ANS Group eyes double-digit revenue growth and Frontier Microsoft status for 2026

“It’s all about double-digit revenue growth. That’s what we want to achieve,” CEO Rich Thompson tells CRN

ANS Group is keeping the door open to further acquisitions after completing two deals in 2025, as the Microsoft-focused services provider looks to strengthen its position across cloud, digital and security.

Reflecting on the past year, CEO Rich Thompson points to M&A as a major highlight for the business, particularly moves designed to bolster its data and AI capabilities.

“We bought two businesses - Sci-Net Business Solutions and Makutu. The latter to strengthen our data and AI go to market,” he tells CRN.

While no additional deals are currently confirmed, Thompson says ANS would not rule out further acquisitions if the right opportunity emerged.

“Never say no.

“If the right opportunity came up we’d absolutely look at it.

“Fundamentally, it's about having a very strong organic engine, which we've got, and then it's about how we're integrating the two acquisitions that we've made so that we can deliver the most value from those agreements and those partnerships.”

And what would the right opportunity look like?

“We play in cloud, digital, and security. Data and AI sits within that digital bucket. So they're the three large growth markets that we want to focus on, and we want to be really focused in those areas,” Thompson explains.

“It would have to sit within those areas, and it has to be around enhancing capability or potentially being an entry into a new market that we don't currently play in, but it would sit within those sort of three technology domains.”

Looking ahead to 2026, Thompson says ANS has a clear strategic priority: achieving Frontier Microsoft partner status.

“Becoming a Frontier Microsoft partner is our number one priority for FY26.

“So how are we as customer zero, really pushing the boundaries of becoming a frontier firm?

“That's all around how we're adopting the technology ourselves, in terms of Copilot deployment, and also around agentic services that we're using as a business, and equally, how we're taking our customers on that journey as well.”

In terms of financial performance, Thompson says the company is targeting strong, sustained growth.

“It’s all about double-digit revenue growth. That’s what we want to achieve.”

That growth will be driven by a mix of existing customer expansion and new business wins, underpinned by what Thompson describes as a strong sales engine.

“We’ve got a fantastic sales engine within the ANS group, and it’s continuing to execute on that sales plan.

“It’s continuing to grow with our customers. So a huge amount of the growth comes from existing as well as new logos.

“It's a combination of land and expand within our existing portfolio. But equally, looking at new logo activity.”

ANS has structured its go-to-market strategy around industry verticals, closely aligned to Microsoft’s own segmentation, with growth opportunities spread across multiple sectors.

“We verticalise our go-to-market so, and we mirror the Microsoft segmentation.

“About 50 plus per cent of our revenue comes from commercial, about 34 per cent from public sector, and about the remainder comes from this digital, native market space.

“Our focus is to double down the growth in all of those areas. We're seeing strong growth in every vertical. Public sector continues to be a really, really strong vertical for us, as is commercial, as is digital, native.”

However, Thompson acknowledges that rapid technological change and macroeconomic conditions remain key challenges for the business.

“The pace of innovation is massive, so making sure that we remain a frontier firm is really important.

“We’re not immune to the wider economic pressures that are affecting every business out there. So it's important that we continue to double down on our strategy, which is focused on large, high growth, double-digit markets.”