Wick Hill trains eyes on aggressive growth

Distributor says expanding training business is key to growth plans as it eyes $150m turnover barrier

Wick Hill claims its approach to training is "radically different" from rival distributors as it ups its investment in this area of its business as part of a wider growth push.

Under a "major organisation" of its UK business, Wick Hill has invested in a new custom training centre, enabling it to run two courses for its reseller partners simultaneously.

The distributor offers training for most of its vendor partners, including Check Point, Kaspersky, WatchGuard, SafeNet and Vasco.

Wick Hill chairman Ian Kilpatrick (pictured) said training forms a key part of an expansion drive that has seen the VAD add nine staff in the UK alone this year, although he contrasted Wick Hill's training play with those of his competitors.

"We are radically different from many of our competitors in that, strategically, training and services aren't a key revenue generator for this business," Kilpatrick said.

"We do and we will invest the funds we get from our training business to grow our engineering support for partners to enable them to sell more products, as that is our day job. The more they sell, the happier I am."

Group sales, also including Germany, are on course to rise to $150m (£89m) next year, following close to 40 per cent growth in its fiscal year that ended on 31 March. The distributor now serves 3,400 VARs across the two countries.

Kilpatrick said the UK sales spike was due to his established vendors rather than new signings, whose contribution to growth was minimal.

"The growth was organic and it was across the portfolio," he said.

"We had vendors that grew in the 60s and 70s [percentage] and the real stand-outs were Barracuda and Kaspersky in terms of sheer year-on-year growth. Part of the success was down to partners taking more products from our portfolio, hence the reason why we are driving up training."

Wick Hill is noteworthy for not using credit insurance in the UK and the firm's growth also points to the fact it has been willing to extend more credit to resellers that have outgrown their limits, Kilpatrick said.

"We don't profile customers by generic factors such as their postcode or last year's accounts. If they are a successful and sound business, we will support their growth and we have increased our credit facility significantly since last year."