Reseller: 'How we will hit £60m turnover this year'

Bullish reseller unveils the driving forces behind its ongoing growth

Total Computer Networks plans to smash through a new turnover barrier in 2017 as last year's public services wins come to fruition for the ambitious reseller.

Riding the cloud revolution with clients, the Northamptonshire-based firm has also earmarked a fresh sales recruitment drive to fuel its growth.

"In terms of future growth plans with us, this year we will be looking for £60m plus [in turnover] and that is up from just over £51m last year. Currently, we are on target to hit that £60m figure," Kieran O'Connor, sales director at Total Computer Networks, told CRN.

"That growth is coming more from services. Product is still a big part of what we do and we are proud that - we are still a reseller. However, that product sale is increasingly attached to a service delivery or a value-add."

O'Connor said after 23 years in the industry, the current market shift towards pay-as-you-go cloud as a delivery method is the most dramatic he has ever witnessed.

"In almost every engagement we are having with clients, cloud is a central part of their future plans," he said.

O'Connor explained that Total's sales team has not grown much in the past two years, but what the team is selling and the projects they are winning is driving growth.

"While we are doing more infrastructure built on hybrid cloud, a really major element has been our public sector wins. Last year we won a place on a series of public frameworks and that has delivered significant growth for us this year," O'Connor explained.

"Prior to the last couple of years, the public sector was not a large aspect for us - we were mainly focused on B2B - but that has all changed after those wins."

O'Connor said the firm has also bolstered its professional services team, giving the sales team the confidence to have conversations at a more in-depth level.

"Rewind five years and we would not have had those technical skills in-house. That sees us getting involved at a much earlier stage of the sale," he said.

Peter Woods, head of marketing at Total Computer Networks, said: "Alongside that public sector business growth, our private sector business has also grown in a healthy fashion in the first half of the year. We are getting larger solution and services opportunities.

"There are a lot of companies in the channel and it would be silly to suggest we are doing something dramatically different to anybody else. The channel in general is adapting to how customers consume IT; it is just that some are doing it faster than others," said Woods.

To aid these growth targets, the firm will be expanding its sales team. "We are proud of the sales team we have and they have done a great job of growing us to this point," O'Connor said.

"We have experience in the team and we like the idea of bringing new staff into the industry for our public sector frameworks and getting them trained up on the emerging technology such as cloud and converged infrastructure."

Woods said the company culture is an important aspect as a new generation of employees comes through.

"At the other companies I have worked at, they have had high achieving sales people, that were charming with their customers but could be right prima donna's with their colleagues. Total prides itself on having consistently friendly, warm, helpful employees and we would look to maintain that," added Woods.