Bechtle opens second UK office to target northern market
German VAR opens second location in the UK as it chases £100m revenues
Bechtle has picked Manchester as the home for its second office in the UK, as the German firm aims to break £100m revenues for its UK business.
The German VAR has opened a base in Piccadilly, Manchester (pictured) with an initial 10 employees. Three staff transferred to Manchester from Bechtle's UK base in Chippenham.
Bechtle claims the new site has space for 36 employees, a number it is expecting to hit within the next three years.
"We're combining the experience of a number of existing employees with the enthusiasm of a new team in the Manchester office," said managing director for Bechtle UK, James Napp.
Napp added that Bechtle will look to combine its e-commerce business with its "solution-based" IT.
"Our great relationships with customers and manufacturers such as HP, HPE, Lenovo, Dell, Cisco and Microsoft will help us capitalise on the incredible growth opportunity in the UK market," he said.
The pan-European player first broke into the UK market more than 20 years ago and originally set up shop in Plymouth. It moved into its Wiltshire location in 1999 where it currently employs 80 staff.
It claims the UK business has almost doubled its revenues over the last two years to around £70m (€78.2m). Bechtle hopes expanding into the north of England will provide new opportunities to grow its headcount and further increase its revenue.
The subsidiary will look to add pre-sales specialists and train staff around trends such as hybrid IT, software and modern workspace as the UK arm chases £100m in revenues.
Bechtle meanwhile announced plans to expand its global headquarters in Neckarsulm, Germany at the start of the year, creating room for an additional 600 employee workstations.
The four-storey extension is set for completion in October 2020.
The Bechtle group recorded revenues of €4.3bn in 2018, up 21 per cent year on year. In December, the VAR set an ambitious target of hitting €10bn revenues by 2030.