“Digital accountability is here.”

In this special Technology Reseller News and Cloud Communications Alliance podcast, Tommy Sheahan, CEO of CompleteSMS, discusses the growing compliance burden around application-to-person messaging—and the opportunity it creates for service providers.

CompleteSMS, formerly Red Oxygen, has been in the SMS market for more than 25 years. The company helps businesses, software vendors and channel partners manage messaging compliance, registration, delivery and cost allocation.

Sheahan says sending business text messages is no longer as simple as connecting to an API and sending traffic.

Organizations increasingly need to document who they are messaging, why they are messaging them, how consent was obtained, what content is being sent and how opt-outs are handled.

“We help businesses get compliant, stay compliant and manage the costs associated with that compliance,” Sheahan says.

CompleteSMS also monitors messaging activity to help identify cases where approved traffic begins drifting into another use case, potentially creating delivery problems or compliance risk.

The company’s services are particularly relevant for smaller organizations that do not have dedicated messaging compliance teams.

For MSPs, MSSPs, CPaaS providers and other channel partners, Sheahan says that complexity can become a business opportunity.

CompleteSMS can help partners manage registration and ongoing compliance while also allocating campaign, carrier and messaging costs to individual customers.

“We can help turn this from a cost center into a profit center,” Sheahan says.

The regulatory environment is also becoming more complex globally, with different messaging requirements emerging across countries and individual U.S. states.

For enterprises, Sheahan’s message is straightforward: do not assume an internal compliance team understands the rapidly changing rules surrounding business SMS.

Visit CompleteSMS.com to learn more and start a free trial.

“The biggest misconception is that SMBs are not using AI or benefiting from it.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Sharon Florentine, Manager Research Analyst at GTIA, discusses new research showing that small and midsized businesses are already seeing meaningful benefits from AI—and creating a growing advisory opportunity for MSPs and IT service providers.

GTIA, the Global Technology Industry Association, is a nonprofit membership organization serving IT service providers around the world. Its new research, End-User AI Adoption: How ITSP Customers Are Really Using AI, is based on responses from 520 SMB and microbusiness decision-makers.

Florentine says the research challenges the idea that AI adoption is primarily an enterprise phenomenon.

“The majority of SMBs are using AI, and they are seeing a lot of positive benefits from it,” she says.

According to the study, 84 percent of respondents reported positive outcomes from AI. Businesses are using AI to improve productivity, move faster and support areas including marketing, sales, IT and security.

Many are starting with tools already embedded in platforms such as Microsoft and Google, along with standalone services such as ChatGPT.

Governance becomes the next priority

As AI use expands, however, governance and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly important.

Florentine says security risks were among the biggest concerns identified by respondents. Attackers are using AI to improve phishing and other threats, while defenders are using it for threat intelligence, vulnerability management and other security functions.

“You cannot have AI without governance and cybersecurity,” Florentine says.

That creates a significant opportunity for MSPs and ITSPs.

Respondents specifically identified AI advisory services as something they would like from their technology providers. Those services could include identifying AI opportunities, evaluating risk, creating acceptable-use policies and helping customers expand successful AI projects.

Florentine says the organizations seeing the greatest value tend to take a deliberate approach. They assign responsibility for AI to an executive, team or council, establish guidelines, monitor results and proactively address risks.

For MSPs, one of the best places to begin may be their own AI journey.

“Take your own experience and use that as an example for guidance,” Florentine says. “Show customers how you have solved problems using AI and help them do the same.”

The broader message is that SMBs do not necessarily need to be convinced to use AI. Many are already there. What they increasingly need is trusted guidance on how to use it safely, strategically and at scale.

GTIA members can access the full End-User AI Adoption research at GTIA.org.

Chahna Soni, Vice President Corporate Relations at Ecoreco (Eco Recycling Limited), joined Technology Reseller News Publisher Doug Green for a special ITAD Association podcast examining the company’s role in IT asset disposition, electronics recycling, data security, and the circular economy in India.

Founded in 2005, Ecoreco provides end-to-end ITAD and electronic waste management services across India. The company manages collection and logistics, asset tracking, data sanitization, refurbishment, resale, and recycling within its own ecosystem. Its capabilities cover a broad range of IT and electronic equipment, from laptops, mobile devices and servers to networking, telecom, medical, laboratory, and other electronic equipment.

Soni emphasized that Ecoreco seeks to recover value from equipment whenever possible rather than automatically sending retired technology for recycling. “These assets can be refurbished and resold back in the market, ensuring that we somewhere maintain circular economy,” she said. Equipment that has reached the end of its useful life is processed to recover materials, including critical and precious metals.

