Team News Archives | Fourteen IP

Innovation Day Reaches New Heights

craig — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 17:16:37 +0000

Innovation Day Reaches New Heights

Teams on both side of the Atlantic took on the challenge to build the tallest free standing spaghetti tower using only spaghetti, cellotape and string. A marshmallow had to sit on top of the tower.

The UK office started the day with a Parfait Bar to get their brains working – you can judge for yourself as to whether it helped or not.

A fun day was had by all but if you think you can do better, we will post pictures of any challenges. Please send pictures to marketing@14ip.com or tag us in a post on LinkedIn.

We’d like to think innovation was the winner…

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Northern Powerhouse Export Champions 2023-24

craig — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 16:19:52 +0000

Fourteen IP Named as a Northern Powerhouse Export Champion 2023-24

We are delighted to announce that for the second year in a row, Fourteen IP have been recognised as one of the Northern Powerhouse Export Champions, this year for 2023/24.

Northern Powerhouse Export Champions are companies from across the North of England who are dedicated to growing their exports, and who have made a commitment to helping other companies do the same – increasing prosperity and growing GDP by seizing the opportunities offered by trading in a global market.

Our listing in the Export Champions 2023-24 Brochure says:

“Fourteen IP is a Telecommunications reseller turned global carrier based in Wigan. Founded in 2011 Fourteen IP provides cloud based Unified Communications, AI and related solutions to the hospitality industry across 24 countries across Europe, North America & The Caribbean.

Evolution Voice, Fourteen IP’s flagship telephony solution for hotels currently powers over 330,000 guest rooms across hundreds of hotels of all types including many of the world’s largest and most prestigious such as The Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Swan & Dolphin Walt Disney World and many Mandarin Oriental & Ritz Carlton properties.

Always driven to innovate, Fourteen IP is the leading global provider of cloud PBX and AI to hotels and during the pandemic developed EVA, their class leading AI IVR as well as setting up a subsidiary in Mexico! Fourteen IP CEO advises potential exporters to go for it but take up the advice and experience of others that is freely available and invaluable.”

Export Champions represent a wide range of sectors and are working with Department for Business and Trade to complement their services, generously giving their time to motivate and assist other businesses on their export journeys and leading by example as they continue to win new international business and reach out to new markets themselves.

Our CEO, Neil Tolley, continues take part in events and podcasts aimed at assisting businesses trying to break into new overseas markets and speaks very highly of working with the Department for Business and Trade.

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Hospitality Industry Veteran Ron Grau Joins Fourteen IP

craig — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 06:24:16 +0000

Ron Grau Joins Fourteen IP as VP of Technology

We are pleased to announce that hospitality industry veteran and technology pioneer Ron Grau, has joined Fourteen IP as VP of Technology. Ron will further strengthen the technical capabilities of Fourteen IP, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge and experience from over 30 years in the hotel and travel sectors.

Having trained with IBM, Ron used his knowledge and expertise to establish Systems Design & Development (SDD) in 1992, to develop and support cloud-based (SaaS) software and professional services that supported hotel guest and staff communications and collaboration. SDD developed first and second-generation hotel billing and integration platforms and the first carrier-grade cloud PBX services in the industry, before being acquired by Broadsoft in 2014.

As part of the acquisition Ron joined Broadsoft as Director of Hospitality Solutions, overseeing product management, sales engineering, software engineering, cloud engineering, and operations. Broadsoft were themselves acquired by Cisco in 2018 and since then, Ron has held positions at Cisco and Jazzware Inc and provided global hospitality and travel consulting services as RENI Enterprises.

Ron joins Fourteen IP to review critical business strategies, focusing on product strategy and management, cloud engineering and operations.

Commenting on the appointment, Fourteen IP Managing Director Neil Tolley said, “We are constantly reviewing and updating the services we offer our customers and their guests and having Ron on the team, will help us ensure we have the relevant services and features driven by the changing market needs. I’ve worked with Ron at SDD, Broadsoft and Cisco and know that he is the perfect person to help take Fourteen IP to the next level.”

Commenting on joining Fourteen IP, newly appointed VP of Technology Ron Grau said, “It’s been great working with Neil Tolley as a customer in my previous roles and I am excited to now be working alongside Neil as a colleague. I’ve charted the success of Fourteen IP over their 10 years in the industry and I can see them going from strength to strength over the coming years.”

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Fourteen IP Founder named among UK’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 2021

craig — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:44:58 +0000

Neil Tolley, Founder and Managing Director of Fourteen IP has been named as one of The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 2021. LDC (Lloyds Development Capital Limited), is a mid-market private equity house and subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group.

