VAR plans to recruit up to 75 staff to new software development arm

US-based Cisco and Dell EMC partner World Wide Technology launches Asynchrony Labs arm in the UK

Five years after expanding into the UK, World Wide Technology (WWT) is planning to build a custom software development team of up to 75 people in Canary Wharf through its Asynchrony Labs brand.

The global VAR acquired 'agile software shop' Asynchrony Labs in 2015 for an undisclosed sum and has chosen London as the setting for the brand's first international location.

An Apple mobility partner, St Louis-based Asynchrony has delivered custom software to the US Department of Defense, as well as global brands such as Mastercard, Papa Johns and Emerson.

Its new London office, an extension of WWT's existing office on floor 37 of 25 Canada Square, is next door to its core financial services customers, but target UK clients will also include the MoD and large retailers.

Asynchrony currently employs four UK staff, and plans to expand this to 20 to 25 by the end of 2017 and 60 to 75 within a couple of years, said Kelly White, WWT Asynchrony Labs London general manager.

"We are not bringing resources from the US here; we want to field the office with local talent," he said.

Asynchrony is ranked by Gartner as one of the top four agile software developers in the US, and its status as an Apple mobility partner gives it access to the iPhone maker's alpha and beta products.

The business, which specialises in areas such as sensor integration and threat detection, is a natural extension of the integration work carried out by US-based Cisco and Dell EMC partner WWT, which now employs 100 staff in London and Amsterdam after expanding to Europe in 2012, White said.

"Over the last five to six years, WWT has moved away from the traditional VAR business to really focusing more along the lines of being a technology integrator, and more of a management consultant role with customers. One key aspect of that is being able to bring custom software solutions to that integrated mix of services that they provide," he said.

"At WWT we talk about outcomes: 'tell us about your pain points and how we can solve them; what are the measurable outcomes you want to get to' - that conversation has gone very broad and deep with our client base, and software tends to be a key component of that integration story now."