Exclusive guns for £500m revenue as it opens Newmarket office

VAD lays out new revenue target following ownership change

Exclusive Group has set itself a £500m UK revenue goal after opening its fourth local office in Newmarket.

The VAD has unveiled a new UK growth strategy that aligns with its newly set goal of growing global revenues to €10bn.

This includes pledging to extend the number of resellers it provides account management to and opening an office in the Suffolk town, on the doorstep of rival Arrow's former Computerlinks security arm.

"We've looked at the speed we're growing and we're confident we'll pass through the £300m barrier this year," UK managing director Graham Jones said, adding that the company hopes to grow 20 per cent year on year to achieve its £500m revenue goal by the end of 2020.

Its recent office opening in Newmarket was "100 per cent" due to Arrow having an office based in the town, but Jones (pictured) said that the office is a part of Exclusive's UK expansion to achieve its goals by the end of 2020.

"We are also looking at geographical coverage. Our head office is in Alton, but we also have an office in central Reading and Newmarket and we have Chesterfield up north. It kind of makes sense and we might be looking at other options later on," hinted Jones.

The group had just over a thousand accounts last year, and have recruited more salespeople in order to focus on individual accounts and their needs. "We're adding a layer in, whereas before the field-based people might only meet the top 100, now we're going to make sure they're going to meet the top 150,"explained Jones.

Jones believes that this new strategy and expansion will improve the relationship between the distributor and its resellers.

"When you look at VADs normally, they're small startups adding a lot of value to new vendors," he said. "That normally fades away when those vendors start looking at selling through the bigger SIs. But what we've managed to do by staying flexible is to stay with our vendors on that journey. We now supply the whole range [of resellers] from SMB, to the traditional enterprise VARs and right through to the SIs."