Chewing the Channel LIVE: In conversation with Vincent Disneur

In an industry first, we took our podcast on the road and streamed live from the floor of this year’s Channel Live. 

Among a host of high-profile names, Will was joined by Vincent Disneur of FuseGenie® to explore one of the biggest topics in the channel right now, AI. Together, they explored what AI really means for resellers and where the real opportunities lie.

Alongside the AI discussion, the conversation also touched on entrepreneurship, and how innovation and mindset are shaping new opportunities across the industry.

A timely conversation on technology, entrepreneurship, and the future of the channel.

Website: www.elevate.uk/wholesale

LinkedIn: Will Goodall

Phone: 0330 058 9530

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I have the best dressed individual in channel opposite the worst dressed in channel of Vincent Disney Eisner Disner Eisner close founder and managing director for Fuse Genie, previous fame of Union Street Billing Technologies Limited. Also an appearance on The Apprentice, which we were going to touch on. Long time ago. Long time ago. Wrong size, yeah. And ran various businesses, very entrepreneurial. So there's there's a few themes I want to kind of touch on with you. So I always had this image, and I bet a lot of people do with you, where they see this incredibly well-dressed guy and they think, God, he's you know, he's a they they they maybe judge from afar without getting to know you. And I bumped into you over a beer last year, and I thought, I really like this guy because I'd had an image of oh, he's you know, aloof and really smartly dressed and kind of the elite of channel for one of their description. And when I met you in charity, I was like, such a good guy. And we'd kept in touch, and when we had the opportunity for tune the channel live, I was like, I want I want Mr. Vincent on. And I literally reached out on LinkedIn, as you as should all people. Um, luckily got a reply. This is your first pod, I believe. So happy with that. And what I wanted to kind of touch on with you is where I sit next to someone who's run a number of successful businesses, exited, you could you know, potentially not have to be doing the hustle and bustle of of channel sale running a business, yeah. But there's something in you that draws you to grow, to build, to achieve. Um and I'm interested where that started. Okay, and then I'm also interested in there is something that you might have heard of that businesses in the channel are talking about AI, um, where we're seeing uh resellers and MSPs automate as much as possible, enhance customer experience as much as possible, cut costs, and AI is the future. That's what they want you to do. But no one really knows what to do with it, but they're just seeing AI's the future, be it I don't need to hire people, or I can do this and do that. So I want to unpack that a little bit and kind of benefit from like the go-through. Oh, not enough time. These seats are really uncomfortable, aren't they? Well, I mean, this is are we sliding into them? Well, this is this is a cobbler.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

You're all right, you're really well just no, no, but I'm sliding around like this.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

So like we've got all the rooms area. Yeah. Well, maybe in your house, not in a good old household. Sorry, love. Um where did you grow up? Oh, it was where's where's home for you? As a as a teenager, Canterbury. Canterbury. And it's a really interesting backstory, actually. My um my mum and dad. So my dad was born in Zaire Congo. Why was he born in Zaye Congo? Because he's Belgique, and the Belgian the Belgians uh went over there during the wartime, and my mum's Swiss. They met in Switzerland, they then um decided to move from Switzerland to um Ireland, Shannon Island. Then from Shannon Island they moved to Scotland, and I was born in Scotland. So actually, on my I'm actually Scottish Scottish, born in Paisley, which is a lovely place. Uh my dad was uh in hotels, so he worked very closely with a guy called Trust House 40, and then they moved from um Scotland down to Reading, Reading down to Kent, because my dad was working for a company called Silcock Express. Silcock Express were the main distributor of bringing in Audi's and Volkswagen into the UK and distributing them uh across the country. He had a brilliant boss, actually, a guy who owned the business called Bernard Holmes, real character. I remember we used to go um uh and he used to big barbecues in the summer. And um, and yeah, so and then my I grew up, we then grew up in a in a village called Wingham, which is a few miles outside of Canterbury, but we grew up, you went to school and we grew up in Canterbury. I don't know if you've been to Canterbury. Once or twice. But it's a really, really lovely um historic city, nice cathedral, couple of universities. Yeah, so I grew up. So in terms of kind of unpacking your dad a little bit, in terms of because I think it's always it's interesting, because like if I look at my dad, I think historically a lot of the time for