Every now and again we like to give you, our loyal readers, the lowdown on the companies that have caught our eye. I sat down with Paul Balkwell, European Sales Director at Continuum to chat about what he has been up to recently at Continuum’s European Headquarters in the Thames Valley. Paul has an abundance of experience in the tech industries, 23 years to be exact.
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Paul has built successful growth strategies for SaaS and IT Managed Services organisations, including the setup and delivery of a multi-million pound recurring revenue IT Managed Services business that, after 12 successful years, was acquired by a leading UK telecoms provider. Prior to joining Continuum, he was Head of Managed IT Services at IP Integration in the UK. Paul also served as New Business Sales Manager at Business Relations International for several years, and was elected to CompTIA’s UK Channel Community Executive Council in 2015. Suffice to say, he is more than qualified to be one of our featured experts!
Paul Balkwell, European Sales Manager, Continuum Managed Services
Paul, can you tell me a little about Continuum?
PB: Continuum are a 24/7 channel only white label Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) organisation.
Unlike a lot of the RMM providers who are a software only, we are unique, as we have approximately 650 engineers that can resolve up to 90% of all issues as well as carry out all routine maintenance and patching on a “pay-as-you-grow” model. We don’t tie our partners in to lengthy contacts, just a monthly rolling agreement. Basically we take away all the “daily grunt work” to free up internal resources to concentrate on other revenue making activities.
So what does that mean for your clients?
PB: With most RMM providers that are software only, you might come in the morning to a couple of hundred alerts that your engineers have to work through. With Continuum, you might have 8 resolved tickets detailing what the issue was and what steps we took to fix it. Our partners also have the ability to pass issues to our engineering teams offering a true extension to their internal support teams.
Now for the one we always ask, what do you think of the Cloud Industry at present?
PB: It’s an exciting and growing market though I still think we are in a hybrid world where both business and home users have a mixture of onsite and cloud services.
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What would you say are Continuum’s main strengths?
PB: Being channel only and combining our Remote Monitoring and Management software platform with our Network Operation Centre, populated with 650 engineers, makes us a great vehicle for Technology Managed Services Providers to scale and grow reoccurring revenues on a pay-as-you-grow model.
What do you think sets you apart in the competitive cloud marketplace?
PB: The fact that we are not just a “Software as a Service” offering, we offer a pay-as-you-grow “Service as a Service” model giving our partners the freedom to add, change and modify their offerings without the burden of being tied into a long-term contract. This differentiates us, and ensures our clients are getting the level of service they require.
Can you describe Continuum’s ideal client for me?
PB: We like to consider our clients as partners to Continuum’s offerings, really they are any organisation offering Technology Managed Services, from SME to Enterprise including; IT Managed Services, Break Fix, Telecoms, Office Equipment and Data centres providers that are looking to grow their business more efficiently.
Our partners manage clients in many different aspects of business ranging from the very small to the enterprise level of organisations. We enjoy having a broad spectrum of business sizes to work with, it keeps things fresh!
Where you see Continuum heading in the future?
PB: In the future we’re looking to continue our European growth and to continue offering additional services and revenue streams to our partners including, best of breed IBM Softlayer, which we’re really excited about, and Managed Backup & Disaster Recovery Service (which is coming on Jan 16!). Plus Network Monitoring and Resolution Service including, Firewalls, routers and switches. Continuum has an exciting and feature packed future ahead!
Want to read more? Check out some of Paul’s featured articles on Compare the Cloud by clicking the images below!
