Welsh VAR sees record revenue haul by focusing on home turf

Circle IT CEO admits it overlooked the fruits of the Welsh Valley by pursuing wider UK market

Welsh VAR Circle IT has reported record turnover of £15m for its latest fiscal year, which was partly driven by focusing on its local customer base, according to CEO Roger Harry.

The revenue increase, for its year ending 30 November 2018, marks a 39 per cent growth on last year's figure.

The Cardiff-based MSP has a headcount of 85, and as an office in Amsterdam. It works primarily in the education sector and counts Dell EMC, Microsoft and Mimecast among its vendor partners.

Harry admitted that the company was "guilty" of overlooking its native principality for the lure of the bigger English and Scottish markets.

Over half of its managed business support and 35 per cent of its project work now comes from Wales, with University of South Wales and Cardiff and Vale College among its local customers.

"We've not really looked at our own doorstep in the past few years," he told CRN.

"We were guilty of chasing the bigger markets [England and Scotland] rather than seeing what was outside our front door, and we are now doing a lot more work closer to home in the public and private sectors."

The CEO added that he expects future revenue growth to come from a number of new projects in the pipeline, along with winning businesss from new frameworks.

It will also be pushing to add to its recurring revenue stream.

"A lot of recurring revenue will come from Microsoft Azure and Office365," he stated.

"We are doing a lot of projects around those two technologies at the moment, and they are also a good entry point into new customers.

"We are winning a lot of new business by having those conversations around business transforation with products like those."