jobs and we've seen technology change, when people would change jobs, it wasn't uncommon for relocation and moving into different places and and that. So is is he was he is he, I'm assuming, quite um a free spirit to a certain extent. I'm gonna live in Belgium, then we'll do Ireland. Was he always open to changes and was an opportunity? Little things like where I live and things weren't weren't blockers. It was this is the opportunity we're gonna take. He had to do it, Will. It's a different world a little bit. Well you're growing up in an environment though where you're seeing your dad, and and granted you was working for amazing people, yeah, but he's seeing an opportunity and he's going for it. Whereas a lot of people wouldn't they would have most people stay in one place, don't they? So he's going back, different country, that's fine. Let's go there, let's go here, let's go there, and it's kind of evolved into kind of Canterbury. So you're kind of absorbing, if you like, at that stage, this sort of entrepreneurial spirit to a certain degree, where it sees the day, and and and and and that's quite interesting in terms of it, maybe explains a few seeds being planted then. So you're kind of growing up in in Canterbury, so quite um secure, safe-ish, you know, it's it's not and I'm gonna ask this question. I asked most people, I mentioned it to you before you were like, I love this stuff. As a as a teenager, I'm assuming, and I might be wrong, there were certain things you did to generate income. Be it so uh, for example, Jay Ball, owned his seat flow tech, worked at a circus, he'd cycle 13 miles to uh circus, oh it was a circus fairground, sorry, and he'd he'd work there, cycle back, and you know, the various other people sold uh James Drake at Eclipse, rented books out and games, things like that. So what what what did I was there anything you did? I'm assuming there was. Yeah, I did a few things. So um I had quite a good work ethic as a child, or a younger man, I should say. Where did that come from? Um probably it from parents, but actually just I wanted to, I always wanted to earn a lot of money, and I don't know why. In fact, I think actually um a few of the guys I grew up with, and probably my brothers used to say that I seem to have a uh obsession with it's always about money. They used to say, Why is it always about money? Um, and I think it's it was more than just money, it was being successful. So I'll give you a great example of that. So, you know, did paper rounds at the age of I don't know, 12, 13, or when you could could do them. And it was tough gig, you know, you'd be cycling five, six miles, yeah, no matter what the weather. Yeah, Canterbury, you there's a distance through properties, you know. Up up and up and down uh hills and things, you know, then worked in fields, pick pick fruit and stuff like that. Um and then got into computing, which is really weird. I didn't earn any money doing that at the time because I was too young. But um uh PC PC computing, what did you well? What we did is there was a there was a shop, there was an independent shop in Canterbury, and the guys there were were pretty geeky. They were the first two kind of getting into the world's world of P. I mean, we're talking a long time ago now, right? In terms of this is when uh PCs were emerging, and and these guys would build PCs, so they'd build custom PCs. So I used to go uh for some reason, I don't know how I landed there, I ended up going there and ended up. I remember we used to take motherboards, we used to put in the RAM, we used to build these whole PCs, and they still don't do it today. It's not that much different. You've still got graphics cards, and then started playing around with things like um DOS. Remember playing with DOS and then getting into a bit of programming. So yeah, I I kind of a lot not a lot of people know that about me, that I I did a bit, a little bit of programming and got into computers in a big way. And and is that kind of where you the sort of tech, there's the desire to earn cash, succeed to win ultimately. Yeah, and you're getting exposure to this emerging technology where you're seeing things. So it's kind of it's it's ticking a couple of boxes for you there, isn't it? It's giving you you the entrepreneur, and you're going, there's growth in this. Well, it's like then there's interest as well in terms of the actual. I suppose. I mean, I guess it lined up, it's it's followed my journey in terms of what I've done afterwards. I I think what for me when you're younger, you know, and I wasn't an 18-year-old that went and built a business. I I wanted to, I had these these ambitions. I got where it really kicked off for me was when I was so I was doing that process young, and obviously you could. I think there was a point where you could only get paid from the age of 16 or something, and I was still working, so bars, you could do back bars, so so in social settings where you would meet people and you can converse. And that's probably when you said when you sort of didn't know me or meet me, I probably am quite confident in terms of um not always, but in terms of my um uh the way the