APSU keen to woo clients left behind by top integrators

Newly formed channel player claims consolidation has estranged many mid-market customers

Five months after its formation, services and resale outfit APSU is looking to drive growth by picking up mid-market customers left behind by big-name integrators.

APSU came into being this summer when services specialist AssurIT bought IBM reseller Apex. Steve Ellis, managing director of the expanded company, told ChannelWeb that the integration process had been more or less completed within a month of the deal taking place. Sales staff are now working under one plan, with one commission structure, he added.

Ellis explained that access to an enlarged customer base had always been the biggest "inhibitor to growth" for AssurIT. But the cross-sell opportunities provided by the merger have allowed the company to more than double the number of net new services deals tied up during the whole of last year in just the first four months as APSU, claimed Ellis.

The company's stated aim is to operate in the mid-market, with the "sweet spot" defined as anything from 100- to 3,000-seat organisations. Ellis explained that industry consolidation and the resultant proliferation of big integrators will allow APSU to pick up customers who want to work with a more nimble supplier. He cited the example of Syan and Anix, which were acquired by ACS, itself then acquired by Xerox.

"Customers that would have been important to Anix and Syan are not necessarily important to ACS, and customers important to ACS are not necessarily as important to Xerox," he said. "These customers are looking to other people to try to help them. Larger companies want to deal with larger customers.

"You just have to look at the landscape; 10 years ago you had Computacenter and SCC [at the top end], but you would never have had [the likes of] 2e2, Kelway or Logicalis. There has been a slew of larger organisations. There is an opportunity for us."

Apex was a big IBM partner, and also had relationships with Microsoft, Cisco and HP. There will be no new additions to the vendor fold, said Ellis, but APSU is keen to maintain and deepen ties with its new-found manufacturer partners.

"It is important for us to grow our Cisco and HP relationships," he added.