Technology Reseller - v10

technolog y reseller.co.uk COMMUNICATIONS 31 “Marston’s PLC is such a demanding customer, and rightly so, because when you are doing turnover of £1 billion, EPOS is critical, comms are critical,” he said. “We found that we had over-engineered the network to such a degree that we had tons of capacity and the ability to deliver the 4-hour SLAs that are a requirement for everyone on the High Street and in hospitality. Having so much capacity, gave us a fantastic opportunity to offer a very high tech carrier-type service to other businesses. “The comparison people make to me is Amazon, where you have so much capacity you can reach out to other businesses and say you can have this too. We’re obviously a smaller enterprise than Amazon. But it’s the same story.” Ford points out that while comms is not an obvious line of business for a brewing and pub retailing business, it is not a million miles from what Marston’s already does. “If you pull Marston’s apart, they are really a logistics, warehouse and distribution business. Their customer base is everywhere – on the High Street, in every supermarket – and they distribute bottles and kegs and other things around the country and around the world. What they do is not a million miles away from a service business. Comms is just another commodity, another product,” he said. What’s good for the goose Ford adds that, being in the hospitality business, Marston’s is in the vanguard of developments in customer engagement, much of it technology-based, which has given its telecoms arm valuable experience that it can take to other industry sectors. Marston’s is well known as a brewer of premium ales, such as Pedigree, Hobgoblin and Lancaster Bomber, and for its Destination and Premium pubs, including brands like Pitcher & Piano. It is less well known as a provider of telecoms. Though this, too, is an important part of the business, as more and more IT resellers are discovering. The £1 billion brewing and pub retailing business established Marston’s Telecoms in 2008 to provide communications services to the Group’s network of offices, depots, breweries and pubs, which now number around 1,600 nationwide. It started out providing group businesses with basic services, such as telephony and lines for card payment terminals, before adding data communications to its portfolio. About five years ago, it took this to the next level with the initiation of an extensive Ethernet roll-out. Today, Marston’s Telecoms has three UK datacentres and a turnover of almost £8 million, up from £500,000 in 2008. It offers a range of services, including broadband/Ethernet, managed WANs, carrier services, hosted voice and managed WiFi. And, it doesn’t just serve Marston’s PLC, but also other brewing and hospitality businesses, such as Heineken and Punch Taverns, as well as the wider business community through a network of resellers. Marston’s Telecoms currently has about 40 resellers and aims to increase that number to 300 as part of a strategy to double its turnover over the next few years. A demanding customer Tony Ford, Operations Director at Marston’s Telecoms, told Technology Reseller that while Marston’s originally established its comms business for its own purposes, it quickly became apparent that in building an infrastructure capable of meeting the SLAs demanded by the Marston’s Group, it had created something highly marketable. Two pints of lager and a packet of data, please Marston’s Telecoms is reaching out to technology resellers as it aims to double its turnover to £16 million. James Goulding finds out more from Operations Director Tony Ford Continued... Marston’s Telecoms has three UK datacentres and a turnover of almost £8 million, up from £500,000 in 2008 Tony Ford