Services help Trustmarque celebrate best ever financial year

VAR sees 15 per cent hike in gross profit, with services accounting for almost half of that

Trustmarque has closed its 2011/12 financial by celebrating the most successful period in its 25-year history due to its continued professional and managed services push.

The Microsoft LAR saw turnover grow from £115m to £131m – a 14 per cent increase – with pre-tax profit growing nine per cent from £4.6m to £5m. Gross profit grew 15 per cent from £13.8m to £15.9m.

Gross profit for services and solutions hit £7.1m, representing 45 per cent overall business gross profit for the financial year.

Its success is attributed to its ongoing development of professional and managed services, which includes the introduction of a wide range of cloud services, enhanced service offerings for asset management and procurement, and services around enterprise applications.

Scott Haddow, chief executive of Trustmarque, said: “We have had a great year and our gross profit is increasing. Most of it came through the addition of further services and solutions to the business. As the economic climate gets more challenging, customers want more innovative ways to use existing technology and we have done that by employing some of the best talent.

“We do not want to overstretch ourselves and it is about getting the right mix of what we do.”

As reported last year, the firm has grown headcount by 21 per cent, which equates to about 30 people, and Haddow said it was easier to recruit staff than it had been in the past.

“Three to four years ago it was more difficult for Trustmarque to attract the brightest talent in the industry, but that has now gone full circle and we now have a culture of attracting the best people,” Haddow added.

Angelo Di Ventura, sales director at the firm, said Trustmarque had recruited across the board and continues to do so.

“Most of these new heads coming in have been added to the sales and services team. We have an organisation that has enough customers and salespeople to put organic growth plans in practice. We still need to add more pre-sales, consultants, technical and salespeople though. We are going much deeper into customers now – it is about getting the balance and what we need to help our sales guys is more technical experts in the business.”

Haddow claimed the firm was continuously pushing its own Trustmarque brand, rather than specific vendor solutions: “We are becoming more vendor agnostic. By delivering a service from Trustmarque we are still close to a number of vendors, but the customer buys a service or solution from us.”

Di Ventura said the firm would not rule out acquisition if it fitted with the business’ growth plans.

“We are coming up against capacity and resource issues – we would look at a bolt-on to bring extra resource in-house,” he said, adding that growth was coming from all areas. “We are winning contracts and business that is quite sexy and juicy,” he said.

“And despite what some are saying about the sector we are still seeing growth from the public sector. It is a different kind of growth. Those guys are in desperate need of partners that can hand-hold them through the most challenging times. It is great to see that they are recognising technology has some part to play and there is a role for IT services in the public sector. They need it more than ever.”