way I operate. But when I when I got into um uh finishing GCS and doing A levels, there were PC World arrived, and PC World was the first timer we had like a big superstore shop that was was selling, you know, computers, laptops, didn't exist before. And I went and worked for those guys and got on the sales floor and did pretty well, if I'm honest. I mean, they there was um I've got this in me. I'd I'd love to have seen it. If we can if you ever send me a picture of you, have you got one with your name badge? Because I can imagine you yeah, yeah, I used to have a picture on the wall. Because have you always had that gift of the gab sort of sales approach? Or was that something that's crafted, or is it just naturally you've just always had it? It was always if someone gets in trouble, then someone always talks about it. Well, maybe a bit, maybe a bit. You get that from school and the people you hang out with there and kind of the bancer that you made. You were grounding in that sort of the sales element where you that there's a structure to follow. I think you have to push yourself. I think actually you have to put yourself, you you know, and I seem to do that. So what I mean by push yourself, you have to be confident. You've got people coming into a shop looking to buy something, they're uh they're an active buyer, they want to be sold something, most people do, but you need to be confident to go and speak with them, listen to them, see what they want. Um, and yeah, I did pretty well. They they had a the it ended up being bought, or I think it by the time I got there, it was owned by the Dixons Group. And what the Dixons group did is they um they created this kind of area, or or or they they they created this team of people, they said whoever sold a certain amount of products would enter into them what they call the millionaires group, right? That's always a bit a bit carrot. And you're 18, 19. No, no, I was what um 17 doing A levels, so that's right of your show. And I think I was the one of only two people in the country because we were we're on a part-time basis, right? We were doing our A levels, so uh it was some sort of incentive, right? And what it meant, it didn't mean certain people had to sell that amount of products, or there was a threshold that you had to get in in there, but it'd be prorases, and and it it you got a lot of recognition for it, you got you got to go on a trip and all that sort of stuff. So I was quite proud of that as a 17-year-old being recognised for that. And actually, I thought I uh I don't mind selling, it's quite good, I enjoy it. But I uh I spoke to someone once who who ran their own business and they were doing um a face-to-face sort of sales job, but they I think it was you know you're kind of um people that are on like a stand, and it's it's slightly so you're getting a blank mind as well now. No, no, it this this mind's always blank, it's the tram line. Um and what they did, and this is probably similar to the the PCL thing, is you will have almost two types of people. You would have someone that's standing there, kind of waiting for someone to come to them, yeah, and then you've got someone that's proactive, greeting people, talking to people, personable, and then ultimately maneuvering that hopefully to a sale. And he said, I think it was Windows or Sky TV or something, he noticed as a teenager people were just standing there and then he left. He tripled his conversion by putting his arm out and saying, Nice to meet you to people, chatting to them, and suddenly that skill set there translates many years later, layered on, layered on, into running a successful business or what if things. And it's kind of interesting there because I would imagine, you know, 17-year-old, you're kind of seeing people stood there, and you're kind of organically going, well, actually, the chance for me to achieve, chance for me to sell and all that stuff, I need to seize the day. There's customers there, and you said it at the start where you said people coming in, people wanted to buy, they were in, so they're looking for something. Well, there's an interest, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, they usually come in looking to buy maybe uh, you know, one PC or a laptop, and then they'd leave one for you know, grandmother, grandfather, children. I mean, it was brilliant. Um, and the more you're that is selling, but I think people get the the word selling wrong, and I think you're right, because you could see we were an exhibition today, and you'll see people at a stand, and they will they won't be proactive, they'll stand there and they'll think that is selling. For me, selling is is really fundamentally building relationships. That's for from all the best from from from my best selling, from the people that a lot of people that have worked for me and sold really, really well, um, you get two types typically, right? If they want to be in sales, you get you get somebody who's really okay. I just want to make a sale because I want to earn a load of commission. And what happens is is they um they'll burn 50% of the leads that you give them and they'll convert 50%, right? And