'Our ambition is to scale up in the US'

As part of CRN's Rising Stars report highlighting the most disruptive, most profitable and fastest-growing firms in the channel, Invenio CEO Arun Bala talks about the firm's international expansion drive

SAP partner Invenio Business Solutions now draws 70 per cent of revenues from overseas, and was highlighted as one of seven firms pushing the boundary in CRN's Rising Stars report. CEO Arun Bala, opens up on the challenges of international expansion.

Partner: Invenio

VAR 300 ranking: 144th

Pushing the boundary in: International expansion

You grew at over 50 per cent in 2017. What are you looking to scale the company to?

We expect to deliver revenue of £55m for the year to March 2021, with a stretch target of £60m. As far as profitability is concerned we are scaling that up as well. We consciously reinvest all our profitability back into the business - and that has been a great way for us to grow the business as well. There is a lot invested into R&D and new product development and also to support our international expansion.

What first triggered your decision to target projects outside the UK?

The company was founded in 2006 and in the first few years we engaged primarily in the UK. There were two opportunities that helped us look beyond the UK. The first was from Universal Music, which continues to be a very large customer of ours. The French-speaking part of Universal Music wanted an SAP support partner to support their SAP applications and we had just engaged a team from Mauritius, where French is the second language for most people. At the time we started that relationship we were one of 14 suppliers into Universal Music for its SAP estate. Now we are the sole supplier in that area.

At that time we also had an opportunity from the Mauritian Revenue Authority for implementation of an SAP tax and revenue management (TRM) system. That was in 2008. They'd tried implementing the system with two other SAP partners - one from Africa and one from Asia - but the implementations were failures. We went in and the delivery took six months. SAP took note of Invenio, and ever since they have engaged us on TRM opportunities.

Following that was an implementation in the Maldives. We developed a close relationship with the SAP public sector business unit and at that point Martin Sobotka, who was a very senior person in SAP in the public sector, joined us, and we've been pretty successful ever since in the TRM space. We won a TRM project in Saudi Arabia, which was our first implementation for a G20 country in the public sector. On the back of which the Saudi authorities engaged us for implementation of VAT as well. Following this was an implementation opportunity for TRM for 25 tax types with the Fiji revenue authority.

Our philosophy has been to focus on just a few verticals but be global in these verticals. It would not have been possible for Invenio, or any company, to win an opportunity in a remote corner of the world such as Fiji without having that expertise. It is because of that expertise, and the focus in select areas, that we have such strong traction with SAP and with tax authorities.

What percentage of your sales are now from overseas?

At least 70 per cent of our revenues are overseas. Fifty per cent of revenue comes from our public sector practice, which is all overseas, and a good percentage of our revenue also comes from Universal Music and the other accounts that are in the US.

You've won projects in the UK, Middle East, Mauritius, the Maldives and Fiji, among other countries. What lessons have you learned along the way?

What we have done successfully is always engaged with local people and companies. With Fiji, Mauritius and Maldives, the culture is a mix of aspects of the UK and India, so we have been able to engage very easily, quickly and effectively in these three countries. The Middle East has definitely been a challenge, which is why we have engaged with some local partners who have helped us, for instance, in dealing with Arabic language and local culture. The USA and Canada also require a certain local presence and what we haven't been able to do in the US is scale up. Our ambition is to achieve that, and we hope to do it through some partnerships and acquisitions.

A link to the full Rising Stars report can be found here.

All the data from the Rising Stars report was drawn from VAR 300, which is available exclusively to CRN Essential subscribers.