CRS man swaps recruitment for cloud services

Channel Recruitment Solutions' Simon Brealy forms start-up datacentre firm Bletchley Cloud

A former channel recruitment manager has swapped his jobs role for starting up his own datacentre business.

Simon Brealy, who spent two years at Channel Recruitment Solutions (CRS) as its business development manager, has formed Bletchley Cloud, a datacentre hosting and services firm primarily targeting the SMB market.

Brealy said that after working wtih channel partners on a daily basis at CRS, he was keen to get more involved in the industry rather than sitting on the sidelines.

The firm, which is funded by Brealy and one other partner, is based in Milton Keynes and has already signed up its first customers. It is on the hunt for potential reseller partners and consultants.

Brealy said: "We were going to partner with [an investment] company but we walked away and kept things in-house as we wanted to stick with the SMB mentality.

"That [investment] partner would have made us corporate; we would make money more quickly that way but we have a more long-term SMB focus. We decided to take a hit in the short term to secure the future."

The firm will offer businesses virtual environments, mail and web-hosting services, unified communications and datacentre space, from its office in Bletchley Park Science and Innovation Centre.

Last month, CRS' sales director Andrew Cross left the firm to join Tahex, and Brealy claimed his own experience at the recruitment firm stood him in good stead for working in the channel.

"The biggest thing with CRS is the focus on people; in recruitment you have to understand people. [With Bletchley Cloud] we operate a ticketing system for technical queries but rather than tick boxes and so on, they can call someone up who will give them a realistic answer," he said.

"It's all about people, and that is important, especially in the SMB sector. We are talking to people whose business is their life, and we need to look after them."