they'll think that's quite a good ratio. But when you compare that to somebody that actually don't sell them anything. Because they're all we we've already been able to nurture, they did they want to buy something from us, they they need something from us. Go and build a relationship with them. Because that will that that will keep you instead, that will allow you to um sell, work with them for a long, long time. And you see that because and you and you you see that all the time, because there will be people that will come to me and say, Well, that that salesperson or that account manager we had, yeah. I mean, we bought it because we know you, we like the business, we like the brand, but I got it wasn't a great experience. Whereas I've got we had other people that have built relationships and and you know, seven years down the road that continue to buy from them, evolve, being able to do the upsell because there's a trust, you know. And in terms of because I I completely agree. I mean, it it's one of the easiest sayings in uh in any sort of it's because I think sales is a craft, it's a it's a specialty. If you look in uh America, sales is kind of up there with with um lawyers and kind of it's a really high respected industry, and I think sometimes it's all too easy for people to say, people buy from people, but then the reality is, and like to your point, I will walk around here today, and there'll be very few people probably that are proactive and engaging, and ultimately their businesses are paid cashed and kind of so I I take your point there. So you kind of see a PC world, PC worlds, PC world, god bless, and it still exists, still exists, but from then what? Not not then what? Why why sales? That's the bit I don't understand. So you've kind of paper round, motherboard, interpretable. Yeah, I mean there's been lots of other little things in it. Yeah, right. We were I used to get a group of guys together in my area, we used to go wash, knock on doors, wash cars, make a few quid doing that. And did you help people at PC World? Or were you were you kind of in your career, have you always were you, this is what I'm gonna do? Or were you kind of it set us up or something? I just wanted I just wanted to wanted to have a few quid, earn a few quid. Um, you know, buy my first car, bought Golf GTI, and a few more quid than everybody else. And what was the fair working sort of job you you went for? Did you because I'm assuming well I've the the the research on you is really difficult, but there's no university, I don't think. I went to university. Did you? Which one? So I went to university in London. I went for a year, I studied computer science. Uh yeah, I had I had a lot of fun in London. Too much. Too much. I think from somebody from from Canterbury moving to London for the first time at 18 or 19 years of age. I must have been 18. And you've been June, baby. And earning some cash. I went and worked at PC World in London. So I was earning money still. I mean, I did I did some of the uh courses, but it it did it um I I was more I was keen to get out there and do something. Um I kind of wasn't enjoying the course, but I came out of that and I came back to Canterbury and I was quite fortunate because I knew somebody in the area. There was a quite a well-known family that have got various businesses. And one of those businesses was like a PC world. It was like a Curries or Comet store where they sold what we what we used to be classed as brown and white goods. So white goods being things you put, you know, fridge freezers, etc., brown goods being all the other stuff, TVs and everything else. And he knew that I was kind of keen on um, you know, understood computing and understood a little bit about programming, and he could see the emergence of the internet. I mean, this is when we had dial-up modens, right? But as well as that, he could see the potential of someone that because a lot of the time when I speak to to entrepreneurs, there's there's there's there's certain figures that appear in certain stages of their career where they see something that um is really mouldable or or or someone that requires, you know, if I give them a chance and and the environment they're gonna flourish. How is that something you've carried on? How now you're kind of on the the other side? You can see it today. How many of the people that worked with us at the other businesses we've had today are now are now doing brilliantly within the channel? And actually always say, Well, it's we we learned from you, you know, it was brilliant, and they've they they continue that. But I I've I've I've had the same thing. That's that's mentorship, isn't it? I've been very lucky to have a lot of um good people that I've kind of listened to, learned from, taken some of their behaviours, the way they operate, and then do it myself, and then you just pass on that pattern. But you have to seek those people out, you have to be close to those people and build that relationship with it. And build that relationship. But that that's kind of where the entrepreneur, you know, you want to know whether entrepreneur squat really happened. I mean, I went