Bull guns for mid-market top spot after revamp

ChannelWeb catches up with the integrator and HPC specialist's sales chief, Andrew Carr, to discuss his transformation and growth plans

A range of new consultancy services, a high-performance computing (HPC) on-demand service and a pragmatic approach to cloud are the three main strands in Bull's drive to become the foremost IT provider to UK plc's "missing middle".

Former Computerland and Sungard exec Andrew Carr joined the integrator last year as UK and Ireland sales and marketing director with a brief to overhaul the firm's go-to-market strategy. Shortly after his appointment, he claimed that increasing Bull's presence in the private sector was a key initiative.

Now Carr claims he has put the finishing touches to his revamp and is gearing up for growth in 2012. The sales chief has a three-year transformation plan that comes to a close at the end of 2013. He also revealed he wants commercial revenue to account for 50 per cent of Bull's total, up from its current level of 30 per cent.

"We set out to transform the UK business from a people point of view, culture point of view and a technical point of view," he said. "I have also brought in some new sales resources that understand [the market], have relationships and work in a different way. We have taken time, we have not said to sales guys: ‘Go meet people and sell.' We have taken a very structured approach.

"We have gone through an accelerated programme, but we have not sacrificed 2011 for 2012. We are seeing a strong developing pipeline that puts us in a very good position for next year."

The first key strategy for 2012 growth is a range of 12 recently launched advisory services focused on "how we can optimise organisations' investment in their IT infrastructure". Among the offerings is a "cloud-readiness consultancy".

The company is also launching an HPC-as-a-Service offering, allowing firms to make use of the high-end technology on a pay-as-you-go basis. The service will be primarily targeted at industries including manufacturing, engineering and life sciences, claimed Carr.

"The government has also ring-fenced a number of funds to look at how it can become a net exporter of innovation," he added. "HPC on demand enables [the government] to become an exporter of innovation."

The French-headquartered company recently launched its Le Cloud offering and Carr indicated this was the third main strand to his expansion plans. Bull is committed to taking a patient and pragmatic approach to helping companies migrate to the cloud, he added, with email, storage and backup being the first applications that many firms are happily moving offsite.

"We have an approach that doesn't talk about why you would want to move to the cloud. It is about how and what steps you should take to get there. It is also about how an organisation has to change culturally," he said.

"There tends to be an expectation in the market that you can turn everything off on Friday and come in with an iPad on Monday. In reality, it is a three-to-five year programme. Cloud is not a strategy for IT directors and CIOs - it is a delivery model."

"If you look at the market, about 73 per cent of your IT budget is on maintaining what you have already. The reticence in adoption is in trying to understand how new services can integrate with existing legacy applications."

Bull's most recently available UK accounts show that UK turnover in 2010 rose just over a quarter to £32.8m, with gross profit growing 11.7 per cent to £4m.

Carr (pictured) reiterated Bull's earlier stated aim to be the UK's number one mid-market IT provider.

"Our target market is going to be around the 500- to 5,000-seat market - what I call the missing middle. There isn't a stand-out service provider [in that market]," he said. "We are not a tier-one provider; we want to be in the high end of the business market, but not the top end.

"We need to stay focused on the markets we have defined - we need to become experts and trusted in those markets. The markets will remain reasonably tight. What will drive some of the new initiatives that come out will be determined, to a degree, by the nature and state of the economy, which no one can predict.

"If the first half of 2012 is unstable, I believe we will see an accelerated adoption of IT-as-a-Service. We need to be mobile enough and agile enough to react to that."