SCC Engage: £50m AI strategy, Middle East expansion and sovereignty

Partners and customers gathered at the event as the VAR outlined its tech investments alongside plans to enter Saudi Arabia and discussions around trust and resilience

On Thursday, CRN attended SCC Engage at Silverstone, Northamptonshire, home of the British Grand Prix.

It was not the roaring engines circling the venue that gave attendees a buzz, but rather the announcements from the company’s leadership team, who outlined not only SCC’s recent investments and achievements, but also its ambitions ahead.

International expansion, AI, cyber and infrastructure services pushes, alongside multi-million-pound investments: here is everything you need to know from the event.

From keeping up to setting the pace

Opening the event, SCC UK CEO Russell Brown said organisations are becoming more reliant on technology while grappling with increasingly fragmented and complex IT environments.

“Customers do not struggle with understanding technology. The challenge is making that technology work.”

Brown, who recently took the helm of the firm's UK branch, described SCC’s role as spanning technology sourcing, implementation and managed services, positioning the company within some of the “most complex organisations in the world”.

The leader highlighted the VAR’s involvement in the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, where the company managed infrastructure across 95,000 devices and 120 locations.

He also pointed to growing demand for practical AI deployments, particularly in healthcare environments.

“We’re working to reduce administrative workloads, improve access to information and enable people to make better, faster and simpler decisions,” he told the audience.

“Ultimately, what we’re doing is giving time back.

“We’re improving experiences and, in many cases, we are helping to save lives.”

Multi-million pounds investments, Sirius project and Saudi Arabia expansion

Following Brown’s panel, SCC chairman James Rigby and EMEA CEO Robert Vassoyan detailed a wider investment and tech strategy spanning AI, cloud, cybersecurity and international expansion.

Rigby outlined a series of recent investments across SCC’s cloud and cyber operations, including a refreshed VMware-based sovereign private cloud platform, expansion of public cloud managed services and continued investment in automation and FinOps tooling through SCC’s Pulse and Vision platforms.

The reseller has also opened a new SOC at its Birmingham headquarters following a £1.5m investment, alongside a £6m recycling facility in the Midlands focused on refurbished technology services.

Additionally, international expansion remains a focus for SCC.

Rigby said the acquisition of Grupo Omega in August doubled the size of SCC’s Spanish business to around €200m in revenue and 600 staff, positioning the company among the top five VARs in Spain.

The company has also launched operations in the UAE in February and plans to enter Saudi Arabia later this quarter.

He pointed to growing AI investment in the Middle East, describing the UAE as one of the world’s largest AI spenders per capita.

Meanwhile, Vassoyan unveiled “Project Sirius”, a multi-year AI strategy backed by more than £50m in investment over the next three to four years.

The initiative will include the recruitment of more than 100 AI specialists over the next 12 to 18 months across several focus areas including AI infrastructure, cybersecurity and workplace technologies.

“We’re putting skin in the game,” Vassoyan said.

The company plans to embed AI internally across strategic operational processes before expanding those learnings externally to customers.

Vassoyan also warned against organisations focusing only on “small, superficial use cases” in AI, arguing that more meaningful returns would come once businesses begin transforming core operational processes.

The EMEA CEO added that AI and sovereignty are now central themes in customer discussions as organisations navigate geopolitical disruption and supply chain instability.

“Trust in AI strategy, in partners, in infrastructure, in security, and in the supply chain,” Vassoyan said.

Rigby highlighted that SCC’s positioning in the market continues to centre around combining scale with close customer relationships.

“We’re big enough to be deeply capable, but small enough to genuinely care,” he said.