The programme, which is supported by The Times and now in its fourth year, celebrates the inspiring leaders behind some of the UK’s most successful and fast-growing medium-sized firms.

Despite the challenges of the last 18 months, the Top 50 received a record number of nominations; more than 600 proving that ambition is alive and well.

The featured Top 50 hail from every corner of the country and operate across a diverse range of sectors. Collectively, they employ more than 9,500 people and contribute more than £1.2bn to the UK economy.

Founded in 2011, Fourteen IP has established itself as the global carrier for the hospitality industry with its Evolution Voice services being deployed in over 300,000 hotel rooms across 24 countries, supporting leading hotels and groups worldwide. Services include cloud-based hotel connectivity, telephony, Webex collaboration and pioneering AI powered virtual agents and guest interaction solutions, saving hotels thousands of pounds per year, whilst improving guest satisfaction.

Neil Tolley, one of the Founders and Managing Director of Fourteen IP said: “Having worked for and managed, a number of different telecommunication providers over the years, I knew if Fourteen IP was to succeed, we needed to focus on one sector of the market, in our case the hospitality sector, and to tailor and refine the services we offered with that sector in mind. This specialism has meant that we are now one of the leading global carriers and services providers to the hospitality sector, supporting many household brands and hotel chains globally. We must be doing something right as our business has gone from strength the strength and we have enjoyed consistent organic growth in turnover over our ten years’ in business.”

LDC’s John Garner added: “The last 18 months have presented challenges that none of us could have foreseen, but despite everything, it’s fantastic to see that so many business leaders have achieved remarkable things. Through their resourcefulness and resilience, this year’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Leaders prove that the flame of ambition is hard to extinguish. Congratulations to all those featured and we look forward to seeing their continued success and impact, and contribution the broader UK economy.

You can find out more information on this year’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme here.

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A Year In Review

craig — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 11:06:09 +0000

A Round Up Of 2020 – Neil Tolley

It has taken me a little bit of time to write a round-up of 2020, the expectations certainly did not become a reality and like most company’s our goals & plans for 2020 were soon discarded as the pandemic took hold. No one could have predicted what was in store for us, but fast forward 11 months and we are still here, we are still innovating and we are still leading where others follow. We are the leading provider of cloud telephony to hotels around the world. 2020 was the year we took the plunge and became a Global Carrier, operating in 20+ countries with thousands of hotel rooms using our platforms. We are so proud of this fantastic achievement and it is certainly something that has not gone un-noticed in the industry.

Becoming a Global carrier was a real team effort from our partners at Averistar with design and build to our own technical, financial, sales and admin teams who all pulled together to help us make this huge change to our business at the most difficult of times, in challenging circumstances and at a speed much faster than was ever expected.

Our team is at the heart of our Fourteen Family and we would not be where we are without the outstanding people we have working with us and going the extra miles throughout 2020 to help ensure we delivered for our customers.

Team Highlights

2020 was a quiet year in terms of events, something we hope to make up for in 2021, but we still had some exciting new additions to and achievements.

In June, our Financial Controller Steph Owen and her husband Yhan welcomed their baby daughter Ella.

Stephen Elliott our Chief Financial Controller completed the Hellvellyn Triathlon in less than 6 hours in September.

Laura Walker-Jones our Support Coordinator and her husband Darren welcomed their baby daughter Evelyn in October.

And in February Lisa Hough, Head of Support Services turned 40 and Mark Kettle, Head of Evolution Voice also celebrated his 40th in December.

What is in store for 2021?

So, what does 2021 look like for Fourteen IP? It would take a brave person to make too many predictions, but I am hopeful that we can expect a more positive year overall and start to see our customers, who have suffered so much, start to see the permanent return of their guests. 2021 marks our 10th anniversary, another big achievement, and something we want to celebrate together and with our customers as soon as its safe to do so. 2021 will also see the release of some exciting new products we are working on, we are hoping more traveling will be possible very soon and we are looking forward to welcoming more members to our growing Fourteen IP family. 2021 will also see us move offices in Orlando for the 3^rd time in 4 years as we have outgrown our space in 1 year when we expected it to last 3! Travel restrictions permitting we hope to move around Easter to a much larger space, close to our offices near Universal Studios.

Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to our entire team, our fantastic customers and everyone that has supported us on this exciting journey. We have shown what a resilient company we are and have led the way in innovation as we have transformed from a reseller to a carrier. There are many adventures ahead but we enter 2021 confident that the success we have created together will continue and we can continue to work together for the benefit of each other and our customers and partners.

I cannot leave a summary of 2020 without saying a huge thank you to Rick, Mark, Matt, Ryan, and the team at Averistar. They have risen to the many challenges 2020 threw out us, without question or problem, and have been a fantastic partner.

