ANS eyes northern dominance

Manchester-based reseller on a roll after bagging Cisco Gold

ANS has set its sights on becoming the north’s dominant independent Cisco reseller after securing Gold status with the vendor.

The VAR has passed its Cisco Gold audit after taking on a further two Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) engineers and gaining all four Cisco specialisations in an estimated £500,000 investment.

Scott Fletcher, managing director of Manchester-based ANS, said: “Our objective is to be the main player for Cisco in the north. Within the next three years we want to be £30-£50m in turnover but it is about increasing our volume of solution sales, not extra volume for volume’s sake.”

Fletcher claimed consolidation, including the recent acquisitions of Lynx and Minx, has whittled down the number of independent VARs holding Cisco’s top-level badge to fewer than 15. “There are only one or two others doing solutions in areas like asset-based tracking,” he added.

Fletcher said ANS would only consider acquisitions if it didn’t jeopardise the reseller’s 10 per cent net profit margin. The VAR posted sales of about £10m for its last financial year.

“Although we are not a consolidator, over the next 12 to 18 months we will look at acquiring to accelerate growth. We want to find someone with 5 to 7 per cent net margin we can tune to 10 or someone who can add managed services,” he said.