SCC says mobility next on shopping list

James Rigby claims mobility acquisition would complete portfolio

SCC managing director James Rigby has earmarked mobility as his next hunting ground following last week's acquisition of hosted voice outfit SIPCOM.

SCC's parent company, Rigby Group, last week bought a minority stake in SIPCOM under a deal that will see it eventually take majority and, ultimately, full ownership of the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP).

The move adds hosted voice capabilities to SCC's burgeoning datacentre offering – which was boosted by the acquisition earlier this year of data connectivity outfit Fluidata – but Rigby (pictured) told CRN that SCC is not yet done on its shopping spree.

"The last area of the portfolio we want to fill so we can deliver end-to-end services is mobile," he said.

"We are looking to acquire in the mobile space and that does complete our portfolio but we are also looking for bolt-on acquisitions to scale what we have in data connectivity."

Mike Swain, managing director of services, Europe at SCC, revealed SCC spoke to "all the serious players" in the voice market before settling on SIPCOM, a UK-based unified-communications-as-a-service specialist with seven global datacentres.

Rigby Group chose to initially invest in SIPCOM, rather than acquire it outright, but will amass a larger stake in the firm as time goes on, taking majority ownership in 12 months' time and full ownership "shortly thereafter", Swain said.

"The proposition it has built up is fantastic and the technical team that sit behind it is the best in the market, but it needed further investment to go on the next stage of its journey," he said, adding that SIPCOM has revenues of about £5m.

Rigby said: "The other attraction is that it didn't come with legacy PBX-type, on-premise telephony stuff. It's a genuine, cloud-only, forward-looking company."

Fluidata will add "another layer" to SCC's managed services proposition once it is connected to the "carrier-class" network SCC inherited through Fluidata, Swain added.

Swain said bagging Microsoft CSP status was pivotal.

"This allows us to directly bill and support Microsoft Office 365 services," he said. "The Broadsoft partnership is hugely important too in the ability to offer complex voice services. By having those areas covered, we are able to give customers choice and flexibility."

He added: "We are ensuring we give [SIPCOM] the right financial support, technical leadership and access to our customer base," Swain explained. "SIPCOM will be part of the family but there will be no outright change – I don't think that would be the right approach in this highly technical and fast-moving world of cloud."