Email has been a mainstay of business life for years, but with the advent of Covid-19 and the widespread adoption of remote work, the work-from-anywhere model has become the new norm, thus skyrocketing the demand for these multiple enterprise communication tools to cater to the evolving needs of remote teams. An opportunity not to be missed, Telco providers are even starting to offer bundle packages for telecommunications service plus unified communication solutions. 

IT and Communications company Comms Group (ASX: CCG) now gets a bigger piece of the piefor this interesting opportunity, having signed an agreement extension with Vodafone Business for five years. The agreement involves the supply of Microsoft Operator Connect automation, self-service, and provisioning tools, along with related services.

This new 5-year supply agreement, after which the service will be provided on a month-to-month basis will see Comms Group deliver zero-touch, self-service provisioning, orchestration and automation of Microsoft Teams Calling and additional platforms. Meanwhile, Vodafone Business will continue to access bespoke Teams Direct Routing deployment services and related services. 

Vodafone Business have committed to a minimum monthly charge of $30,000 per month commencing 1 October 2023, and have identified pipeline opportunities of new users over the extended contract period that could add new revenue streams to Comms Group over time. The initial deployment of the service has commenced and is expected to be completed by June 2023.

Other than delivering service to Vodafone Business’ Enterprise Team, in which one of its services is to integrate Microsoft 365 with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to service multinational corporations, Comms Group’s service will also be deployed in Vodafone UK and Germany. Additional operating entities within Vodafone Group are expected to sign-on to the service once the initial roll-out is complete. As part of the deployment of services, Vodafone Business will be provided automation tools to provide fast turn-up capability to their existing Microsoft Teams product portfolio.

Commenting on the partnership, Peter McGrath, Comms Group’s Managing Director said, “We are delighted to extend and expand our partnership with Vodafone to support Vodafone’s moves into offering the very best unified communications experience globally with extensive coverage to service the world’s largest enterprises. 

We have a close and growing relationship with Vodafone and are pleased to be able to work alongside them providing the latest generation unified communications services globally.”

Comms Group provides a full range of IT and Communications services from the Cloud including IT managed services, cloud hosting and cloud communications. Its domestic SME corporate services are branded Next Telecom and onPlatinum, while its global operations are branded Comms Group Global.

In its April 2023 business update, Comms Group expected to deliver approximately $200k in annualised savings by the end of June 2023 with a further $100k per annum in FY24. The Company has undergone restructuring which is expected to deliver around $2 million of annualised operating cost savings, mostly to be realised in the June 2023 quarter. 

All in all, the business remains confident that it can achieve underlying EBITDA of more than $5 million for FY23, and underlying annualised EBITDA of approximately $7 million (which includes corporate overhead costs of $2 million) on a full year basis.

One of the restructuring processes includes recent re-letting of excess office space in the Sydney CBD, which is generating $240k in rent income per annum to offset existing costs.