and um because it's kind of what you're saying, sorry to show you, but what you're saying there is that definitely feels like you could quite easily have similar to, I guess, me, my dad, your dad, and been successful in businesses and worked for this uh successful family, done a great job there, and then maybe got a different job at another company in London, and you could have done a similar journey to say your dad or me. Whereas there's a bit on that journey where you've kind of gone, I I think I can I can kind of spread my wings and I always go with it. Yeah, my dad was a corporate guy. He's retired, yeah. He retired quite early actually, but he was in he was corporate. My mum was quite corporate. I just um I just always wanted to be either have either own a business or or own a and you don't always need to be just the owner, you can have a share in that success as well, right? There seems to be influences. Well, there's a big thing at the moment. You look at all if you're TikToking away, you know, you know, have your own business. Yes, it's great to have your own business, but you can also be part of a team that have a piece of a business as well, which actually I think sometimes bears fruit a little bit more. But you can shape, I suppose, from a from that position. The corporate world is you know it's great, but from the entrepreneurial side, you can shape the dynamic of a business and influence its direction. You don't necessarily, you to your point, need to be the owner, but you you can be a key, you know, key figure within that and go, right, this is the direction, this is the culture, these are the different values that we're gonna we're gonna look at. So what prompted you to go, right? I'm not gonna do the corporate dance because you could quite easily have become sales director, CEO within corporate businesses, different you've you've you've put your word rhymes with rock on the block and gone out and and done that. Was there a defining moment in there? Or was it just organically, you know, leaves in the wind, life, you know, you've just found yourself in this position and and top the opportunity. Well, it's people that I've worked for or with and I've seen them do it. You know, you you st when you when you sort of analyze life a little bit more, there's there's a lot of patterns that go on, right? If you look at history, we you know, things repeat themselves quite a lot. Okay, it may be slightly different, but you you there's a lot of patterns that happen. And so why why not look at people that have done it themselves, uh, been successful, um, take the best, put your slant on it, and give it a go. And it's not easy, yeah. It it depends uh uh uh w and where you're coming in at. You know, any startup business, for example, is extremely difficult. Well, that's that was there was a We caught up off air in the. I think a lot of the time people are guilty in the channel or any walk of life where they look at a founder or an entrepreneur 10, 20 years down their journey and and assume that yeah, it's all roses and everything's great, and and um they they they see the trappings of of of the hard work, they don't perhaps see the founder stage where you potentially secondary sacrifice, yeah. You're not going out, you're not seeing friends, you've got living in the toilets, even though you know, because you've got a team of people doing all the small things, not paying yourself a wage, making sure your staff are paid, and and and all those things. And you know, within that sort of journey, at which point did, and I've got to mention this because you've put it on there, did the apprentice sort of opportunity appear? Was it something that you you saw and thought, do you know what? I've got the gift of the gab and it's good publicity, or were you asked to go on it? How did that come about? My dad asked, my dad mentioned it a number of times to me. Why did you dad mention it? No, I just thought I'd be good on it, I think. So he kept he kept saying to me a number of times, I think you'd be good, you'd be good on that um show. I think at the time, you know, it's a long time ago now, it's 11, 12 years ago. Compliment though, for your dad to do that, because although and and like you know, we'll we'll shoot our marketing director with these chairs in a bit, but they're horrible, I think. Yeah, yeah. But for your dad to go, do you know what? On you know, seven, eight, nine million people watching it, I think you would stand out and be fantastic on that. And you know, it's various alliterations now, and there's there's a different, if I'm personal with it, I think it's more there's this people perhaps go on these things for not different business, it's maybe more influencer social stuff. But certainly when you were on it, it was very, very business focused, very pressurized environment. So your dad's kind of going, look, I know you'll handle it, and I think you'll do great. It's you know, look, maybe sometimes when you look back, you kind of go, Yeah, I didn't really watch it. No, no, no, I didn't really watch it. Yeah, and I got into something, I got into spit a bit of it. It was always for a job, wasn't it? It