Redstor CEO on growing its channel worldwide: 'We've walked in their shoes; we know what they want'

Paul Evans reveals plans to take US market share from rivals and why its channel is core to its consistent growth

Redstor's heritage as a VAR means that it knows exactly what partners want from it now it is a vendor, CEO Paul Evans told CRN.

Redstor started life as a reseller but over its 22 years has morphed into a cloud distributor, then a software-as-a-service back-up company into the data management firm it is today. Those permutations mean that the vendor knows exactly what its partners want, he said.

"Having that experience means that we really truly understand what it's like to be a VAR and what it's like to be a distributor because we have walked in their shoes," he explained.

"We have an intimate knowledge of the hopes and aspirations they have, the pains they have, the need to build revenue streams, the need to get more wallet share, the need to build recurring and enduring relationships with their customers.

"That's what we've done; building smart data management with a world-class partner experience because everything we've built has been built upon our experience of having been a VAR and a distributor in a past life - we've built our software to be completely channel-centric."

Redstor acquired South African software developer Attix5 in 2015 and currently has 350 partners across the UK and the African continent, with offices in Reading, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The vast majority of its revenue comes from the UK, with only 20 per cent coming from international sales. However, Evans hopes to improve this figure by expanding its channel into the US and take market share from its US peers.

"We've just signed up a cloud distributor in the States and that will enable us to have tremendous reach into the States," he revealed.

"There's a very broad, competitive landscape in the US. You have some of the old fashioned data management companies like Commvault, Veritas and Arcserve. Then you have lots of new players; Veeam and Acronis have evolved quite nicely, and then you have the likes of Rubrik and Cohesity."

Redstor reported revenue of £11.6m for its year ending 30 November 2018. It is due to report its FY19 shortly in which revenue grew to just over £13m, Evans said, adding that it has been growing consistently at 20 per cent year-on-year in recent times.

He attributed this success to the "substantial" growth in its partner base and increased demand for Microsoft 365 protection, which has rocketed from 4,000 to 250,000 users in the past 12 months.

"In the last year, we got twice as much new business from our partners as in the previous year; the partner network has grown substantially in the last 12 months," he elaborated.

"Our cloud offerings around Office 365 have grown substantially through our partners and we've seeing massive cloud growth in the last 12 months. We've designed our software from the ground up to have that world-class partner experience."

Attix5 has been the vendor's last acquisition and Evans doesn't plan on any further M&A for a couple of years, preferring organic growth through partnerships and its channel.

"We're going to grow organically and we're going to do that working with our partners," he stated.

"The way for us to grow is to work with more channel partners throughout the world and with cloud distributors, and cloud marketplaces. Microsoft made us a strategic partner and a Gold partner in the last few months, so we want to work with them internationally.

"I think we will probably look to acquire again in 2022. But 2021 really is all about building and enabling our partner network and building out new cloud marketplaces, to sell our data management solution."