O2 Unify Signals Intent to Shake Up UK Enterprise Market

Event Summary

January 13, 2011 – O2 has formed a joint venture called O2 Unify with IT service provider 2e2. The joint team will consist of investment in service management and operations staff. The goal is that O2 can expand its capabilities beyond mobile services to include managed WAN, cloud data services and flexible working solutions. O2’s sales force of over 500 will sell the full O2 Unify portfolio with 2e2 providing the behind the scenes ‘know how’. O2 Unify will launch on 2nd April in the UK.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on O2’s joint venture with 2e2 as an indication of its intent to expand its portfolio and deliver a wider communications portfolio to its enterprise customers in the UK. O2 ventured into UC solutions over a year ago, but having a more robust staff of pre-sales, technical experts and service delivery personnel will allow it to pitch for a greater share of customers’ spend in managed data WAN, data centre services and flexible workings solutions.

• Vendor Importance: High as O2 has identified an opportunity to sell more than just mobile voice and data services to its enterprise customers. O2 now wants to be the primary supplier as many customers consider outsourcing their comms and IT requirements and consolidating suppliers. O2 has itself been one of the largest customers of 2e2 for the past five or six years so there is a working history and O2 has been planning O2 Unify behind the scenes for the past 15 months, so much of the groundwork has already been done ahead of the April launch.

• Market Impact: High on the UK managed services market, because O2 has a strong heritage in providing mobile services to large enterprises and has signed over 60 fixed & mobile customers since launching fixed services in the UK last year. O2 is well positioned to increase its market share as customers begin to consolidate and unify their mobile and fixed communications and begin delivering applications to any device via cloud services, mobile security and flexible working become critical components.

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