Krome proves mettle with sales hike
Fresh-faced VAR bags Bupa renewal and claws in £8.5m sales in first nine months of fiscal year
Fast-growing VAR Krome Technologies has topped last year's sales total just three quarters into its current financial year.
The Dell Premier partner, which recently bagged a two-year renewal deal with existing client Bupa, clawed in revenue of £8.5m in the nine months to 31 July, 41 per cent up on the previous year's nine months.
Krome is a relatively youthful firm, having been born out of a management buyout (MBO) in 2009 after two years running as the consultancy arm of a small hardware reseller. At the time of the MBO, its revenue was just £4.3m.
The firm's main activities are IT fulfilment to large clients, such as Bupa, Network Rail and Aviva and project-based storage and virtualisation contracts, working with the likes of VMware, EqualLogic, Palo Alto and Aerohive.
Managing director Rupert Mills (pictured) claimed Krome is more technically focused than most VARs.
"Although we have 35 staff, our sales team is just six or seven people," he said. "We are a technically led organisation, which is the difference between us and a lot of other resellers that have a big sales team and no staff to back it up.
"Being able to deliver our solutions with an in-house team means we keep a better handle on it than those who outsource it, which removes a level of control and can lead to problems."
The Surrey-based VAR often rubs shoulders with market goliaths including Computacenter, Mills added.
"We are one of three preferred suppliers for Network Rail alongside Computacenter and SCC. We are never going to compete on price with SCC on an HP desktop but we are able to bring a personal touch to the elements we deliver."
Bupa was one of Krome's first clients and Krome recently bagged a two-year renewal with the healthcare giant based on a 100 per cent achievement on its service-level agreements, said Mills.
The goal is to achieve 25 per cent compound annual growth for the next few years, Mills added.
"We will continue what we are doing and are not trying to grow too quickly," he said.