Telcoinabox focuses on acquisition in 2011 to ramp up business for telco franchises

2011 is the year of innovation and reinvigoration for Telcoinabox , says CEO Paul Line, with the company focussing on micro-acquisition to increase business opportunities for its telco franchises.

Targets for acquisition will be small to medium telecommunications companies, in particular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), experiencing sluggish business growth and margin squeeze.

“With consolidation of ISPs accelerating we see an opportunity for our service providers to acquire players considered too small for the larger ISPs to approach,” Mr Line explains.

A dedicated team has been created by the company to work on the new initiatives, and external business brokers have been employed to facilitate negotiations between service providers and potential takeover targets.

To ensure deals are processed efficiently, Telcoinabox will also provide financing to telco franchises involved in the acquisitions.

“Devising innovative ways to build our service providers’ businesses is important to both their wealth creation and ours, so it makes sense to play the role of ‘venture capitalist’ as well as infrastructure and product provider.” Mr Line comments.

A pilot of the strategy has already started to see results, with Airlie Beach service provider Voice2net acquiring telecommunications provider Mobile Office, with a number of other acquisitions currently under negotiation.

Telcoinabox will also launch a new suite of pre-packaged, ‘over-the-top’ data products in 2011, extending the product suites on offer from its telco franchises to include:

• web hosting
• remote back-up
• anti-virus
• VPN; and
• net filtering services.

Mr Line notes that capitalising on existing infrastructure is part and parcel of the company’s strategy of being a ‘one stop shop’ for its customers, allowing its telecommunications service providers to offer a one bill solution for a range of products and services.

Telcoinabox will also seek to ramp up the number of service providers in its network during 2011, aiming to add approximately 20 to the 110 currently in operation.

The company’s recruitment strategy will be to reduce the current barriers to entry, says Mr Line, and will look at:

• including accreditation of the telco franchise model by the big four banks
• vendor financing new franchisees; and
• outbound targeting of specific niche markets, such as PABX suppliers and maintainers.