Civica and FAST cosy up with SAM

Strategic partnership deal will see Civica offer its licensing and fulfilment services to FAST's customer base

Civica has signed a strategic partnership deal with FAST Ltd to supply software licensing and fulfilment services to its entire customer base.

The deal will give Civica access to FAST’s 1,600+-strong customer base, and in turn will provide FAST customers with specialist advice and guidance across the spectrum of software licensing and fulfilment, as well as give them access to a range of other services including desktop and server virtualisation, cloud readiness, storage and datacentre optimisation services and security assessment services.

Matthew Barnes, managing director of FAST – which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the IRIS software group – said: “We are the UK’s leading authority in SAM and IT compliance and have been in business for 24 years. Our focus is helping organisations with IT best practice and we have developed our own private standard.

“But after feedback from customers we realised there were some areas that we could add to, particularly around licence fulfilment. So we had a look at the marketplace at potential partners and we really felt that Civica was the best fit for us.

“It had a very strong reputation and also long-standing relationships with key vendors that we did not have.”

Phil Heap, head of product and services at FAST, added: “This partnership is about helping our customers look forward and effectively plan how to improve their infrastructure while becoming more efficient.”

Chris Ginnelly, managing director of Civica Services, said the two firms had a lot of similarities.

“The size and type of organisation is very similar – we both want to ensure we manage customers in a way that helps them understand their business and how to drive their technology strategy and manage their IT estates,” he added.

Ginnelly said the firms were seeing particular traction in the mid-market, where costs are being squeezed significantly.

“In the mid-market there are increasing pressures both with resources and the need to reduce cost and find new ways of working. SAM is a bit of a hidden gold mine for a lot of organisations, and gives firms the opportunity to increase control and reduce their exposure to risk," he said.

“We think the market is not necessarily in a mature stage yet and it is still a growing area of opportunity."