits their customers’ specific circumstances,” says Cliff Chandler, NTA Head of Sales. “For example, during holidays, schools have 16 weeks a year in which their phones are not used at all. Our partners with education sector customers can choose not to charge for those periods. The service provider model attracts a one-off fee but the reseller is able to build that into the customers’ usage peaks and troughs and not charge when a service is not used. We can say to partners: ‘Here’s a price for the service, play around with it as much as you need to and add whatever margin you want. We give them that flexibility and they leverage it. “However, if they want to sell our three or five year per-seat plan or our residential plan to certain customers who prefer those, then that is also fine with us. It’s not just about selling one thing. Our partners can have them all; no targets and no conditions. That’s how we stand out in our market and that’s how they stand out in theirs.” The NTA offering is differentiating in other ways too. It owns it’s own switch, employs its own engineers, and develops its own products that can all be fully white-labelled. Indeed, if a reseller’s customer has a specific niche requirement or challenge, it is often the case that a bespoke solution can be engineered swiftly and cost-effectively, allowing its partners to spread their wings while competitors are stuck in lengthy and rigid contracts. And, in terms of on-going support, dedicated NTA onboarding team provides training in solution functionality and deployment, and expert technical and sales personnel are always on hand. In turn, all of its reseller partners benefit from pre-release product information and marketing material that can assist with winning new business and retaining (and upselling) an existing base. There is also free access to NTA’s own integrated billing platform, and fully-ticketed 24/7 human support. “All businesses need to stand out in the crowd if they are to succeed,” says Chandler. “We know that ours only does if our partners’ do too. When that kind of mutuality works well, it can deliver big wins for everyone.”