Comms-care nears the £20m club in FY14

Services firm hopes to maintain 25 per cent annual growth mark again this year

Comms-care has vowed to repeat its 25 per cent annual growth this year after it hurtled towards the £20m barrier in its last fiscal year.

For the 12 months to 31 March, the channel services firm saw its operating profit rocket 44 per cent annually to £3m on revenue which was up by a quarter over the same period to £19.6m.

During the year, the Cheshire firm increased its headcount from 150 to more than 200, and has already signed up about 20 more since its year end.

Comms-care's managing director Ben Davies (pictured) said the new starters had been signed up within both its sales and engineering teams and has helped the firm increase its regional coverage.

"We're continuing that [recruitment] growth but it's not about recruiting a lot more, it's more about developing the teams we've already got as well and ensuring their skills marry up with exactly what our partners need," he said.

Davies added that he is aiming for the 25 per cent annual growth mark again this year, which he hopes will be achieved by working with existing and new partners.

"We've grown about 25 per cent year on year so we want to maintain that," he said.

"We want to reinvest in the business in terms of training and cross-training some of our existing teams so they can learn new skills. We want to enhance what we offer to existing partners but add some new strategic partners too."

Comms-care's FY14 growth was completely organic, but in the summer it made its first acquisition in the form of Platform Consultancy Services.

Staff at the newly acquired firm have been moved from its former Runcorn base to Comms-care's Cheshire home. Davies said a lot of the 20-strong Platform team are based from home so were not affected by the move and insisted that no staff have been let go since it took over.

He did not rule out future acquisitions in the future.

"We're certainly still in the market for acquisitions but will something happen this year? Maybe not," he said.

"We're interested, but [an acquisition] has got to add value and have a route to market via the channel as it is important to partners that we don't compete with them. There is a limited number of targets within the channel."