Onecom wins Total Comms award at Vodafone conference

Platinum Partner of the Year gong went to Qualitel, while iTalk, Rock Networks, Trinity Maxwell and 4G Mobile and Data also took home awards

Onecom has been named Total Communications Partner of the Year at Vodafone’s annual VPS Conference, while Qualitel Voice and Data was named Platinum Partner of the Year.

It was the second year in a row that the Hampshire-based dealer, Vodafone’s biggest partner with over 250,000 connections, has picked up the gong.

Staffordshire-based dealer Qualitel won the Platinum Partner award at the operator’s sixth annual conference, held at The Vox in Birmingham last night (July 14), which was attended by more than 100 partners.

Last year’s award was won by Olive Communications, which brought an end to a four year winning streak from rival Onecom.

Onecom CEO Darren Ridge, who collected the award, said: “This award reflects the hard work and dedication which makes Onecom one of the UK’s leading providers of total communications solutions for businesses of any size.

“Businesses are increasingly seeing the benefits of seamlessly bringing all their voice, data and broadband needs together, and this award is recognition that Onecom delivers solutions that are cost-effective and expertly implemented.”

The Gold Partner Award went to Rock Networks, while Trinity Maxwell took home the award for Silver Partner of the Year. iTalk also took home an award recognising it as Fixed Partner of the Year.

Vodafone UK director of partners and alliances Nick Birtwistle said: “We know that many of the UK’s SMEs want to work with a local communications partner, which is why our partner channel is such a crucial part of our own business.

“It’s fantastic to be able to celebrate the success of so many of our fixed and mobile partners at our annual awards as we continue to invest in Vodafone Partner Services to create future success together.”

VPS revamp

At the conference, Vodafone also unveiled its updated Partner portal. Speakers Birtwistle, the three heads of Vodafone Partner Services (Jan Collins, Oliver Lofthouse and Kathryn Platt) and enterprise director Phil Mottram.

The new portal will see Vodafone ditch the traditional VPS tiering model of Platinum, Gold and Silver partners in favour of a new structure based on unified communications capability.

The new tiers will range from the most basic, Approved, to Specialist, Advanced and finally Total Communications Partner, which will be given to partners offering the operator’s full product portfolio.

Birtwistle added: “Today marks the biggest level of investment we’ve ever seen in our b2b indirect channel, and never before have we provided partners with such a wide range of support, training and tools. This, combined with the launch of the new capability tiering, which allows us to emphasis our focus on delivering excellent customer service, makes it a really exciting time for our partners, for our business customers and for us.

“We, along with our partners, are well-positioned to help UK businesses to be even more successful and to help them make best use of communications technology so they can adapt and change as needed in today’s fast-paced market.”