Top 2015 challenge may be human resources, says SCC

But business confidence is improving among customers of mid-market integrator

The channel challenge of the year may well prove to be human resources, according to James Rigby, chief executive of SCC.

"The biggest challenge I think we will all have in the next year is delivering that growth with people," Rigby told ChannelWeb. "The market for people is hotting up."

Rigby (pictured) said the competition for talent had been intensifying over the past 18 months, but this has become even more noticeable, to the point where the ability to acquire the right skills and expertise has become a major hurdle to growth."It is not easy to get good people," he said.

The main issue for customers, he added, appears to be the difficulty of coping with an unprecedented amount of change in their market and the business environment as well as the technologies.

"Yes, the devices that people want to use on a network – that you need, that you use also across the cloud, and all the different things that customers have to cope with – is a big issue," Rigby confirmed.

"They want a better infrastructure in-house, they want to use the cloud, they want to use secure cloud and they have got users wanting to use all these fancy new devices."

In that complexity, of course, was opportunity – particularly for the channel, he said – adding that sometimes it means customers and channel providers can end up competing for the same potential employees.

Meanwhile, it would essentially be steady as she goes for SCC, with it looking to grow this year organically and by acquisition. Its datacentre investments are paying off, as is its expanding focus on managed services and communications, as reported by ChannelWeb in November.

The firm remains on track to make annual EBITDA of £50m by 2018.

"And we wouldn't have been able to do these things today if we hadn't divested ourselves of SDG," he said.

In terms of product resales, SCC would aim to keep its revenue constant, through adding value, and not necessarily increasing it. While product remained important, the key thing for SCC, as for most channel players today, was recurring revenues.

The integrator is focusing on organisations with 500 to 7,000 staff, with 2,500 seats as the primary sweet spot, Rigby said, citing Wales and Western Utilities and WHSmith as typical examples.

"That area is targeted for a couple of reasons: the big SIs don't do it, because they don't have the cost base; and the smaller MSPs – I don't want to denigrate any as there are really good small MSPs in the market – they just don't have the capability and investment firepower to create what we've created," he said.