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How I Got Here

craig — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:00:34 +0000

Peter Lathrope, Sales Consultant to Fourteen IP Group Companies, shares his career journey

Tell us about yourself and your career background?

At a very young age, I took a Saturday job where my Dad was working as a Precision Engineer… I became fascinated by all types of technology which led me into an apprenticeship in Electronics.

Once I’d completed my apprenticeship I progressed into R&D electronics and PCB design. Eventually, the company closed their UK operation and I moved into field service initially for fax machines and then after deregulation for PBX systems too.

From this I joined a value added distributor as a Technical Support Specialist for the Toshiba PBX and then over several years moved through the company to become Technical Support Manager, Marketing Manager (where I was asked to write the company’s website in raw HTML!!!) and finally dipping my toes into sales and adding sales manager to the mix.

During my time at this company, I developed a 3^rd party software interface for the Toshiba PBX that allowed complete PC call control of the system to give additional functionality such as click to call, screen pops and even hot desking. This resulted in me being invited to demonstrate these developments to Toshiba in Japan as well as a value added Toshiba distributor in the US.

When the distribution company was sold I decided to work directly for a manufacturer and joined NEC UK as Technical Support & Product Manager for their “new” NEAX range of PBX systems. Having worked at NEC for a few years I was asked to head up the division and added Sales and Marketing to my list of roles and responsibilities.

During this time, we worked with a value added distributor and a range or resellers including a company called Ashland Communications which had in its employ a young (well these things are relative!) Neil Tolley. With the help of Neil and several other resellers, NEC UK became the company’s third largest subsidiary with Japan being number one and America number two.

NEC corporate decided to break into Europe and did this by partnering with Philips Business Communications, however, as part of the deal, Philips Business Communications insisted that the NEC UK PBX business was handed to their UK office. This resulted in me managing the transition and then effectively making myself redundant!

From this I took some time to start my own company, GKD (GKD is the initials of my three children Gary, Kerry & David), initially developing and selling Kit Cars. The GKD EVOLUTION was awarded the 2006 Car Of the Year in Which Kit magazine!!!

As time progressed GKD started diversifying and offering a range of business support services such as product marketing, general marketing, competitor analysis, application development, etc.

During this time, I kept in contact with a few of my old colleagues such as Neil. Neil contacted me one day and asked me to write a configuration and pricing tool for a small little PBX system they were selling… the rest, as they say, is history!

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I love the variety. It allows me to be involved with so many different facets of the business. I am genuinely enthusiastic about Fourteen IP and the services offered and enjoy discussing them with potential customers. It’s also great to think “outside the box” and come up with ideas to help speed up installations, continually improving the estimator so that it configures, prices and also automatically produces the proposal documents and last but certainly not least to be involved with developing and packaging services to create new products.

What does a typical day look like for you and what are you currently working on?

I probably work about 7~8 months of the year from the UK with the rest of the year being a combination of short one week trips throughout the US attending meetings and trade shows with 2 or 3 much longer trips of 4 to 6 weeks based out of Orlando.

Typically, the routine is the same. Before even getting out bed I grab the cell phone… sorry, mobile phone, and check emails to see what has come in overnight. Once anything urgent is dealt with I then go to the gym for an hour or a very long 10,000 steps around the block. When I get back it’s a case of prioritising anything that has come in and then working through any outstanding actions as well as reaching out… sorry, calling customers and sending out proposals for hosted telephony and SIP trunks.

There’s a lot that we are currently working on with regards to sales opportunities, but there are also ongoing ideas around new products and how everything is packaged and priced.

What three words would you use to describe your role?

Challenging, varied & fun.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

Trying to keep a work/life balance. Due to the long hours and 24/7 nature of hospitality, it’s extremely hard to turn off.

What is your biggest achievement to date – personal or professional?

Apart from somehow managing to persuade my wife to marry me and having three great kids, we were a foster family for 12 years looking after lots of children from birth to 17 years old. At times this was extremely challenging but also very rewarding.

Click here for more information about our Evolution Voice Cloud Telephony for Hotels

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How I Got Here

craig — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 06:21:54 +0000

Kevin Burgess, Fourteen IP’s Chief Technical Officer, shares his career journey

Tell us a bit about yourself; your career background?

