Fast-growing EMC partner bets on own IP for success

Reciprocal developing storage assessment tool to prove vendor neutrality

Ambitious reseller Reciprocal has claimed developing its own IP has been key to its success so far - and will continue to be important - as it looks to smash the £10m barrier in the coming years.

The reseller is based in London and focuses mainly on EMC kit, although it insists it is vendor neutral and offers customers tech from the likes of NetApp and Cisco too. It specialises in migrations and serves customers around the world.

The company was set up in 2009 by Sarah Lellow, who decided to start her own firm after stints in sales at 2e2 and Q Associates.

Since then, the company has grown to become an 11-strong team and began developing its own IP last year.

Its NASessor tool, which was developed in-house, scans customers' systems and analyses their files so Reciprocal can advise them on how to improve performance and save money. The service is offered to customers for free in the hope they will go on to work with the company afterwards.

Lellow told CRN that having its own tool has helped it gain customers' trust, and as such, grow the business.

"There are other tools that do the same, but they are vendor related, so you are tied in and they will not give you an independent view," she said. "Yes we are EMC [affiliated], but do we always recommend EMC? No.

"It does help us stand out. It shows how advanced [we are] and how we understand the market and have invested to pass on new intelligence to the customer to help them. We saw the gap and have been building up to it for the last few years."

She added that the tool itself was developed by the "exceptional" internal technology team, many of whom joined the company from former customers after being impressed when working with the company.

Reciprocal currently has 11 staff but Lellow hopes that figure will rise to closer to 19 in the coming months as it expands its sales team.

Lellow would not disclose the company's revenue as it is currently in its final quarter of the year, but said up to Q3, sales were up 40 per cent on the year before.

She added that within the next three years, she hopes the firm will break the £10m barrier.

"We have some aggressive growth going on," she said, adding that being smaller than some channel giants does not hold the company back.

"We have the agility and capability to turn a project around very quickly," she said. "It took another large reseller 12 months to complete a project. We recommended the same piece of tin... and we turned it around in 16 weeks - it's completely different. We have the ability to move quickly and we have the technical ability which is second to none. We have better skill sets, in my opinion, than some of the bigger resellers."