CCS Media guns for £250m revenues
Chesterfield-based reseller is aiming to lift the number of customers who buy services from it from 10 to 25 per cent
CCS Media is aiming to hit £250m revenue within five years by expanding its headcount, investing in staff development, and building its services business.
CCS Media's deputy managing director James Hardy (pictured) told CRN that the reseller wants to add another five academies across the UK by 2022, on top of its existing two, which would raise headcount from 400 to 1,000.
The Chesterfield-based firm is investing in two services and solutions centres in the north and south of the UK. These will provide managed services, as well as advanced technology services for devices and infrastructure, Hardy said.
"Instead of trying to build a legacy managed services and professional services business like some of the larger organisations in our industry, we can invest from the ground," he said.
"We've got a £5m services business already. We've got about 5,000 transactional customers every month and only 560 are buying services from us - that's only 10 per cent - and that really allows us to build up some robust value with customers. We'd like to get to 25 per cent of our customer base and I think that can be driven relatively quickly."
Having started at CCS Media as account manager, Hardy was recently promoted to deputy managing director.
This will help ensure CCS Media has the management bandwidth to continue growing its transactional reseller business as it pushes into services, he said, adding that current MD and owner Terry Betts "isn't going anywhere" and just wanted more help running the business.
Hardy said he wants CCS to be known as a "learning organisation".
"The minimum growth in the organisation that's ever going to be acceptable is 10 per cent year-on-year growth, and we're currently at about 27 per cent," he said.
"The big milestone I'm looking at is how we invest in people and all the hard systems in the organisation to get to £250m. I think we can do that in the next five years, and as soon as we get to that point it's about how long until we get to £500m. We're not looking to acquire anyone. This is pure organic development: increasing headcount, and increasing investment in all our employees across the board. The big thing for me is becoming a learning organisation. Growth will come from the development of people."
PCM became the latest US reseller to launch a UK operation last month, and Hardy predicted this trend will continue due to the recent weakening of the pound and the UK's low rate of corporation tax.
"Whereas an alliance programme would have been favourable previously, suddenly it's really attractive to come into the country," Hardy said. "If you forecast [for the next] five years, I think there will be more start-ups from existing resellers in the US, and also mainland Europe - Germany, France and Holland - depending on how Brexit works out."
Hardy said CCS Media's USP is its account management, stressing that its account managers look after an average of 30 clients, compared with an industry average of 50 to 70.
"It's not a case of stack it high and sell it low via operations, and people are secondary to the system. CCS Media is purely about account management, and taking the time to understand customers' needs in an objective fashion."