Imerja enlists sales guru and hunts acquisitions

Former Virgin Media Business sales director John Cunningham joins VAR to help with expansion strategy

Fast-growing VAR Imerja has enlisted former Virgin Media Business sales director John Cunningham to help it expand outside its public sector stronghold and has also kicked off an acquisition hunt.

The security and managed services specialist grew sales by 479 per cent to £5m between 2005 and 2010 and is gunning for £8m turnover within three years.

Imerja has traditionally drawn about two thirds of its sales from the public sector and Cunningham, who joins as strategic adviser, has been tasked with expanding the firm's direct sales into new vertical markets.

Two weeks ago, Imerja also instructed multiple advisory firms to hunt for suitable acquisition targets.

The VAR draws about a quarter of its revenue from partners, its largest being Virgin Media Business itself, and managing director Ian Jackson said this would form a third growth frontier.

"Going from £5m to £8m is quite challenging in this economic environment, especially since 60 to 70 per cent of our business is public sector," Jackson said. "We will have to complement that with private sector. John was an obvious choice because I have known him professionally for four years and because of his demonstrable expertise in that sales area."

Retail is one sector primed for expansion, although Jackson emphasised that Imerja's managed services are horizontal in nature.

He refused to be drawn on the profile of Imerja's acquisition targets but said they would have to be "similar to Imerja or work in the B2B cellular market".