01732 759725 IT SERVICES 34 Colin Blumenthal, Vice President, IT Services Europe at Sharp, talks about the company’s expansion into IT services and outlines some of the opportunities and challenges that diversification has brought The opportunity in IT services print, AV, IT services and telephony – a model it is now seeking to replicate across Europe. Complete I.T. was rebranded as Sharp IT Services in November last year and Colin Blumenthal as Vice President, IT Services Europe, is leading the business both in the UK and across Europe. When Complete I.T was acquired, it employed around 175 people that headcount has now risen to 210 people. Internally, the integration with Sharp in the UK has continued - IT, marketing, HR and finance are all now shared services. Both companies are also sharing office space. Sharp has moved into the Complete I.T. Bristol office, the Complete I.T. team are now operating out of Sharp’s Wakefield and Birmingham offices, and it has set-up help desks in Manchester. Looking back over last year, Blumenthal says it’s clear that the momentum to cloud services and more processes being done in the cloud, whether that’s public or private, is increasing. “The pandemic kick-started that with remote working and Microsoft Office 365, and Teams and Zoom specifically, and we saw the migration to public cloud services continue in 2022. Businesses now have confidence in using public cloud, bar a few pockets like national security-type businesses,” he explained. “This integration, and the change of name, gives us a launchpad to really accelerate the cross-sell of our brand of IT services to Sharp’s SME direct client base. That’s what we’re looking to achieve in 2023.” Helping partners build expertise in IT PrintIT Reseller attended Sharp’s Elevate 22 partner conference in May last year and at the event, Blumenthal said that Sharp was looking to support its partners in building their expertise in IT and was looking to manage training via its local teams to help partners understand the technologies that Sharp can offer. “The pledge I made was that we would arrange roundtables to discuss with print dealers the opportunity of introducing IT services to their clients, and we are still in that phase. We have had some meetings with Sharp dealers. A lot of them are doing something in IT already, but the main feedback we get is concern about losing control of their client. They worry that with this big corporate coming in, the client will start to use Sharp for everything rather than the reseller,” he explained. That opens up the question of whether Sharp could white-label its IT services through Sharp dealers. “It is certainly something we will consider, but my own view is that SME businesses really want to know who they're dealing with when it comes to IT and would prefer to have a direct relationship with their IT partner rather than buying through somebody else. “As I say, we’re still in the research phase. That said, selling IT services through Sharp resellers is definitely something we want to do, if we can make it work for everybody,” he added. Recruitment a challenge The biggest challenge associated with adding IT services to Sharp’s reseller offering is finding more people. “If it’s successful and we expand our client base by selling through Sharp dealers, then it is just the standard challenge of taking on more people. Right now, it is difficult to find the right In 2019, Sharp acquired Complete I.T. a reseller with three decades of expertise in providing IT support to SMEs. The move was part of its strategy to add IT services, including security and telephony, to its offering for direct customers and eventually to its reseller channel. As Complete I.T. focus was on the SME sector, it was a good fit for Sharp. The expansion into IT services was a logical move that has enabled Sharp to offer customers a complete product and service offering, including managed continued... Colin Blumenthal
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