01732 759725 36 VIEW FROM THE CHANNEL How Logixal has made the transition from managed print service provider to IT managed services provider 12% a year. In 2017, it moved into new premises with four times as much space and a showroom. It became a Goldlevel Xerox dealer. It was named Xerox Document Technology Partner of the Year and Xerox Finance Document Technology Partner of the Year. It achieved Gold accreditation from Investors in People. “By 2019, we were flying,” says Hoile. “We were doing brilliantly throughout the whole of the UK. We were providing services to our clients in Europe, and we had a couple of global contracts. Then Covid hit and I made some massive, massive changes.” Sliding doors Hoile, who turned 50 in November, describes this as a ‘sliding doors moment’, when Logixal took a radically different path to the one it was on, committing itself to becoming a bone fide MSP with expertise in IT services, unified communications, enterprise content management and managed print, rather than a printer supplier that dabbled in other services. In fact, Logixal was already moving in this direction. The pandemic just accelerated the process and gave Hoile impetus to invest in the systems, branding, staff and supplier relationships needed to compete in the MSP space. This transition coincided with a period of renewal for Hoile, who had been experiencing excruciating back pain caused by a tumour on his spine. This was finally removed in March 2020, followed by two hip replacements, in August 2020 and February 2021. Instead of taking a step back and selling the business, which he had considered doing when the prognosis of his condition was unclear, Hoile emerged from these crises with more determination than ever. “I immediately invested a huge amount of money in transforming Logixal into an MSP. I put the wheels in motion to apply for ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 and 20000, which we’ve now got. I took on an additional three or four IT specialists. I invested in Datto RMM and Autotask. We started dealing with wholesale network provider Virtual1 and took on the 3CX hosted phone system. In January 2021, we achieved Platinum Investors in People accreditation and then in June 2021 we launched our new branding, logo and website, highlighting our capabilities in the four key pillars of IT managed services, unified communications, managed print and document management.” More choice Since then, Logixal has continued to expand its product and services portfolio to give customers more choice across those four pillars. “From a print perspective, we’ve now got relationships with Xerox, for their office machines, apps and Docushare document management system, and, since 2022, with Konica Minolta, which provides good, reliable kit and exceptional production machines. In December 2022, I took on Sharp for their AV and their touchscreen portfolio, which allows us to go into care homes and schools, and this January we added Ricoh because they also have DocuWare, which gives us another document management system. “Strategically, I believe we’ve got the best product range in the market. We’re no longer just picking up contracts for print Daniel Hoile, Founder and CEO of fast growing MSP Logixal, is fond of superlatives. His speech is peppered with words like ‘fantastic’, ‘brilliant’, ‘incredible’, often preceded by ‘absolutely’. Is he always so exuberant or is it because when Technology Reseller calls he has just signed off the accounts for another record year? With so much energy, it’s easy to see why Xerox offered him a dealership – only 10 minutes into his pitch – following his return to the UK from Australia where he had gone into semi-retirement after selling his stake in Chase Morran. Having secured that vital relationship, Logixal opened for business on March 5, 2012, selling Xerox print devices and supporting them with its own service engineers. It did a little bit of IT and telephony, but at this stage 99% of its business came from print devices. Logixal quickly established itself as a successful document solutions provider, consistently growing by between 5% and From MPS to MSP Daniel Hoile
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