Data security is another major focus. Ecoreco offers data sanitization as well as on-site physical destruction through its mobile “Recycling on Wheels” technology. Customers can witness media destruction at their own locations, with CCTV footage, audit trails, and certificates documenting the process. Soni said this approach provides organizations with both secure chain of custody and evidence that retired data-bearing equipment has been properly handled.

Ecoreco also provides services beyond India through a partner network covering more than 126 countries, allowing multinational organizations to coordinate ITAD programs through a single relationship. As a member of the ITAD Association, formerly ASCDI, the company brings extensive experience in India’s rapidly developing formal electronics recycling and IT asset management market.

Learn more about Ecoreco: Ecoreco

Learn more about the ITAD Association: ITAD Association / ASCDI

Part 3 of the SmarTrak series looks at why useful AI begins with accurate, organized and connected customer data.

AI can only be as useful as the data behind it.

In Part 3 of our continuing Technology Reseller News podcast series with SmarTrak, Jay Pearce and I focus on one of the most important – and often overlooked – steps in getting ready for artificial intelligence: cleaning up the data first.

For Cisco partners, critical customer information can be spread across contracts, subscriptions, renewals, installed assets, adoption records and other systems. When that information is fragmented, incomplete or inconsistent, even sophisticated AI tools may have difficulty producing useful recommendations.

The conversation looks at why AI readiness is really a data-readiness issue. Before partners can rely on AI for forecasting, automation or identifying opportunities, they need a reliable foundation that gives the technology a clear picture of the customer relationship.

That means bringing information together, improving accuracy and making sure the data reflects what customers own, what is approaching renewal and where activity is taking place across the lifecycle.

Clean, connected data can also give partners better visibility before AI is added. It can make it easier to spot gaps, prepare for renewal conversations and understand where additional services or customer engagement may be needed.

The larger point of the episode is simple: do not begin an AI strategy by asking what AI can do. Begin by asking whether the underlying data is good enough for AI to work with.

As Cisco partners look for practical ways to use AI across customer success, renewals and lifecycle management, getting the data foundation right may be the most important first step.

This is Part 3 of the SmarTrak series on helping Cisco partners strengthen lifecycle visibility, improve renewal readiness and uncover new opportunities across the customer relationship.

Podcast: Clean Data Before Artificial Intelligence

Series: SmarTrak for Cisco Partners

GCH Technologies: Building Trust Into Business-to-Consumer Communications, Podcast, GCH Technologies is focused on enabling trusted business-to-consumer communications across messaging, voice and emerging communications technologies. The company works alongside wireless operators, carriers, aggregators, verification providers and industry organizations rather than competing with those participants

By Doug Green

“Trust doesn’t happen by accident.”

That observation captures the central theme of my conversation with Cliff Holsenbeck, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of GCH Technologies: how the telecom industry can make it easier for legitimate businesses to communicate with consumers while making trusted communications channels increasingly difficult for fraudsters to exploit. GCH Technologies is focused on enabling trusted business-to-consumer communications across messaging, voice and emerging communications technologies. The company works alongside wireless operators, carriers, aggregators, verification providers and industry organizations rather than competing with those participants. GCH is also the operator of the U.S. Short Code Registry, giving the company a unique position within the infrastructure that supports business messaging.

During the podcast, Holsenbeck discusses why trust has become such an important issue as consumers increasingly rely on messaging and other digital communications to interact with businesses. The technology itself has evolved rapidly, but many of the administrative processes behind trusted communications remain fragmented, manual and inconsistent. Legitimate businesses can face lengthy onboarding processes, while carriers and service providers must simultaneously prevent bad actors from gaining access to the same trusted channels. The challenge, Holsenbeck explains, is finding the right balance.

Businesses need efficient ways to establish their identities and begin communicating with customers. At the same time, the communications ecosystem needs confidence that those businesses are who they claim to be and are using those channels for legitimate purposes. That means trust begins well before a message or call reaches the consumer. Identity verification, consistent onboarding processes and greater transparency across the ecosystem are increasingly important components of trusted communications. GCH is addressing those issues through vendor-neutral platforms designed to modernize administrative and onboarding processes while maintaining rigorous verification standards.

Artificial intelligence also has a role. GCH is using AI to provide better information and stronger intelligence during onboarding and verification, helping ecosystem participants make more informed decisions while reducing manual work and improving consistency. But one of the larger messages from the conversation is that no single company can solve the trust problem. Wireless operators, carriers, messaging providers, verification partners, technology companies and industry organizations all have a role in protecting consumers while preserving access for legitimate communications.

