On 2nd May every year, we celebrate The Network Collective’s birthday, and it’s a great moment to remind ourselves why The Network Collective (TNC) exists, and to renew our mission and our commitment to our customers.

We sat down with Founder and industry expert John Waterhouse, who shares the story behind The Network Collective, the challenges we overcame, and the vision that continues to drive us forward.

What was the problem you wanted TNC to solve?

The problem we have been solving for the last 21 years is the same problem we are solving today – network and telecoms services are the foundations on which every organisation builds its IT strategy, but network and telecoms services are complicated and the market changes really quickly.  Because organisations only develop their strategies every few years, that makes it hard for them to build up the knowledge to make sure they are developing and executing the right strategies, backing the right technologies, buying the right services from the right providers, and paying the right price.

Our vision has always been that we develop those insights and deliver them to every organisation that needs them, exactly when they need them. That would allow them to get the very best possible outcomes every time, making their world a better place.

What makes TNC different from competitors? 

Of course, we’ve got amazing people, and fantastic data and insights, but our most unique feature is our fierce independence. From the very first day of TNC, we knew that the only way to really deliver the value our customers want is to be completely and utterly independent – meaning we have no ties to any service provider, and we act solely for the benefit of every one of our customers.

That was the central pillar 21 years ago and it still is today, and it is what has enabled us to build so many deep partnerships of trust with our customers – they know it is a rare and valuable commodity, and they know we have it.

What’s your vision for the next 5 – 10 years?

The short answer is that there is still so much to do.  The network and telecoms market continues to flex and change, so our customers need us more than ever to help them navigate it and get the best possible outcomes. But the challenges our customers are facing are growing.

As the boundaries blur between networks, security, and cloud, the opportunities to do amazing things are growing, but the risks of backing the wrong technologies, selecting the wrong partners, or failing to stay on top of your solutions are growing much bigger.

Our vision in many respects remains the same – deliver independent insight and expertise to our customers to help them get the best possible outcomes, but we expect the technologies over which we deliver this expertise will grow – as they’ve always grown.

21 years ago, TNC just did networks, then we gradually branched out into telephony, contact centres, mobility, LAN, and now into AV, security, and cloud.  That’s the world we are in – it doesn’t stand still so we don’t stand still, but what matters is that our values remain the same – to be our customers’ trusted partners, and always independent.