The first day was an extended Excel Certification Course given in person to include those above plus two attendees from our distributor in Hong Kong and 5 others from local Integrators; overall the quality of the class was first rate with some very experienced individuals.

The first day went very smoothly, with a welcoming talk from Nadeen Tisi, International Sales Director and Tony Kwok, the Excel Sales Manager, followed by introductions around the room. The extended Excel Certification Course would usually take approx 4.5 hrs to deliver in person with live hands on experience of Cat6 and 6_A cable and outlet termination followed by an online examination. Unfortunately the wireless speed available in the hotel was not up to the task of 11 people taking the test in conjunction, therefore the decision was made to spend the time covering past projects and revising the content of the course. I am glad to say that everyone who has now taken the test has passed with flying colours.

The second day was focussed on 4 individuals, the Excel Distributor from New Zealand, plus their leading Integrator and our Regional Sales Manager for China, based in Taiwan. I have to say at this point having been out for dinner with them the night before the second stage, they are one of the most interesting and knowledgeable groups I have come across and were also great fun to be with.

The content of the 2^nd day started with, how best to deliver the content of the first day, this said given the experience of the group it was soon expanded after lunch to look at Installation Inspection, on how to actually audit what was and wasn’t a good standards compliant installation.

The afternoon proved to be a very rewarding element for me as well as I learnt things about Installation practices in both New Zealand and Taiwan and it was more of an open forum for debate rather than a teaching session.

Unfortunately it had to close by late afternoon as I had to chase over to Hong Kong Airport for the next stage of my visit with an evening flight to Taiwan, always an interesting experience as the flights are always packed and the pitch of the seats are not designed for someone of 6ft plus. Thankfully they are only 90mins long.

The seminar was part of a 2 week trip to the Far East that will be covered in more detail in subsequent Blogs.

The venue for the seminar was a major hotel in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, in Eastern China, about 100 miles from Shanghai, to give an idea of its size the municipal district has a population larger than that of London, and boy do you notice it when you are there. If you think you see traffic in London it is nothing compared to Hangzhou, thankfully we had a car and driver provided by our partner that took us everywhere in a top of the range Land Rover Discovery.

To give another bit of insight we were actually staying at the Hyatt Regency close the lake front in Hangzhou and the parade of shops that also ran along the lake front, included official outlets for Gucci, Dunhill & Burberry to name just 3. The last two names and that of the car chosen to ferry Myself, Nadeen Tisi, International Sales Director and Andrew Percival our Managing Director around give an indication of the great respect and desire for British Brands locally, as they are seen as a sign of quality. One of the reasons they cited for wanting the relationship with Excel Networking, was the fact that the brand is owned by Mayflex and the company has been in the same ownership for over 95 years, it was a major plus point in the negotiations.

The event was an afternoon seminar that started with the formal signing of the contracts between the companies and was followed by brief corporate presentations from Andrew Percival and Nadeen Tisi plus Peter the Sales Director of our partner.

This was then followed up by a local government official giving a short presentation to the 80+ delegates, wishing the two organisations well.

My involvement was to cover both Category 6 and Category 6_A offerings from Excel Networking, to make it interesting I used a number of well known reference sites as examples thankfully my preparation had been pretty much spot on, as at the end of each slide I handed over to our Local Sales Manager to translate what I had said and still achieved all this in the allotted 45mins. I had been warned to expect a number of the delegates to get up and leave the room, I am pleased to say I only had one and even he came back after answering a phone call, plus I had 3-4 late arrivals turn up as I was speaking.

The audience was made up of integrators, installers, local end-users and consultants, most notable was the IT Manager of a well known Global Compliance company that came up to me afterwards and wanted to exchange business cards.

At the Coffee break Andrew was interviewed by a local magazine which will hopefully provide some welcome coverage of both the brand and the relationship.

After the final presentation was given we had a quick break before going to a top local restaurant for a banquet with the VIP guests, which was an interesting experience, some very fine food and some dishes I had never experienced before, overall a very good night before being taken back to our hotel for a good night’s sleep ahead of a travelling on to the next venue, a great start to a very busy fortnight.

