Joskos expansion catches eye of hungry rivals

Education reseller targets 'aggressive' growth after branching out nationally

Education reseller Joskos has attracted investment approaches from rival resellers who have been impressed by its expanding UK footprint, according to managing director Nick Madhavji.

Joskos previously operated solely in London, but at the beginning of 2015 decided to start bidding for contracts nationwide.

It is now providing services to schools and colleges in locations including the Midlands, Manchester, Leeds, Scarborough, Brighton, Portsmouth and Bristol.

"We've got business at Joskos that we can see very clearly over five years," Madhavji said.

"Of the business we've won, the contracts have a value exceeding more than £10m, and if we take into account our existing reccurring revenues we've got more than £20m revenue over the next three to five years that we already know about. That puts us in a strong, predictable position."

As the Joskos name becomes widely recognised, Madhavji claims to be receiving more and more phone calls from resellers interesting in investing in the firm - both resellers they compete against and resellers looking to do more in the education space.

It's lovely to get a competitor come along saying 'are you up for sale, because we're really interested?' That's great," he said.

"If there are partners out there that want to work more synergistically with us, and add value to our bottom line and the schools, then I'm willing to listen but it wouldn't be just because of the money.

"We've got a very firm plan that takes us to 2020 and beyond and we believe that we can achieve those plans organically. However, I'm always happy to look at potential partners and relationships that will speed that up or make it more rewarding."

Coupled with this growth is a recruitment drive that will see Joskos increase its headcount from 70 to at least 90 in the next six months, in anticipation of winning more public sector contracts.

Key to Joskos' growth, Madhavji explained, is the success it is having on the Crown Commercial Services public sector frameworks, in particular ICT Services for Education, on which Joskos claims to have won the second-highest amount of contracts despite competing against larger resellers including Capita, CDW, XMA and Softcat.

As well as the ICT Services for Education framework, Joskos has also won a place on the Technology Products 2 framework - its first framework not exclusively for education.

Despite this, Madhavji said that he would be reluctant to bid for contracts if they didn't directly improve the schools Joskos works with.

"We'd consider them, but we'd consider them very carefully," he said.

"If we found that working in the public sector could add value to our schools, then we'd look into it."