BT and Daisy join forces in £70m partnership

LANCASHIRE telecoms and IT firm Daisy Group has agreed a six-year cloud communications partnership with BT.

As part of the deal, which the businesses say will generate £70m over the period, Daisy’s services will be migrated to BT Wholesale’s cloud platform over the next 18 months.

The deal gives Daisy and its customers access to BT’s Wholesale Hosted Centrex (WHC) platform. The WHC platform provides customers with unified communications services, which are hosted in the cloud rather than over the traditional private branch exchange service. Features include cloud call recording, HD voice services, call analytics and web collaboration.

Gerry McQuade, chief executive of BT Wholesale and Ventures, said: “Many businesses are now hosting their communication services using cloud technology to make them accessible to all, using any fixed or mobile device, at any time, wherever they might be.

“BT and Daisy Group have been pioneers of that trend, so I’m delighted that we’re coming together to bring customers a powerful combination of experience, scale and expertise.

“We believe the rapid pace of change will continue over the coming years, and we’re looking forward to helping both Daisy and BT customers reap the benefits that change will bring.”

Neil Muller, chief executive of Daisy Group said: “This collaboration with BT ensures that we are at the forefront of providing the latest in cloud solutions, increasing customers’ levels of capability and confidence as they continue to manage the relentlessness of technological change.

“I am hugely proud of Daisy’s relationship with BT and this is a perfect opportunity to further enhance our capability and provide our customers and partners with an industry-leading cloud solution.”

The deal will also allow Daisy Group to re-sell BT’s platform services to Daisy Wholesale partners and through Daisy Retail direct. Daisy Group has more than 60,000 customers and 1,500 resellers in this segment.