NFON rings the changes to support growth ambitions

Cloud telephony specialist NFON has unveiled a fresh management structure as the business looks for further growth.

To deliver results, the firm is changing its corporate management structure, making changes that will support innovation and drive profitable growth.

This means NFON will bid farewell to its chief technology officer (CTO) Jan-Peter Koopman, who will exit the business after 14 years. The fresh structure will see the firm find a replacement for its CTO role, with Peter Helfer assuming both the CEO and CFO roles, and the function of the CMO will be integrated into the sales department.

“It is time to adapt NFON’s corporate organisation to that of a modern software company and to ensure that sales and marketing, product management and development, but also people and culture, are now given a decisive and forward-looking role in the organisation. This is why they will become part of the new, expanded management team of NFON AG,” said CEO Heider.

“Only with the right structure will we be able to efficiently implement the needs of our customers and attach even more importance to customer centricity in the future,” he added.

“On this basis of operational excellence, we will achieve sustainable profitability and return NFON to the role of an innovator, setting impulses with technological innovations in the fast-moving market for cloud communication,” he said.

Helder said that once it became clear the firm was altering its structure, Koopmann looked to be released from the business.

“The supervisory board of NFON has decided not to extend the contract with Jan-Peter Koopmann. To support the implementation of planned changes in the best possible way, Jan-Peter Koopmann proposed immediate release from his contract, which was accepted,” he said.

The firm indicated at the end of last year that it was looking to increase its channel business and expected an integration with Microsoft Teams would attract more partners looking at cloud telephony options.

Speaking to MicroScope last December, Myles Leach, UK managing director at NFON, said the interest from the channel had grown: “Over the past two or three years, we’ve built up a good working relationship with IT resellers, and we continue to develop that side of the business as they move more and more into the cloud telephony world.”

He added that the determination by many customers to keep working through the pandemic had given many the experience of cloud telephony and that they understood the benefits of the technology.

“It became the thing to use and the interface that people wanted to choose and become used to. It’s really pushed them and we’re seeing that those who embraced cloud telephony, maybe before Covid, but struggled to take it out to their customer base, are now finding it a lot easier,” he said.