Getronics' new boss on how he intends to turn around ailing giant

The new boss of Getronics has pledged to restore customer confidence in the IT services firm, after a period of what he characterised as financial distress and mismanagement under its previous owner.

Getronics was sold to British private equity house GSH Private Capital last month for $200m. At the time, GSH said the takeover will safeguard thousands of jobs across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America following a "challenging period of transition" for the Amsterdam-based firm.

Talking to CRN sister publication Channel Partner Insight, Getronics' new executive chairman, Kenton Fine, laid out what steps he is taking to turn the IT services giant around.

Fine said he began to understand the missteps that Getronics' former management made once he started due diligence on the business.

"There wasn't a top flight CFO in place. There was briefly, but there wasn't anyone to replace them. And that was a big red flag," he said.

"In a fairly leveraged situation you've got to have your financial controls, your governance, everything has got to be completely slick. And this business did not have it - it just did not have it."

Taking an entirely new approach

Fine stressed that he is not a private equity player looking to make a quick buck and move on. The executive chairman pointed to his 24 year stint with facilities management outfit Servest as proof that he is taking a long-term approach with Getronics.

As a result, Getronics' new management intends to grow the business through organic and incremental growth supplemented with strategic bolt-on acquisitions.

Fine stressed that Getronics will not be making any "transformational" acquisitions like its acquisition of Pomeroy back in 2018.

"It is simply not needed; we don't need to do anything wild," he said.

The new executive chairman said he also wants to change Getronics' corporate culture. He said he is a strong advocate of a flat management structure where senior executives are not afforded luxuries that are unavailable to the rest of the company.

"I am a guy that gained my Star Alliance Gold lifetime membership by flying coach class internationally. That's partly because, in the facility management industry, margins are tight, so you can't have the CEO or chairman flying around first class.

"You see in some businesses that the management lacks that feet-on-the-ground mentality and that modesty - it's just not right.

"It is just the wrong behaviour and it's just sending out the wrong message. People aren't idiots - they can see behaviour patterns and they can see what's going on. They can see lack of governance and they can see these patterns happening."

See Channel Partner Insight for the full interview.

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• Topics
• Services and Outsourcing
• GSH
• Pomeroy
• Kenton Fine
• Servest
• Atalian
• Aurelius
• Nana Baffour
• solution providers