Cisilion's new boss eyes services growth

Rob Morgan outlines strategy as he takes the reins of Cisco Gold partner

Morgan: We are focused on driving our services and support business

Cisilion’s new managing director has vowed to press on with the Cisco Gold partner’s transformation into a services-led firm.

After joining Cisilion as executive director from Cisco in September 2007, Rob Morgan has now taken over day-to-day running of the Leatherhead-based reseller from founder and chairman Roger Paul.

Morgan claimed Cisilion was Cisco’s seventh largest UK Gold partner last year behind BT, Didata, Affiniti, Logicalis, 2e2 and NCSGlobal. But he signalled that growing equipment sales is not his priority.

“When I joined Cisilion we were about 15 per cent services and 85 per cent equipment and now it is about 40/60. We are focused on delivering long-term customer excellence and although equipment is important to us to us we are driving our support and services business more.”

Morgan said Cisilion would focus on the data centre, unified communications and security space.

All of Cisilion’s executives and around 90 per cent of total staff took a voluntary 10 per cent pay cut in December. But Morgan said that policy had been reversed in April after the VAR beat its six-month plan.

“We no longer saw a reason for anyone to take a pay cut,” he said.

Tom Kelly, UK managing director of Logicalis, said; “”Everyone is trying to change their business to increase the percentage from services, so this is nothing new or revolutionary. Cisilion will have to come up with a differentiated solution and services set which takes time.”