Logicalis looking to grow use of financing 'exponentially'

Logicalis Financial Services aiming to work alongside vendor captives such as Cisco Capital as it unveils three senior appointments

Logicalis has kicked off an internal campaign encouraging its sales staff to use financing to close more business.

Having been hived off from Logicalis as a separate entity towards the end of 2015, Logicalis Financial Services this week announced a trio of senior appointments, including former Cisco Capital executive Paul Tweehuysen as commercial director based in the UK. Its aim is to provide financial solutions to end users of Logicalis to "drive incremental business and profitability".

Christian Roelofs, managing director of Logicalis Financial Services, said Logicalis' internal employees will be his first stop as he looks to grow the Cisco, HP and IBM partner's use of finance and leasing amid the shift to as-a-service models.

"Now we've got the strategy and go-to-market and are trying to grow exponentially across the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand," Roelofs told CRN.

"This is the start of a much larger internal marketing campaign we will run and our first port of call is Logicalis' internal salespeople. The bottom line is, we are providing [Logicalis sales staff] with a product that can enhance their ability to close and grow deals."

Rigby Group, the parent of rival reseller and systems integrator SCC, launched its own finance arm in 2015 with the aim of competing with captive vendor financing arms. However, Roelofs stressed that Logicalis Financial Services will work in partnership with the likes of Cisco Capital, HP Financial Services and IBM Global Financing, as well as other finance providers.

"We are the link between Logicalis, the customer and the funding markets," he said. "A lot of the time we will just be enabling a deal provided through Cisco Capital or the other captive providers, or - if it's a different structure and it's more beneficial to the customer - we can enable other solutions."

According to the Finance and Leasing Association, the UK IT equipment finance market was worth £2.3bn in the 12 months ending 30 June 2016, a 17 per cent year-on-year rise.

Roelofs claimed financing can play an increasingly pivotal role in IT projects.

"The world is moving away from traditional purchasing of hardware towards equipment-as-a-service and that different way of purchasing makes a financing solution something that's even more important than it has been historically," Roelofs said.

"By using Logicalis Financial Services, you still get access to traditional funding partners. The captives, independents and the banks - we know those guys. But you also get the skills and expertise within my business to make sure you're getting the right solution. I'd like to ask every FD of the customer base where on the spectrum of buy-with-cash to buy-on-a-utility consumption model they are today and tell them we're here to take them from where they are to further down that route, because in my view that's where the market is going."

Roelofs argued that financing works wherever there is an upfront cost.

"The only place where asset finance hasn't quite grown enough yet is where there is a performance risk on a service provider, and that's the next step for the industry - we're probably not quite there yet," he added.