Blue Cube poised to 'take up slack' in security market

VAR boss claims a rise in M&A activity in the security space has provided a golden opportunity for growth

Blue Cube is celebrating what it claims is a "momentous year" for the business as increased M&A activity in the security space opens up opportunities.

The UK-based security VAR – which works with such vendors as Dell, SafeNet and Sophos – would not yet share any figures publicly, but claimed it had a healthy H1 2015 with significant growth in revenues.

Turnover for the business in the year ending 31 Decebmer 2014 finished on £4.4m, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

Chief executive Gary Haycock-West suggested there has been a possible decline in competition due to a number of acquisitions, which has caused the increased revenues – but says his company is capable of filling in the gaps.

"There is possibly less competition now. There has been quite a lot of M&A in the market and you have also seen some of the smaller resellers go by the wayside for varying reasons. But I think we are well poised to take up the slack in that market," he said.

The most recent acquisition in the security space was Intellect Security, which was snapped up by new channel investment firm Metaphor IT, as CRN reported yesterday.

However, West insists that Blue Cube is growing – the VAR recently increased its team by 25 per cent and moved to a larger HQ – and says he would not rule out making future acquisitions if the opportunity were to arise.

He told CRN: "We acquired some years back, and are always mindful of things that come by the wayside, and [opportunities] have a habit of presenting themselves to you when you least expect them."

There has been a rise in security-focused "box shifters", Haycock-West claimed. But he said it is up to the customer to decide what is best for them, and if they are getting value for money.

"We have recently seen a rise in a couple of larger box shifters – stack it high and sell it cheap – why not? There will be customers that buy from those organisations on a cost plus basis, and it is for them to determine if they are getting value for money out of those organisations," he said.

"I am not questioning whether they are successful or not, but I think it is the end-user clients that have to determine that sometimes it is not all about the price point; it is about the overall solution. We can all go off and buy a cheap bit of lunch sometimes, but does it actually satisfy us in the long term?"