SCC expects profitable Exchange

Corporate VAR bullish about prospects for mid-market

Corporate VAR SCC has bullishly claimed its mid-market Exchange division, launched in December, will hit £40m in turnover this year, rising to £100m by 2007.

In an exclusive interview with CRN, Steven Rigby, European general manager of SCC, said that Exchange is building an alternative client base for SCC in the mid-market.

“Exchange has started as a product-lead business targeting the 250- to 750-user base. We will be taking the company further into desktop managed services, and then eventually look beyond this into packaged managed services for the mid-market to grow revenue.”

The VAR also made two new appointments last week. Tony Brooker, formerly vice-president of sales at Insight, is now European general manager of Exchange, and ex-Morse sales manager, Steve O’Meara is now southern UK sales director.

“In a tough competitive market, you need to have a disciplined sales focus, and this is what Tony and Steve will bring us,” Rigby said.

He added that a new e-commerce site launched this week should complement the sales effort, and that additional pressure forced SCC to make the downward move.

“We are pushing hard downstream with Exchange. Even SCC is now targeting 1,000-user companies, because of the increased pressure at the top. Competition, margins and direct pressure from Hewlett-Packard and Dell makes it more and more difficult to play in the higher tiers,” he said.

Bob Tarzey, services director at Quocira, said the firm is unlikely to escape its competitors by heading to the mid-market. “There are lots of vendors claiming to have adapted their strategies to target the mid-market. If Exchange gets its offering right it will find business in the sector, but it won’t be alone,” he said.