was always to have a job and and and and for earnings. And um you have to kind of ham it up a little bit. I was doing all right to get. I was doing all right, so I didn't feel like I needed to go and get a job with somebody I didn't know, but then the model changed where it it turned into an investment where it you know, and um yeah, you didn't want to Amstrad it would be. No, and ironically, um the bit the business plan I think I put together. I'm not sure how I'd be interesting if I look back at it, if it was any good, it probably probably was all right, but the the actual business plan was to take Union Street because I was at Union Street anyway. Yeah, because and took a sabbatical. I spoke with Tony, and and we basically agreed, look, take a sabbatical, go and do what you've got to do. You won't be long, come back. You know, I think it was a you won't be long, you'll be throwing us on we'll be six, seven weeks or something like that. And and the idea, I think we put the business plan was I I wanted to take Union Street more overseas. That was always the plan is to actually go and spread our wings a little bit more in areas like Benelux in Spain in France, because there there are, you know, there's there are channels in in those areas as well. It's not just the Union, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So um, but yeah, no, it's a great experience, and um, I had a lot of fun with it for about 18 to 24 months afterwards, a lot of fun. It was great from the similar to fun when you were at university for that first year, yeah, more fun. Um and um it was really good from a um a positioning perspective. I was because I'd already been in a create, I'd already been in the channel, he'd already been in the channel for a little while, although young, um, had been networking, going to the events, you know, do doing the hard yards of the 55,000 miles on the road, meeting people, building those relationships. So it kind of almost accelerated that. And, you know, um there were a few things that would happen at awards dues and uh and other things, and it it got you known a little bit more, well, a lot more, because it was very popular at the time. You you mentioned relationship. Did you find it because obviously capitalised on it as you should do, but did you find certain bits of it disingenuous where potentially people were kind of viewing you as a celebrity, or were you fully aware of that? And I understand now that perhaps my profile's raised a different, you know, up several notches, and I'm gonna utilize that with Union Street, kind of grow and and use that to my advantage. I was surprised. Um I was surprised at the reaction actually. The reaction from the channel was um and the people on you in it was really positive. Well didn't I surprise you? Um because I think when you put yourself out there, I think if you're not carefully, if you put yourself on a reality TV show, and that's ultimately what it is, okay, with a with a business twist to it, it can go one of number of ways. It can go very wrong for you if if you're, you know, and of course you've got you've got to remember you're in front of a camera, you've got a production team, they want you to behave in a certain way. I kind of struggled with it slightly, you know. They were telling me, you know, go on, you know you want to say it, you know, go on. And um, and and they want to build that for characters. Um, you know, um, I I I feel I could have done better on it. There's a lot of there's a lot of things that once you've been in it and you understand how the thing operates, what goes on behind the scenes and so forth. But um, I would have liked to have won it, of course, because it just just on the basis of winning, because we we we always like to yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean I I think I won a lot out of out of a hell of a lot out of it anyway. So it is awkward, isn't it? Sometimes when you put yourself out there. I mean, we're at you know, channel live today, there's potentially a traitor wandering around who is uh maybe using uh their notoriety for advantage, and God bless him to do that. So kind of fast forwarding and I'm conscious of time, yeah. Union Street, you sold it for £6.90, I believe. Um, drew that over what 13-14 years. We did several things. So, going back to where you asked, where the spark started, um built an e-commerce business that got to one and a half, two million rev with a small team, really interesting. Then got into recruitment, sold a company, or was involved with a company that got sold to a Deco. And interestingly, out of that, met a bloke who was trying to sell another recruitment company in Canterbury, a guy called Sean Marsh, who owned a software company, he was a bit of a software genius, owned a software company called Tempest. And Tempest were into billing as well. And that's really where my uh that's where how I got into channel. But how did you identify that? I didn't. He just said I got software, but I wanted to get into software because I because I knew I knew uh that's the way the world is going. It's a bit like today, you know the world's going to AI. Okay, we we couldn't