Virgin Media and O2’s joint venture (JV) Virgin Media O2 Business has had a strong start, according to GlobalData, which notes that the JV presents greater competition against BT and Vodafone in the enterprise market. The leading data and analytics company explains that telecoms JVs are typically difficult to deliver, but propositions from the new Virgin Media O2 Business unit are well placed to entice enterprise customers.

Robert Pritchard, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, said: “Forming Virgin Media O2 Business was an obvious way for the parent companies to compete more directly with BT (including EE) and Vodafone in the UK enterprise market, as well as to differentiate better against niche challengers.”

Since launch, Virgin Media O2 Business has developed a number of propositions targeted at specific customer segments, including Volt Gigabit-speed broadband that is backed up by 4G mobile for small businesses; the ‘Get More’ tech fund for medium-sized businesses as a cross-selling opportunity for Virgin Media’s and O2’s existing customer bases; and ‘Success Agreements’—a novel approach to service level agreements (SLAs) for large enterprise and public sector customers, complementing a growing cloud, security, SD-WAN, and unified communications portfolio.

Pritchard continued: “Although joint ventures have historically been troublesome in the telecoms market, this one seems to be advancing well to date, with both owners backing an agreed strategy. The key will be to remain largely autonomous from the parent companies while exploiting their assets where possible.”

With a commitment to invest £10 billion ($12 billion) over five years and £2 billion ($2.4 billion) already spent since June 2021, Virgin Media O2 is competing with other fiber and mobile infrastructure companies—but now directly on both fronts as a unified provider.

Pritchard concluded: “By developing a wider range of professional and managed services, exploiting the value-added capabilities of Telefónica Tech UK, and leveraging relationships with key technology partners to complement its fixed and mobile network assets, Virgin Media O2 Business seems to have got off to a promising start.”