Cisilion ploughs £250,000 into skills push

Cisco Gold partner sees revenue for its year to May rise by a half

Cisco Gold partner Cisilion is celebrating a 50 per cent turnover spike after investing nearly one man-year in a skills push so far this year.

The Leatherhead-based reseller saw turnover power up 51 per cent to £23.7m for its year to 31 May, which it attributed to an increase in business transformation projects. According to its draft results, pre-tax profit rose by £0.8m on last year, although the reseller declined to give the raw figure.

Although it has recently become accredited with VMware and NetApp, Cisilion has ploughed £250,000 into boosting Cisco's advanced technologies skills this calendar year.

It still draws 90 per cent of its product sales from the networking giant.

Managing director Rob Morgan said business transformation is now Cisilion's core focus.

"With most [Cisco] partners it is quite a reactive model, whereas we invest early on in understanding the client's business requirements and where they want to be in a few years' time," he said.

Cisilion will open an infrastructure solutions innovation centre in October, Morgan added.

This will showcase solutions combining Cisco's UCS and Nexus kit with VMware and NetApp technology, as well as Cisco's telepresence and contact centre solutions, he explained.

Cisilion's business plan shows 25 to 30 per cent growth for its fiscal year to May 2012 and Morgan said Q1 was shaping up to be on target. The privately held firm's headcount has swelled from 48 to 65 year on year.