Daisy spins out partner services arm and rebrands it Allvotec

CEO Glen Williams says change will open the business up to VARs that previously thought it was part of Daisy's own channel arm

Daisy Partner Services has rebranded as Allvotec in order to secure large VAR partners, CEO Glen Williams told CRN.

Williams was previously CEO at Damovo, until Daisy chairman Matthew Riley sold it last year. He was then recruited to take charge of Daisy's partner services division.

Speaking at the relaunch, he said that there was a mistaken preconception among resellers that Daisy Partner Services was one and the same as its corporate services business - which is a VAR itself.

Relaunching as Allvotec is expected to draw a clear line demonstrating that the two entities are completely separate from each other.

"In essence, we are an autonomous business away from the other parts of Daisy," he said.

"Daisy is now going to become one of our biggest customers, in terms of us delivering services into them, and we'll take some service in return but we now have contracts between each other - it's a separate business."

Williams (pictured below) was keen to emphasise that though it still has the same shareholders as the Daisy group, including chairman Matthew Riley, the company is very much its own entity, with a separate office and its own IT systems.

He said that that this move will make it clearer to potential partners that it stands on its own two feet.

"We're a partner-only organisation, and that is key - we don't do anything directly," he explained.

"The reason we are doing this is that some of the biggest resellers want to do more with us, but being seen as Daisy means we are seen as part of the same business as its corporate services business, but we're not. Daisy Corporate Services is now a customer of ours and we are separate businesses.

"That's the real change here; it's going to open up the reseller marketplace for us. Traditionally our customers have been big system integrators (SI) and telcos, and we do some work with VARs but not as much as we'd like to."

The relaunch comes after Williams spent the past four months drafting in a new management team to guide Allvotec's 1,400-strong workforce.

It has revenues of around £100m and the CEO said that organic and inorganic growth will ensure double-digit growth in the next 12 months.

"I think that double-digit growth is attainable," he said. "We are looking at M&A - we are in talks with some organisations.

"We are looking at organisations that bring scale, geographic coverage or some technical areas where we might not be as strong."

The company is now focusing on two areas: unified comms and technology services. Key vendors in the latter space are Avaya, Mitel and Cisco, while the CEO said that it has all the end-user accreditations for the likes of Lenovo and HP.

So why whittle its key focus areas down to just these two?

"We are good at them; they are growing, profitable markets and they're not necessarily core to what companies will want to do," he explained.

"We are seeing that partners are trying to move into developing their IP or their own cloud applications. Do they really want to go and deploy and maintain PCs? Not so much. That is where we see opportunities in these marketplaces."

Allvotec is aiming to lock in a number of the top 50 VARs in the UK while continuing to target its traditional SI partner base, which includes Atos.

"Our existing customers are going to get more focus and we are going to invest more in things that we think are more likely for them to want and go and do," he explained.

"New customers open up the market to us because we are not seen as being part of something else.

"I've been told by some people that they weren't working with us because we were part of Daisy, but now they can. Why would you find a competitor when you don't have to? [Their reluctance to work with us] wasn't around our capability - it was around them not funding a competitor."