'Managed services and the licensing business go hand in hand' - Comparex MD

Richard Best tells CRN about the reseller's new direction into the managed services market

Comparex is refocusing its global strategy to drive its managed services division, according to Richard Best (pictured left), the company's new general manager for the UK.

The new strategy comes from the top down of the global organisation and will add more value to the company, says Best, who was previously sales director at Bytes.

"It is annuity revenue based and from a business perspective that makes our business more valuable," he said. "It means [that] we have much stronger relationships with customers [and] we're integrated right across the technical, financial and procurement departments of our customers. Whereas if you're doing that more transactional, product-based business with licensing, your engagement with customers tends to be siloed at procurement."

Comparex has traditionally been a licensing solutions provider but in the past 12 months the Germany-based reseller has been shifting its focus to the managed services business. Best attributes this to a "culture shift" in the company.

Having generated £85.4m in UK revenue last year, Comparex is not turning its back on its traditional licensing business, which is still healthy. It remains a part of the company's global strategy to propel its managed services business, which will focus on cloud management and tech support, along with Microsoft Azure services in the pipeline. "Managed services and the licensing business go hand in hand. We're getting our Azure managed services proposition packaged and delivered. We're already delivering that in Germany, Brazil and Poland, so it's out there and it's working right now," explained Best.

"Cloud licensing is a great footprint for us to go out and sell the managed services that we do. Being in the position that we can dovetail those services together with a traditional licensing conversation."

The UK branch of the global organisation has had a good year, he adds. "The group is really happy with us and they're keen to invest even harder in the UK. We're doubling the size of our sales force in this financial year and we're taking on other resources around the business to help support that," he said.

After spending nine years as sales director at Bytes, Best explains that he was lured to Comparex because of the company's "driven" movement towards managed services. He has enjoyed his first eight months in his position as general manager, but already has plans in the pipeline for his next year. "[In a year's time we want to be] much more efficient in the way that we work with our customers and have a stronger mix of managed services to our licensing business. A direct correlation between our sales of Microsoft Cloud and our deployment of managed service. And a sales team who are really fired up and feeling the financial benefit of pushing managed services," said Best.