Bullish Autotask eyes aggressive UK growth
Vendor brands rivals' SMB products as 'Frankenstein-like monsters' and aims to double staff and VAR numbers this year
Software management vendor Autotask is aiming to nigh on double both its UK staff and VAR numbers in the next year as part of its aggressive growth plans.
The US-headquartered firm sells to 500 UK channel partners, but is planning to boost that number to nearer 1,000 by 2014, as well as swell its UK staff ranks from 40 to 70 over the same period.
The new hires will join staff in its new Richmond office into which it moved recently following two office upgrades in as many years.
It hopes to increase its worldwide staff levels from 250 to 330 in the coming 12 months too.
The vendor's technology is aimed at IT service providers and includes CRM, billing, helpdesk, ticketing, resource utilisation and project management products which can be tailored to customers' needs.
The vendor claims it is answering international demand for its products by releasing them globally in six languages. It pinpointed Germany as another region along with the UK in which business is booming due to what it describes is "strong pent-up demand" for its offering. It claims the UK has recently surpassed the US in terms of customer-acquisition rate.
The firm's president Mark Cattini told CRN that its face-to-face approach in dealing with the channel has served his business well so far.
"We did not want to just show up with sales guys and start. We want people to come to our Richmond office to see our facilities, training, consulting and support," he said.
"We have lots of [regional] offices for face-to-face meetings, we hold sessions every day around the world.
"Anyone who is interested in us and wants to learn more can come to us, we have an open house for our sales and technology staff to present things and answer questions, it is really important to us to be able to do that."
He added that Autotask competes with the likes of NetSuite and Remedy for business with firms employing more than 100 staff.
Cattini described some rival firms' offerings for companies with fewer than 50 users as "Frankenstein-like monsters of spreadsheets and pre-CRM technology just bolted together", and said that business in this space is brisk for Autotask.