CENTRAL TELECOM: CHANNEL COMPANY OF THE YEAR
Burton-on-Trent-based Central Telecom stands proudly at the top of the communications industry today after scooping the three top titles at the inaugural Channel Network Awards.
The cream of the telecommunications industry gathered together at the Metropole Hotel in Birmingham for the prestigious awards ceremony, sponsored by Avaya, global leaders in corporate networking solutions and services.
Central Telecom won the overall title of Channel Company of the Year in recognition of its innovation and continued growth and market development, supported by stability and profitability, good business practice and reporting procedures.
The company, which is renowned throughout the industry for its expertise in the field of systems integration, also won the Best Corporate Telephony Solution for its integrated solution for Centrica, the UK's largest provider of indirect telecom services. It was also awarded the title of Best SME IT Solution for an innovative communications system implemented on behalf of Differentis, one of Europe's leading e-business integrators.
The Awards, which are run in conjunction with Channel Network Convention 2002 and networks telecom Europe 2002, are the first in the industry to recognise best practice in the field of client solutions and foster channel partnerships and vendor-partner relationships across the whole of the IT, telephony, voice/data convergence and internet industries.
The judging panel was made up of industry experts and entrepreneurs from the world of voice and data as well as other leading industry organisations.
Central Telecom's Managing Director Andrew McDougall was delighted with the company's success:
"We are very proud to have received so many awards at this prestigious event. It takes a team effort to be winners and like a football team, you need goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, goal scorers, coaches and managers. To win you need to be the best team, which is what Central Telecom continuously aims to be.
"I would like to congratulate everyone at Central Telecom for playing their part in the success of our team - long may it continue," added Andrew.
"The high quality of the entries for the inaugural Channel Network Awards demonstrates the tremendous skill that exists in deploying complex multimedia convergence solutions," commented awards organiser John Chapman.
"The majority of entries involved integrating complex technologies such as LAN, WAN, IP Telephony, Wireless, Storage Area Networking, IP VPNs as well as Web enabled and CTI applications. It is clear that these days the customer is buying is an integrated business solution, not just a product," added John.
These latest accolades follow a number of other major awards over the past six months. The company, which employs more than 160 staff at its Burton HQ and satellite offices in Guildford and Manchester, was recently listed in the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 Awards.
It was voted number one reseller in the UK by world leader Siemens and Dealer of the Year for the fifth consecutive year by Network Finance.
It can also count the titles of Avaya Gold Strategic Alliance Partner, BT Premier Partner, Cisco Premier Partner; Korus Platinum Partner amongst its growing list of credits.
