'This one meant quite a lot' - Computacenter CEO Norris on the firm's 'Boring Award' win

Computacenter wins Boring Award for consistently posting earnings-per-share growth

Computacenter has won a Boring Award from analyst TechMarketView for consistently posting earnings-per-share (EPS) growth.

The Boring award is presented to publicly listed companies which report EPS growth for 10 consecutive years.

Previous recipients of the award include Capita and Sage, but both have had their Boring status revoked after struggling in recent months.

Computacenter CEO Mike Norris (pictured, right) and group finance director Tony Conophy were presented with the award by TechMarketView chairman Richard Holway (pictured, left) at an event celebrating TechMarketView's tenth anniversary last night.

Speaking to CRN, Norris said that the award takes on more significant because of the relatively few number of firms to have won it. Just six firms have been given the honour since Admiral first received it in 1992.

"We get a lot of awards because we're in an industry that gives out awards, but this one meant quite a lot", he said.

"It is not very many since 1992 -obviously it's not always the case but often the more scarce these awards are the more important they are, and they don't give a lot of these away.

"It's awarded to tech companies but we're the first reseller to get it. You've had Sage which is a software company and companies like Capita which do services, but we're the first reseller.

"I do spend a little bit of my time defending resellers because it's not just services. We have developed a $1bn services business but traditional resell is still very important to us."

According to TechMarketView, Computacenter has boosted its EPS by 540 per cent since 2005.

Holway pointed out that all of the awards have been handed to recepients with stable senior management teams.

"Interestingly, all the Boring Award Holders had very long serving CEOs," he said. "All lost their Boring Awards soon after those CEOs stepped down.

"Mike Norris has been with Computacenter since 1984 and has served as CEO since 1994. Tony Conophy has been with Computacenter since 1982 and has been [in charge] of the finance function since 1996. They don't come longer serving than that.

"Their record is truly awesome."