LSP Crayon sketches out UK growth plan
Former Kelway man leads the charge to grow Norwegian firm's UK business
Norwegian software-asset management (SAM) firm Crayon is hoping an "aggressive" push into the UK market will help it become a leading Microsoft Licensing Solutions Provider (LSP) in the country.
The Oslo-headquartered firm already has a presence in the UK – Insight's former EMEA marketing director Ashley Gatehouse joined the firm as its global marketing boss a year ago around the same time as former Kelway man Gareth Johnson joined to become its UK country leader.
In its domestic market, Crayon currently has about 70 per cent market share, but it admitted its UK presence does not match up.
"When you say crayon in Oslo, most people think of us and not a child's writing instrument," Gatehouse said. "When you say crayon in some of our other markets – France and the UK in particular – we are less well known and we need to correct that. We've never really spent any time marketing and projecting our offer."
The privately owned firm has about 750 staff and claims to be among Microsoft's top 10 global LSPs. Gatehouse said UK growth is a priority.
"Currently the UK business in one of the smaller LSPs in the UK and undoubtedly we have to grow it aggressively," he said. "Our objective quite rapidly is to make it a much larger player in the UK market and we will do that by projecting our offer in a more effective way. Gareth – like a lot of country leaders – has a high degree of autonomy. He's actively looking for great people."
Gatehouse said it has teamed up with cloud reseller Cloudamour to bolster its UK presence, which will help it achieve its local goals.
"We've just negotiated an agreement with Cloudamour in the UK to help provide some deployment capability for the UK business," he said. "When we talk about our consultancy business we've got various degrees of resources – huge resources in some countries and less in others.
"Every country director was given the directive to hire or partner and in the UK Gareth has chosen to partner with Cloudamour and I think that is a good decision. It gets us the right skills to help with deployment projects."