Carousel Industries has been successful in selling customers Internet-based telephone systems. But servicing the so-called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems has come with challenges, says Jeff Gardner, CEO of the Peace Dale-based telecommunications firm.
The problem: Since data networks – not traditional telephone systems – support VoIP, customers don’t know whether to call their telecom service provider or their computer technician when the phones are on the fritz.
“The customer will call and say, ‘There’s a problem with my phone line,’ ” Gardner explained. “So we’ll send a voice technician out and he’ll tell the customer that the phone system is okay, but they need to call their data guy.”
As of next month, however, Carousel will be that “data guy,” with a new service that wraps telephone and data center support into a single package. The company – a seller and support consultant of Avaya Inc. equipment – is evidence of how the telecom and IT industries are melding.
Robert Rosenberg, president of The Insight Research Corp., a telecom industry analysis firm in Boonton, N.J., said that in launching its own IT service, Carousel follows the path already traveled by other companies in the business, such as Verizon Communications and Cox Communications.
“When you’ve implemented VoIP, you’ve removed all the costs from the old voice network and rolled the functionality and the cost into your local data network,” Rosenberg said. “At that point, you’re really committed to a single network that carries your voice and your data.”
The growing popularity of VoIP has created a new opportunity for Carousel, a 14-year-old company that has evolved from a small outlet for telephone equipment to a $60 million business with 340 employees.
The company has seen the most rapid growth in revenue from its service offerings, rather than equipment sales, according to Gardner, and the Information Age has also lured Carousel into the software business.
In fact, a centerpiece of the company’s new IT service will be a software package that enables it to remotely monitor customers’ data networks.
The company bought rights to offer the software, called ServiceAccelerator, from Billerica, Mass.-based SilverBack Technologies Inc. As the software’s name suggests, it “quickly transforms product-focused resellers into successful service-focused operations,” SilverBack says on its Web site.
“We’re excited about this product,” Gardner said. “What it’s really going to do is monitor a person’s network to make sure their system is secure. It will give us reports, but we can go out to the customer monthly and explain to them what is going on with their network.”
The Carousel CEO said his company is initially marketing the new expanded service to small and mid-sized business customers, which “don’t necessarily have an IT department.” It’s no coincidence that Carousel is launching this service even as IT outsourcing continues to grow as a multibillion-dollar market.
“It’s the largest growing market – no questions about it,” Gardner said.
Meanwhile, Carousel is in the process of renovating a 60,000-square-foot industrial building on Route 2 in Exeter, where it plans to house an expanded service department, as well as warehousing, administration, customer service and sales functions. Gardner said his company expects to move into half of the building early next year, and lease the other half.