Looking ahead, Holsenbeck sees business messaging becoming richer and more interactive, with AI, automation and new communications formats creating new opportunities for businesses and consumers. Those advances will also make identity and trust even more important. As communications become increasingly automated and sophisticated, knowing who is communicating — and why — becomes a foundational part of protecting consumers and maintaining confidence in the communications ecosystem. GCH expects the industry to continue moving toward more automated, API-driven processes while increasing collaboration between carriers, brands, verification providers and industry organizations. The goal is straightforward: make trusted communications easier for legitimate businesses and harder for fraudsters. And, as Holsenbeck puts it, that trust doesn’t happen by accident.

Listen in to the podcast between Todd Rychecky, president of Gearlinx, and Don Witt of the Channel Daily News from Telecom Reseller. They discuss how GearLinx helps organizations maintain secure visibility and control of critical infrastructure during network outages, focusing on the “outage readiness gap.” Todd explains the company’s solutions, including the NR4400 Network Resilience Platform and the Xero cloud management tool. They cover five key questions for assessing a customer’s recovery risk, such as whether teams can still access equipment during an outage and the importance of independent recovery paths.

“We work for you—the partner.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Mark Sher, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Intermedia, discusses how the company’s embedded Microsoft Teams solution can help MSPs simplify business communications, strengthen customer relationships and create new recurring revenue.

Intermedia is an intelligent communications provider serving small and midsized businesses primarily through the channel. More than 80 percent of the company’s revenue comes through partners, shaping how Intermedia develops, deploys and supports its products.

Sher says businesses ultimately need communications technology to accomplish two things: enable employees to collaborate internally and connect the business with customers, vendors and other outside parties.

Microsoft Teams has become highly effective at the first. Intermedia’s embedded Teams solution is designed to bring voice and broader external communications into the same environment.

“To the extent that someone is already using Microsoft Teams for collaboration, we can bring in that second piece in a really cohesive way,” Sher says.

Intermedia embeds its communications capabilities directly inside Teams while running voice on Intermedia’s own network. Customers therefore do not need to purchase a separate Microsoft Teams Voice license.

That architecture also provides an additional business continuity option. If Teams becomes unavailable, users can access Intermedia’s communications services through the web and continue working until Teams returns.

The offering extends beyond basic voice. Intermedia supports SMS, AI-powered call recap, archiving and broader customer experience capabilities, including omnichannel CX, AI agent assist and AI supervisor assist.

Partners can also tailor the communications package at the individual-user level, allowing customers to pay for the capabilities particular employees actually require.

For MSPs, Sher says the larger opportunity is economic.

Many Intermedia partners operate as true resellers, purchasing services wholesale and reselling them under their own customer relationships. That enables partners to recognize top-line revenue, establish their own pricing and retain the customer relationship rather than functioning simply as agents.

“The partner owns the customer relationship,” Sher says. “Our customer is the partner.”

That model also allows MSPs to bundle communications with security, desktop support, networking and other managed services, creating a more differentiated offering than simply reselling another Teams license.

Visit Intermedia to learn more about its embedded Teams solution and partner program.

“Hybrid used to be a transition strategy. It shouldn’t be anymore. It should be the strategy.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Tim Mandell of Leaseweb continues an ongoing discussion about infrastructure strategy and why MSPs should think workload-first rather than defaulting every application to the cloud.

Leaseweb is a private and sovereign infrastructure-as-a-service provider offering colocation, public cloud, private cloud, bare metal and other infrastructure options. Mandell says the company’s technology-agnostic model makes it a natural fit for MSPs because Leaseweb can provide the underlying infrastructure without competing for the MSP’s customer relationship.

The key shift, Mandell says, is moving from a cloud-first mindset to a workload-first strategy.

Different workloads have different requirements. A predictable, repetitive workload may be more cost-effective on dedicated infrastructure. Applications that need to scale rapidly may belong in public cloud. Sensitive workloads may be better suited to private cloud, while latency-sensitive applications may require edge infrastructure.

“Not everything is optimized from a performance or cost standpoint in a cloud environment,” Mandell says.

That makes hybrid infrastructure more than a temporary stop on the way to public cloud.

MSPs should instead treat public cloud, private cloud, bare metal, dedicated servers and edge infrastructure as tools that can be combined according to the customer’s actual business needs.

Choice can also become a competitive advantage. Mandell warns against placing every customer into the same stack simply because it is familiar.

“If you start looking under the hood, you may find opportunities to improve performance and significantly reduce cost,” he says. “That creates better margins and better value for the customer.”

