CCS Media CEO: I've never given up on selling products

CCS Media revenue jumps 23 per cent annually to £153m

Reseller CCS Media has broken the £150m revenue barrier, driven by growth in its services business.

CCS Media recorded a revenue of £153m for the 12 months ending 31 December 2016 - a 23 per cent increase on the previous year.

The firm saw increases in its software, hardware and networking revenue, but services stood out, with managed print services seeing a 41 per cent increase on the previous year and technical services up 71 per cent.

Terry Betts, managing director at CCS Media, said that other resellers have been quick to abandon product sales in favour of focusing solely on services.

"I've never given up on selling products; that has always been the core of our business," he said. "We've been transitioning more and more to services but I am not going to lose my product sales.

"It's what too many people in the industry do. A lot of them give up on it and move more and more to services so they gain on one end and lose on the other.

"I have no intention of doing that. I will continue the product sales and then enhance the product sales while selling them services."

While Betts could not disclose specific figures as the books are still being audited, he said operating profit also saw an increase on the previous year, but probably not at the same level as the revenue jump - as a result of the internal investments that were made.

CCS Media launched two new sales academies last year, which are expected to turn out around 70 apprentices, with a further two set to be opened this year.

Betts said the firm has seen no negative impact from the Brexit vote, adding that price increases from vendors have been good for the industry, which more commonly suffers from deflation.

2017

Although just one month into the new fiscal year, Betts said he expects to see no lower than 10 per cent annual revenue growth by the end of 2017, but added that the reseller's January was 26 per cent up on the previous year. He also expects margins to increase.

"Margins will always be under pressure because it is competitive, but if we move more to services the margins there are slightly higher anyway so I don't expect my margins to differ too much. In fact, I am expecting that they will go up in 2017," he said.