Westcon Security says vendor focus is fuelling sales

Distributor says focus on just core security vendors helped it record another year of sales growth

Westcon Security's UK boss has attributed a 20 per cent hike in sales to its tight focus on just seven vendors.

Niall McGrane, UK general manager at the distributor, which is part of Westcon Group, claims UK sales rose by a fifth in its fiscal year ending February.

It works with just seven core vendors in the form of Juniper, F5 Networks, Check Point, Blue Coat, Palo Alto Networks, Arbor and Firemon.

McGrane (pictured) said it was Westcon Security's sixth successive year of growth of this order and that headcount for the Slough-based firm now stands at 55.

"The technical, pre-sales, sales, business development and marketing staff are all aimed around a fairly small set of security vendors and are good at what they do," McGrane said.

"This specialism is important. Rack us up against an Avnet or an Arrow and they have a much broader portfolio - the security portfolio for both is huge. We have global reach but a specialist focus."

Westcon Group's interim revenues, for the six months ending August 2015, rose 12 per cent year on year to $2.5bn (£1.75bn), with 29 per cent of the total coming from security. Its European business generated a third of sales.

McGrane claimed Westcon Security benefits from its relationship with other Westcon Group companies, namely Cisco distributor Comstor and Avaya, Polycom and Microsoft Lync distributor Westcon UCC.

"We work closely together if multiple vendors we carry are working together on a project - which we see more and more of," he said.

Compliance is still the main driver in the security market, McGrane added.

"An interesting phrase I heard is that it's no longer about securing the network, but about building a secure network - that's an interesting concept," he said.