have a huge conversation about that. Um, just understand what's happening there because ride the wave. We're gonna ride the wave of software, and ultimately that business ended up getting bought by Matt. In fact, the first acquisition, or one of the first acquisitions with probably the most successful entrepreneur we've seen, who I who I know, Matt Riley, bought um, he did his one of his first acquisitions in the Tempest office because we ended up selling him and signing him up as a customer. He ultimately ended up buying Tempest, which is ironic because he ended up buying Union Street as well. Yeah, yeah. So, as I told him, my memory's like the walkie charm. That's what I said to him. But yeah, so Tempest, then Union Street, Union Street. We were going through a private equity process. COVID hit. We had we had a great that was uh an 18-month process, really successful, loads of offers on the table, pretty much signed, going through all the DD. I had an incredible management team. We were rocking and rolling, off we were going to go and do all the wonderful things we wanted to do. Then COVID hit, the whole world felt like it was collapsing. Uh, and we ultimately decided, based upon the amount of work we did, the offer on the table that we would go and be, you know, uh be part of what was then a DW. So DWS, he had GearCom, and he had Union Street. And I could talk to you a lot about that and what we did there. I mean, we basically trebled the sort double, treble the size of the business, so did loads of winner ones. No, no, 100, but because it's a long company, it's another good good thing. Oh, he did a merger acquisition and a team of people. No, it's an amazing in in because the the bit as well is, and it's kind of segues into AI, uh, which I wanted to touch on is from the billing perspective, you've kind of seen an opportunity in terms of where software, you've got you know, great team around you, sure, but the market's kind of moving to that. And you know, another genius, Matt Riley, is kind of going, yeah, because if I incorporate billing into my platform, makes our partners really sticky. We've got billing, I've got all different solutions, it's kind of a real key fundamental because you're billing billing systems, is typically, I would imagine, not something that people shop around a lot and go, I'm gonna change, I'm gonna do this. It's not broke, exactly. That's the term. And and kind of now we kind of fast forward and we're looking at the advent of AI. And AI means a million things to a million people. Obviously, you're um starting a business for your genie, and every reseller I speak to says, Yeah, I want to use AI, I want to automate, I want to take some costs out of my business, yeah. I want to, you can use AI for lead generation, for selling, for every facet of a business, but no one I speak to really understands what they're gonna how they're gonna use it over the six, twelve, eighteen months. It's just AI. Yeah. And I just wanted to kind of from your side, in terms of the channel, where do you see what what is you what's your view in terms of how they're looking at it, and what do you think are sort of the opportunities, but also the the sort of dangers that that you're seeing from a technology perspective. Okay, so I've spent I've had the luxury of spending the last three years um completely consumed by AI automation, and I'd already invested in a small integration automation business, which we we we kind of threw out, we we threw out some noise um three years ago, and actually ended up getting quite a lot of interest in it, especially at a carrier level. Again, we can there's a lot we could talk about there, and I think we've got we've got the time, but you know, there's they need to do a lot more to be able to service uh channel in terms of APIs, right? Don't worry too much about building wrappers or AI to just just build quality APIs that people that are building solutions, especially with AI, can consume. The market will work itself out. So I've had that luxury, and what what you find is that actually a lot of people today see AI um as gen AI. So they're using an LLM and they're chatting and they're learning how to prompt. And again, we're probably using that at 20% of this capacity. You know, there's a whole world that you can understand and what you can do there. But then you learn a little bit more about I was interested to see how it works, right? A little bit like the computer analogy. What's in the box? You know, where's the motherboard? What's the motherboard? What's fitting in? And you start to learn about saying at the start of your career because you you you want to understand. Well, you know, you need some curiosity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've got these things called neural networks, and then you've got machine learning, deep learning. By the way, these I've I've I've I've learned a lot about this stuff, and you don't want to because you go down deep rabbit holes. You know, you go into computer vision. But this is the point, right? Because people are looking at it. I'm not finished, right? Then you go, then you go into um synthetic data, and