I think of Brian Cox, and a very famous English naturalist, Charles Darwin, when I stumble across the answer, and, that is, that it must be evolution. The evolution of product and design. Excel is a system that is constantly evolving. From its origins as a thought in 1999 on a boat in France and the introduction of essentials from Mayflex soon after to Cat7_A F/FTP cable or its new reduced diameter F/FTP Cat6_A cable, it’s always moving forwards. Always branching into new verticals and markets and above all always daring to try something new…evolve

You really do have to look backwards to see into the future…

The good news doesn’t just stop there, for a second year running we are the number one supplier of copper cable in the UK with a market share of 24%, again this grew by 2% and we’ve increased our share of the multimode fibre by 1% to a total of 9%.

We really couldn’t do this without our team and more importantly our customers, so may I take this opportunity to thank you all.

We did it!  Excel was voted as ‘Cabling Supplier of the Year’ for a third successive year in the highly respected Network Computing Awards 2013.

Thanks to all of you that voted for us to make this a Hat-Trick.

We beat off stiff competition from Brand-Rex (runners up), TE Connectivity (formerly Krone), Belden, Nexans, Panduit and Systimax to take the award for a third year.

Read more about it ……

The other sections of the spreadsheet that covers containment calculations for flat containment, basket / ladder rack and conduit have also been updated to include the Category 7_A cables that are available in the Excel portfolio.

I hope this spreadsheet is of use, and we welcome feedback and ideas for further improving the tools available to assist with the design and installation of Excel systems.

Distributed building systems covers a range of applications and installations such as: Access Points, Lighting Control, Environmental control, Power monitoring, etc. These have been serviced by cabling systems, applications and protocols that are many and varied. Some naturally following the methodology of balanced copper (twisted pair category cable) and fibre optic structured cabling in a star model format. Whereas, others have their own cable, connectors, and cabling models (ring, branch, star etc).

This new standard brings together the needs of the Distributed Building Systems inline with structured cabling. The standard allows for connection to structured cabling and makes allowances for the fact that some of these systems have management equipment nearer the outlet and for example “daisy chain” devices.

The good thing about the new standard is that it adds importance to structured cabling and how that it is truly part of the infrastructure in a building. For further information, please do see my White Paper available by clicking here. Please keep an eye on our Blog for news on the progress of the introduction of this new standard.

I’m really pleased with the finished catalogue, it not only looks great and is clean and easy to use, but we’ve actually added back in all of the products that are available from Excel, rather than just featuring our core best selling products and listing the full range on the website, which has been the case for the last couple of versions.  We’ve literally added in a further 80 pages!

This latest edition includes new products such as the Excel 0.5U panel, Excel Keystone V Panel, MTP panels and cassettes, PDUs and we’ve also added in a comprehensive ‘accessories’ section that includes numerous products to aid the user with installing the Excel product range.

So if you haven’t yet seen a copy please take a look at the new Excel Product Guide.

We’d love to make it a hat trick and win the award for a third year running.

Please vote for Excel by visiting www.networkcomputingawards.co.uk and click on ‘Vote Now’

Category = CABLING SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR – Please vote Excel

Thanks to all of you that voted to get us shortlisted – please can you now vote again and hopefully we will pick up the award for a third year running.

Whilst you’re at it can you please also vote for Mayflex as the ‘Distributor of the Year’ and hopefully we can then take away two awards on the evening.

The voting ends on 5th March 2013

Thanks for your help

Excel has won the Network Computing ‘Cabling Supplier of the Year’ award for the last two years and we’d love to make it a hat trick!

Please vote for Excel by visiting www.networkcomputingawards.co.uk and click on ‘Nominate Now’

Category = CABLING SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR   -   Please vote Excel

Hopefully if we get nominated for the awards then we will require your assistance once again to vote for Excel.  We will keep you posted!