01732 759725 40 Q&A ...continued most of which have been fulfilled with internal promotions, so it really is about building the capability of our people. Sometimes it’s about attracting new people with the same potential, the same culture and sometimes people will move on to other opportunities. That’s part of life. We shouldn’t be worried about that. We just need to make sure that we’re building the pipeline of talent for ourselves, and for our channel and for our vendor partners. TR: Do you think you’ll be making more acquisitions in the UK in the future? PE: We have an M&A team which supports what we want to do at a country level. We’ve been acquisitive in the past and with the right opportunity we will continue to acquire. Exclusive Networks is a very strong business in the UK and Ireland but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more things we can do and more capability we could acquire. Acquisitions are always part of our plan. TR: Is now a good time for acquisitions? PE: There are companies that tend to acquire very opportunistically and I’m not a particular fan of that. I think businesses should acquire as part of a strategic plan. Clearly, market conditions set the price, and that price might determine whether it’s an acquisition you should or should not make. Something might be less expensive next year than it was last year, but the projected returns would be less as well, so I’m not sure the maths changes. The summary for me is to look strategically at what we are seeking to achieve and whether that is a buy or build. If the right opportunity to buy is there, then we should do it and if it isn’t we’ll build it. And we have to be agile. Despite what I said about not acquiring opportunistically, sometimes opportunities come along that you shouldn’t ignore. If that fits with your strategy, it can be strategic and opportunistic. We need to be agile, flexible and fleet of foot enough to take advantage of those opportunities. TR: When you talk about growth, are you looking at taking on more vendors or more resellers? PE: The vendors we currently partner with give us an enormous opportunity and we need to make sure we give the right level of focus to the vendors we already carry. That’s got to be our priority, to make sure that we maximise the opportunity we have with them. That’s my number one priority. If other vendor opportunities come up, we will evaluate them very, very carefully on the basis of whether they deliver incremental value to our customers; whether we can deliver to that vendor what they need; and whether we can create the Exclusive service around that vendor in a way that supports our business economically. That process starts with ‘is this going to add value to our customers?’ and if the answer is ‘No’ then we won’t do it. This year we’ve added Mimecast and Tenable to our portfolio and both of those companies absolutely met those criteria. But we’ve grown roughly 35% this year without them by maximising the opportunity we have with the partners we currently have and they deserve that from us. In terms of customers, I think we do a good job of supporting customers deeply and of having a good breadth of customers. That’s another area I’m really focused on. I focus on our vendor partners – are we delivering what they need? – and I focus on our customer partners – are we continuing to build the capability and the service they need not only today but tomorrow? And are we taking that service to new partners? It’s a matter of continuing to go deeper with the partners we have, of bringing in new partners and of having more of a look at developing a stronger servicing capability with MSPs and MSSPs and with GSIs and potentially with more specialist partners in vertical markets. TR: For a company that’s enjoying 35% growth you talk a lot about the improvements you have to make. PE: Some people have asked me whether I want to be MD of a business that’s in such a great position and is already going fantastically and I say: ‘Well, it’s just the beginning. What I’ve joined is a fantastic platform that’s got a great trajectory in terms of its growth. But I can also see lots of things we can improve on and do better’. There’s an amazing opportunity for us, as long as we continue to react to what our customers need. What my experience has taught me is that when times become more turbulent, the companies that stay focused on what their customers need do even better. We need to make sure we are great at responding to our customers’ needs and delivering service back. I would rather we didn’t have so much turbulence, but we will come out the other side of this. If we continue to do well through this period, then we’ll do even better afterwards. www.exclusive-networks.com need from us will vary depending on the vendor. The third reason is we’ve got to build it ourselves and we’ve got to build it in a way that is economically appropriate. It’s no good building something that no one can afford or building something that isn’t profitable for us. All those things are reasonably complicated, but our position will always be that if you are a vendor and work with us, it’s because you see the value in the Exclusive service and if you’re a channel partner, it’s the same; you have a need for the Exclusive service and that needs to be available across as much of our portfolio as possible. What does the Exclusive Networks brand stand for? It stands for the end-toend service capability around the vendor partner’s technology. And we’ve got to keep driving at that. It really goes back to what I said at the beginning; we’ve got to keep driving our value upwards. TR: Roughly what proportion of your revenue comes from the services side? PE: Today, it is about 10% of our business. It depends on how you quantify it, which is where we need to be a little bit careful because you can look at it in a number of different ways. You could argue when we sell renewals, that’s services; you could argue when we sell vendors services, that’s services. It’s hard to give an accurate figure because some of these things are intertwined. TR: And what are your other priorities? PE: You touched upon it right at the outset when you highlighted the skills shortage as one of today’s big challenges. A top priority for me is to make sure we retain our staff and that is about making sure we enable them, develop them, compensate them and treat them in the right way. We will deliver great service if our staff are highly motivated. I’ve worked in lots of companies, but I’ve never worked anywhere where the culture of the staff is quite as positive as it is here, in terms of supporting each other. There’s a real team culture. Somebody said to me, I think on day three, ‘we’ve got each other’s back’ and I don’t think anyone could put it better than that. My job is to maintain that great culture but also to look at how we develop people. We’ve had a very strong year in terms of growth and that’s created opportunities, We’ve had a very strong year in terms of growth and that’s created opportunities, most of which have been fulfilled with internal promotions, so it really is about building the capability of our people.
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