In October 1998, I started as a trainee technician at Ashland Communication Equipment. Having studied communications at college, I joined Ashland at a great time to be getting into the world of telecommunications. I started off as a junior technician primarily working on remote support tickets, fixing payphones and small PABX systems. I then worked my way through to being a senior engineer, installing large Mitel systems in the hospitality vertical. My journey followed the general path that telecoms was taking, into the transition of VOIP. During SpiriTel’s acquisition of Ashland in 2007 I was part of a major accounts team that focused on our big customers and more technically challenging solutions. We had to have networking (wired and wireless) as well as traditional telecoms in our portfolio to continue to provide our service to our long standing and new customers. I held the role of Senior Technician for Major Accounts throughout my time at SpiriTel and subsequently during the acquisition of SpiriTel by Daisy in 2010, shortly before being part of the team that formed Fourteen IP.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The great sense of pride in the delivery of large scale solutions. Seeing the guys do the preparation in the planning, through the installation implementation all the way to any future support work. When we receive complimentary emails praising individuals and teams within the company, that for me is taken as a pat on the back for all of us. This is achieved only by people who care. If the customer is onboard and we build a partnership with them, we see the results we pride ourselves on.

Given a chance, who would you like to be for the day?

That’s a tough one! I would be the 7 year old me going fishing with my Grandad again. He had enthusiasm, positivity and lots of stories pouring in to every situation.

If you could choose anyone, who would you choose as your mentor?

Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Labelled “the world’s greatest explorer”, there isn’t much he wouldn’t conquer. He holds several world records for exploring in extreme conditions and racing. Ranulph takes it upon himself to raise money for charity whilst pushing himself to the limit. I was fortunate enough to listen to him speak after a dinner event in London. The whole room was full of admiration for a guy who made everyone laugh and draw breath in awe and total respect. He is a man who never fears a challenge in front of him.

What is your motto?

Do what’s right, not what’s easy.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

We work in hospitality. Anyone with experience in the hospitality industry will tell you that it can be a tough, demanding arena. If there is a problem and its become serious, I sometimes find it challenging to strip back the emotion and subjectivity of an issue. We will fix it, no matter what. The same applies to a new idea/solution or task. It can be nerve racking but we are trained, we are capable and will overcome.

Click here for more information about our Evolution Voice Cloud Telephony for Hotels

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How I Got Here

craig — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 10:13:22 +0000

Neil Tolley, founder of Fourteen IP, shares his career journey

Tell us a bit about yourself; your career background?

On my 28^TH Birthday, I started my first ever proper job at Ashland Communication Equipment in Wigan. We worked as Ashland for 10 years where I moved from Project Manager to Tech Support Manager and eventually in to Sales.

Ashland was acquired by SpiriTel in 2007. We continued to grow the business until SpiriTel was acquired by Daisy in 2010. I left Daisy shortly after joining Alan, Vicki, and Kevin as we started the Fourteen IP adventure.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

Making people happy, customers and our Fourteen IP team. We are so lucky to have the wonderful team we have on both sides of the Atlantic and it’s great that we can work together to do some really amazing things, watching that happen and influencing how we work in a positive way, I love it.
Creating new business and making things happen is something I also love doing and again that helps us to help our customers and create more jobs. We are the very best in the world at what we do, watching our team grow and get the plaudits they deserve from customers around the world fills me with pride.

And what are the most challenging aspects of your job?

We have set very high standards both for our customers and ourselves and maintaining these and our values as a business whilst trying to keep everyone happy is a real challenge on a daily basis.
We are also growing fast and managing that growth whilst making the mistakes we are bound to make when opening up in new markets and trying to retain our quality, make money and keep everyone happy is a tough job at the best of times.

What would you say are the key challenges and opportunities currently faced by the industry?

We are in a single vertical market and the biggest challenge really is convincing owners that they don’t want or need that on-premise PBX anymore. We are making progress and doing better than anyone else but there is much more to do.

What would be your top tip to anyone wanting to start their own business?
Don’t do it! ? Seriously though, Fourteen IP is not an overnight success we have had some tough times and learned at a lot of lessons and we continue to do so, we have been lucky to have the help of some very experienced people.
Mostly I would say you need to believe passionately in what you are doing, so much so that you can enthuse your staff and potential customers to join you on the journey. You need to plan not just the business but for everything you can think of that might go wrong, stare it in the face and discuss it so you know what to do if it happens and you have all agreed. Don’t give up, it takes time and lots of hard work.
I had no job until I was 28, yet here I am with the best Cloud PBX team in the world if I can do it anyone can.

What is the hardest challenge that you have overcome since launching Fourteen IP
We overcome things together, it is one of our great strengths. Nobody is afraid to ask tough questions and nobody is afraid of making mistakes.
Personally though, quite some years back we were not in the best shape financially and keeping our head up and getting potential customers to become customers whilst keeping our team fired up was a big challenge. There is always more to improve upon Fourteen IP has grown so much over the years which has been demanding but exciting.

Click here for more information about our Evolution Voice Cloud Telephony for Hotels

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