Integralis promotes Church to COO hotseat

UK managing director says promotion reflects progress of UK operation

Integralis has promoted UK managing director Simon Church to a group role with the goal of becoming more solutions-focused at a group level.

Church (pictured) joined Integralis from VeriSign in 2009 and quickly set about growing managed services and consultancy activities, while decreasing reliance on product resale.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Church said his promotion to the post of chief operating officer reflected the progress of the UK business on his watch.

"In 2009 and 2010, we were very much focused on fix-and-build," he said. "What we managed to achieve was getting the business from one that was very dependent on technology resell to a more solutions-based approach."

The UK is Integralis' largest country by revenue, but the integrator also plies its trade in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, France, the US and the UAE. At a group level, its traditional technology sales business contributes €88.6m to the top line, 47 per cent of the total.

"The promotion backs up what we have done in the UK, and we need to do this globally," said Church.

Church added that acquisitions are possible to fill gaps in the Prime Standard-listed VAR's geographic, technology or vertical portfolio. Building a footprint in the Asian backyard of Japanese majority owner NTT is a priority, either organically or inorganically, Church added.

Church hinted it would be a while before the succession strategy for the UK is finalised.

"At this stage it would be remiss for me to immediately appoint a replacement as we have a lot of structural options open to us globally," he said.