Insight rejigs UK arm in bid for 2015 growth

UK MD opens up on plans to create two new business units and invest in more field-based sales staff

Insight has said a recently completed company reorganisation will help it get closer to customers in the coming year as it plans to hire more field-based sales staff and better target its marketing campaigns.

Over the past few months, Insight UK has changed the way it splits up its business by carving out two extra units: SMB and Hosting. The divisions used to come under the umbrella of the Corporate division but now operate independently, along with the Enterprise and Public Sector segments.

The move comes as part of a push at the company to work more closely with customers in its bid to earn "trusted adviser" status to fuel growth.

Insight's UK managing director Emma de Sousa (pictured) told CRN that the changes reflect customers' needs.

"In the UK we've made some changes as to how we segment our business largely because we identified that the client landscape is changing and customers in different segments have quite distinct needs that we want to address," she said. "We define SMB as sub-250 seats so we carved that out to really target that market in a meaningful way.

"Our hosting business has been a huge success story for us. The changes made sense to us in terms of how we address the market... and they will really help accelerate our growth as we move through 2015."

Now that the units have been split up, marketing within each division can be more segment-specific and targeted, she added.

"We want to be a trusted adviser so we need to deliver more on investing in understanding customers and delivering very specific, targeted, relavant marketing communications to our customers," she said. "[This will be] through various different channels – from the website to more investment in intimate events where we work with customers on their specific business needs."

In its bid to respond more accurately to customers' needs, Insight is planning to hire a significant number of field-based sales staff who will spend most of their time working with clients at their bases.

De Sousa said this was an important step for the company.

"We want to get closer to customers... and we believe in order to build relationships with key stakeholders we need to be more prominent in the field," she said. "So it is important to be out there so one of the big investment areas for us is in client-facing salespeople, particularly in the corporate space where we are looking to significantly increase headcount of field-based sales staff.

"It represents a significant shift in our mix between internal and external sales employees. As we travel through and close out 2015 we expect to have a much richer mix of salespeople in the field spending time day to day with customers."

Service please

Last September the reseller kicked off a services push, which de Sousa said was another key focus for the year ahead.

"For 2015 we want to continue to grow the core of our business but in addition we really do want to grow our services business," she said. "We see that as strategically imperative. Now more than ever before, we acknowledge that customers need support and advice. We really do want to increase our presence and investment in consultancy services."

She added that hybrid cloud and modern workplace – tech to suit an increasingly mobile workforce – were also key priorities for the year ahead.

De Sousa said she is optimistic that all five of Insight's business units can meet the "high expectations" of them in 2015, but admitted that the general election might put a spanner in the works in the second calendar quarter.

"The biggest [financial] impact is likely to be that the second quarter of the calendar year will have additional pressure on a year-on-year perspective," she said.

"I guess with that in mind I would be looking to all segments across the business to be on their A-game to offset any financial impact and to share the burden. Ultimately, IT is central to government – whoever is running it – for delivering efficiencies. It will be interesting but I am not overly concerned."