CCS bigs up 'traditional' resellers

As VAR celebrates yet another record month, managing director Terry Betts gives his take on the M&A market and the cloud

CCS Media’s managing director is hailing the ‘old-fashioned’ reseller model as the VAR celebrates another record month, despite the double bank holiday in April.

The Windsor-based firm has seen sales hold steady for the month of April compared with its £8.5m March turnover, but gross profit is up around 27 per cent.

Terry Betts, managing director of CCS, told CRN: “It appears that the old-fashioned reseller model is still doing well. We have had another cracking month, with every product area across the board seeing success. This is despite the two bank holidays in between which we were convinced would have a negative effect on sales.”

Betts said he would not rule out acquisition, and is "constantly evaluating" potential takeover targets, particularly in the services space. “But it is the same old problem,” he said. “Companies are over-valuing themselves and end up pricing themselves out of the equation.”

He added that if he did make an acquisition, it would be something without a great deal of crossover that would compliment his existing business, particularly in the services space.

“Too much crossover equals redundancies and I don’t want to go through that. I have a happy workforce here at CCS,” he said.

Despite all the cloud hype, Betts said he was cautious about diving too deeply into it at the moment.

“We are always checking the accreditations in the cloud, but while it is great for brand new businesses, it is not such a good thing for established businesses,” he said.

“For example, the person recommending the cloud would be the IT manager, and is he really going to want to give up his responsibilities and outsource the IT? Also, is the cloud really in the interests of those selling it? How will they be incentivised? How do they make margin? I really think it's going to be a 15-year cycle with the cloud,” he concluded.