SICL sends staff to language school

Employees given crash courses in French and Italian as ambitious VAR targets more pan-European wins

Cliff Fox: we have achieved this growth with no borrowing and no debt

Storage and networking reseller SICL is sending its staff on foreign language courses to help it bag more pan-European contracts.

The VAR recently secured its first two pan-European managed network deals: a 90-site contract with chemical distributor Univar and a 16-site win with architectural practice Aedas.

Bolstered by this success, it is keen to score more deals involving network reprovisioning and management for firms with pan-European presence. Existing staff have been sent on 26-week Italian and French courses to help with the support of such deals.

Managing director Cliff Fox said that although SICL was not required to provide foreign language support, he was keen to "meet pan-European clients half way".

SICL, which partners with Microsoft, Riverbed, Cisco and Dell, saw revenues rise by 10 per cent to £4.2m for its year to 30 June and is aiming to hit £10m turnover within two years.

Fox stressed that the reseller is in line with its three-year growth plan despite the recession and without having compromised its balance sheet.

“We have achieved this growth with no borrowing and no debt – we have grown as we have earned,” he said.