what you realize is this there's a whole stack, right, of just it's not just one thing, there's a whole load of things, uh, things happening all at the same time. Then you've got you've got people that are building out the chips and the infrastructure. They're the ones all making the money at the uh, by the way, at the moment. They're all making the money, everybody's buying them from crazy, and it's a bit of they're kind of paying each other and they're working out. Then you've got the frontier models, which are the ones you'll know, the chat GBTs, the LLM guys, right? And at the moment, they're not making any money, and they're just it, they're just it's pouring cash and cash in. And then you've got a couple of other layers, and then you've got where we sit, right? Where can you potentially use that technology, build applications, uh add it into what you've already got to be able to monetize it? And I think that's it's difficult. There's 1.7 million AI startups today. 1.7 million all trying to get wallet share. But this is natural, you know, when you've got something new that happens, you're gonna get loads of people, it's throwing loads of that views. What do you think? Because you know, you're talking to a lot of resellers, you're seeing a lot of people, especially when they're selling UC capability, they're they're adding some their own AI, you know, around that to understand a little bit more about the cool recording or the communication that comes in. I mean, that's quite a good use case. If I'm, you know, depending, it depends if I've got if I need it, you know, uh uh agents are the big thing now, right? But agents really, fundamentally, right today, uh uh a workflow, workflow automation with reasoning, right? And depends what the UK you you could spend a lot of money wasting a lot of time trying to automate things, you know, like you're looking at your inbox. Yeah, no, you can do that yourself at the moment, but but I see where it's going, and I and it's very broad. It is it's so broad, and I think it's it's definitely one that I'm gonna nick you to do to do a proper session on it because I see and unconscious of time, I've got my Marty director staring at me rightly so. I see the benefits of the technology in the channel, but then I see from a human sort of I'm a relationship builder, I see the the challenge on the relationship bit because I see authenticity under attack a little bit in terms of chat GPT and and people writing and appearing in a way that is contrary to exactly who they are. It's incredible, isn't it? And you meet them and you go communicate one way, and then they call it slop now. Oh yeah, and I think I see that as a big threat because, like you said, they start relationships, and this is kind of the thing I my personal view is I think everything's underpinned with relationships. And sometimes I see people's posts or I see people's adverts, and I go, that's not you. Yeah, fundamentally not you. Yeah, and that's it's dangerous as well because a model, depending on its own bias, could make you sound all that we could have a huge conversation about this for every positive, and I'm massively bullish, right? I want AI, I think it's incredible. Again, thinking about patterns, right? If you that that's fundamentally what sits underneath it's patterns. So if you've got enough patterns, it's gonna make people healthier, it's gonna fix poverty, it's gonna fix stuff. But then there are so many you could switch that in terms of the negatives. I think it's got it's got it could potentially be worse than social media in terms of what the behaviours and what happened with it. That's why I think where people could go with it. And more things like this, more discussions are important, and I think you know, I can't thank you enough for coming on today. It's you said how long it'll be before a minute, we'll be able to fill it like literally, we could probably go on for a significant chunk of time because we've we've hardly given credit to a number of things we'll be talking about. But I think from the channel perspective, to to to grow and to to develop and to start from you know Canterbury, London. But the the bit that I really stands out for me, Vincent, is going from you could have done the corporate dance, could quite easily have done the corporate dance, but it's not wasn't your journey, wasn't what you wanted to do. You could quite easily not be here and doing something else, but starting a business, you want to grow again, the bug, you've got the bug, achieve cash, all those good things that that make the channel what it is. I think AI, I definitely encourage um any business leaders looking at that. And how do I implement it? What are the threats to reach out to expert like Vincent to kind of get that intel because it could make your business, but equally, I think it could kill your business. But thank you so much for your time. Pleasure. Sorry again for the chair. Um, this is from next, by the way. It's £20.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

I'll send you you you wanted you wanted the link, so you'll be able to get that for you. Fantastic, doesn't it? Share's my points