Start with the workload

Mandell recommends that MSPs begin with a workload assessment rather than a technology discussion.

Ask what the workload does, what success looks like, what performance is required, and what business outcome the customer is trying to achieve.

MSPs should then document why each workload is placed where it is, establish measurable financial and performance benchmarks, and revisit those decisions regularly.

Quarterly business reviews can provide a natural opportunity to determine whether the original placement still makes sense. Regulatory changes, data sovereignty requirements, AI workloads and new customer demands may all require workloads to move over time.

The larger goal is to become a long-term trusted adviser rather than simply selling a particular infrastructure stack.

“Ask better questions, listen more and understand what the customer is actually trying to accomplish,” Mandell says.

Visit Leaseweb.com to learn more.

“We built CueTime to make stage timing cleaner, faster and more efficient—for both the production team and the presenter.”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Eyal Simko, founder of CueTime, discusses how the company is modernizing stage timing and presenter communication for live events, corporate environments, education, government and AV integration.

CueTime combines a confidence monitor with an integrated stage timer, giving presenters a single line of sight for notes, timing and messages from the production team.

The system can display count-up and countdown timers along with discreet instructions such as “speak louder” or “roam the stage,” allowing offstage teams to communicate with presenters without interrupting the audience experience.

Simko says the platform was developed from more than two decades of experience in event production, where traditional timer systems can create unnecessary cabling, setup time and stage clutter.

CueTime can be deployed in as little as 26 seconds from its flight case to an operational system.

“It’s about streamlining the process for the people behind the scenes while enhancing the experience for the presenter,” Simko says.

The company offers several configurations, including its Elite, Elite LP low-profile model and standalone Pro timer. Devices support touchscreen operation, Power over Ethernet, HDMI output and over-the-air firmware updates.

CueTime can also integrate with platforms including Crestron, Q-SYS and Bitfocus Companion, opening opportunities beyond traditional event production.

Universities can use the system for classroom timing and examinations. Government organizations can deploy it for meetings and voting sessions, while enterprises can use CueTime in conference rooms, auditoriums and executive presentation spaces.

The platform can operate over wired networks, Wi-Fi or its own internal hotspot, enabling use even where internet connectivity is unavailable.

Simko says that flexibility also makes CueTime an opportunity for AV integrators, MSPs and other channel partners looking to expand into collaboration and presentation environments.

“Any space being used for meetings or presentations needs some way to stay on track,” Simko says.

Visit CueTime.io to learn more and try the platform.

“We’re helping businesses answer a simple question: why is somebody calling me, and was it because of my ad?”

In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Todd Fisher of CTM returns for a hands-on look at how the platform connects marketing attribution with contact center activity—and how AI can help businesses understand what actually happens after a prospect picks up the phone.

CTM brings together inbound and outbound calling, web chat, web forms and integrations with platforms including Salesforce, HubSpot, Clio and Google Ads. The goal is to give marketing and sales teams a shared view of customer activity rather than leaving those functions in separate silos.

Fisher demonstrates how CTM can analyze a completed call once the transcript is available. Businesses can create AI-driven workflows that ask specific questions about each conversation, including whether the caller was a qualified lead, what product or service they wanted, their sentiment, the outcome of the call and other details important to the business.

“You can ask any number of questions about the outcome of a phone call,” Fisher says.

Those insights can then be analyzed across hundreds or thousands of conversations.

An insurance company, for example, could determine whether calls originated from a specific advertising campaign, why prospects called, what price points generated interest and whether customers were responding to the brand or another factor.

Healthcare organizations can examine insurance coverage, treatments being sought or other characteristics of incoming inquiries. Automotive businesses can automatically identify the year, make and model discussed during calls.

For marketers, that creates a much clearer connection between advertising spend and actual customer intent. For sales and contact center leaders, the same data can provide visibility into agent performance and why qualified prospects did—or did not—convert.

Fisher says this level of intelligence is no longer limited to large enterprises.

For MSPs, CTM represents an opportunity to bring sophisticated call tracking, attribution and AI analysis to smaller businesses that may not have dedicated marketing analytics or contact center teams.

The platform includes prebuilt AI prompts for functions such as lead scoring, call summaries, referral sources, outcomes and agent performance, helping partners and customers get started without building everything from scratch.

CTM can also provide the underlying phone platform, allowing organizations to manage agents, inbound and outbound calling, campaign tracking and integrations from the same environment.

“The use case of the business drives how we set it up,” Fisher says.

Visit CTM.com to learn more.