Member Article

Vapour Cloud rings in New Year with managed service partnership for ICA

Unified communications specialist ICA has signed a new partner agreement with West Yorkshire-based Vapour Cloud, as the Stockport-headquartered telecoms firm gears up for substantial growth.

The move coincides with the announcement of self-confessed ambitious expansion plans for ICA, who are continuing on their journey of delivering end-to-end multichannel solutions for clients, while investing significantly in their marketing, a brand refresh and the enhancement of the customer experience.

Recognising the power of collaboration, director Pam Blanchard sought an enablement partner who could focus on the infrastructure and delivery of high-performance networks. With proven expertise in this niche field – and dealing only with channel partners rather than end users themselves – Yorkshire-headquartered Vapour was an obvious choice.

Recognising Vapour’s relationship with Avaya – having being hailed one of their fastest growing mid-market voice partners in the UK this time last year – ICA’s first brief was a consultancy project to validate the design and architecture of a new client solution.

And the support, advice and deployment options provided, proved instrumental in the decision to partner with Vapour for all future Avaya cloud deployments, said Pam.

“At ICA we are recognised for our continued commitment to customer service, so any partner we bring on board needs to mirror our own standards,” she explained.

“Vapour has quickly become an extension of our team because shared values are driving both of our business propositions. They also have a strong track record when it comes to response times, technical ability and a sense of pride in satisfying project deliverables. Their involvement will enable us to focus on our corporate strategy and meet our steep growth projections.”

As a specialist in only four key areas – secure cloud voice, video, networks and infrastructure – Vapour will design and deliver ICA’s Avaya cloud platforms, while providing a strategic managed service that fuels vendor-agnostic solutions for customers.

“The industry is saturated with telecoms and tech providers that have adopted the integration of voice and/or the delivery of IT,” elaborated Pam. “But many resellers unfortunately over-promise and under-deliver.

“We feel that ICA’s point of difference is channel independence, as we can deliver multiple, interoperable solutions that are truly customer-centric. The addition of Vapour’s technical expertise and advice now also means clients can adopt the right technology, at pace.

“As a duo, ICA and Vapour will continue to disrupt, innovate and lead as businesses demand more channels to communicate and interact with. I’m very excited to see what happens as 2020 unfolds.”

Last year, Vapour was recognised as the sixth-fastest growing tech firm in Leeds, attained position 23 in G.P. Bullhound’s Northern Tech 100, and CEO Tim Mercer was named as ‘one to watch’ in the Daily Telegraph and LDC’s most ambitious leaders programme. The organisation has recently announced two internal promotions to the senior management team – Carol McGrotty to head of operations and compliance, and Alec Stephens to sales manager – as the business readies itself for turnover growth of anything up to 50%.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .