technologyreseller.co.uk 21 in the cultural fit. The tech stack they use and all of that can be remediated and changed. It isn’t a problem. What does matter is how much they care about what they do and how much they care about their customers. “Invariably, IT MSPs really do care about their customers. IT MSPs are started by techies who want to do things better, not by salespeople who could earn more money elsewhere. It’s a completely different ethos. One of the big concerns of owners who have built a business up over 30 to 40 years is, ‘are you going to look after my customers and my staff when I retire?’. That’s almost their number one question. We’re poised for that. We want the staff, we want the scale, we want relationships and, yes, we do a great job. I’m quite proud that all our Google reviews are five-star, bar one and that was four-star.” In this context, Manning adds that FUTERA offers an attractive alternative to the private equity money swilling around the marketplace. “If you are looking to retire or exit your business in the next couple of years, and private equity isn’t the road you want to go down, we’re here. We’re nice people doing a great job. We’re not asset stripping, we’re buying the people, the relationships, the whole company. If you have a good quality business, with great people and great customers, we would love to talk.” provide the service to their customer without having to invest in the overhead, without having to invest in the technology or see it as a future service offering. That’s an add-on we can provide almost on a project basis.” This approach dovetails with FUTERA’s mission statement to pursue the long-term success of relationships, which Manning says is based on ‘doing things the right way’. “We’re here to support those people that want things to be done the right way and who appreciate that doing them the right way often incurs a little higher cost than doing them in the cheapest way possible just to tick a box. We’re not interested in making an extra £500 here and there. We want a long-term partnership. The market offers plenty of choice if you just want something cheap and an average experience. But if you want a really high-quality experience, there aren’t too many places to go. We’re trying to fill that gap.” He adds: “We like to think we’re really good at the difficult. We have some customers that we can only get to by helicopter, another where a ferry goes to the island, but only twice a week: we go there and stay for a few days until the ferry comes back. At another site, the reception is eight miles from the main building. Then we have clients in healthcare manufacturing, where you have to put your clothes on in a certain way. It’s not just people turning up to do something. It’s sensible, diligent people, and you don’t get that from everybody.” Acquisition programme There is another reason why IT MSPs are of interest to FUTERA: it is still on the acquisition trail. In pursuit of its goal ‘to be the UK’s first choice partner for technology services’, FUTERA has already made half a dozen acquisitions to gain new skills and capabilities, to extend its reach across mainland UK and to increase its customer base. This programme is ongoing and FUTERA is interested in talking to any IT MSP that has a good quality business, great people, great customers and, crucially, the right cultural fit. “We don’t particularly mind how profitable an MSP is. We know what we’re doing and can turn around a business that isn’t doing that well,” explains Manning. “But as an employee-owned company with a team of people that really cares about customer service, we are interested Doing things the right way While it is usual for OEM hardware manufacturers and software vendors to have both direct and indirect sales operations, such arrangements are arguably less common for service providers. So, are MSPs concerned about conflict of interest? Not as much as they used to be, says Manning. “We launched the FUTERA brand last February, and it’s taken some people a bit of time to come to terms with the fact that we operate direct and through the channel. A year ago, there were people who didn’t want to talk to us because they saw us as a competitor who are now perfectly comfortable placing contracts with us because they know we’ve got no interest at all in poaching their customers. We’ve got great people with great reputations, like James, who people know and trust, and that goes a long way,” he says. Pittick points out that while channel conflict was always more of a concern on the print side than the IT side, 12 months ago it would still have been the number one objection voiced by IT MSPs – ‘You’ve got a direct side of your business; how can I trust you to manage this project for me?’. That, he suggests, is something he hears much less now. “We’ve addressed it in a number of ways. Firstly, we operate with strict data segregation across the business, supported by defined internal governance processes and controls. Information is fully separated, so the channel side has no access to direct customer data and vice versa, with access managed, monitored and regularly reviewed. We’re more than willing to put contractual guarantees in place if required. “Underpinning that is our reputation. The MSP community is closely connected, and trust matters. If we were to get this wrong even once, it would have a direct impact on our ability to grow. That’s why we take it seriously.” Pittick goes even further, pointing out that far from opening up an IT MSP to unwanted competition, partnering with FUTERA could help protect its existing business. “Take an MSP that is asked by a customer to support an obscure piece of technology that they don’t have the ability to manage. They won’t necessarily want to say no to the customer in case they go and find a competitor that can look after that technology and provide additional services. Instead, the MSP can subcontract that one element to us so that they can COVER STORY To find out more about how FUTERA can help you scale and offer additional services to your customers or to explore M&A opportunities, please call 0330 179 0291 or visit www.FUTERA.co.uk
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