Logicalis restructures UK and Ireland operations

VAR forms a single business unit with £87m revenues through merging UK, Ireland and Channel Island operations

Logicalis has restructured its UK and Ireland operations to form a singular business unit with £87m in revenues.

The newly unified operation will have a combined headcount of 336 staff and will operate under the name Logicalis UK and Ireland.

The VAR says it will announce a new regional structure and management team in the coming weeks as part of the restructure.

Logicalis' Channel Island and Irish operations are based on its acquisition of 2e2's international assets in 2013 as well as its buyout of Jersey-based IT company iConsult in the same year.

Speaking to CRN, managing director Alex Louth said that the restructure should in no way be perceived as a cost-cutting exercise by Logicalis, and confirmed that its UK and Ireland headcount won't shrink as part of the process.

"We're made up of 336 people in the region. We want to be 336 tomorrow," he said.

"It's all about reorganising some of the team members in a way so that our customers absolutely see the value and feel the goodness there, and our vendors do as well.

The VAR's workforce will be reorganised into vendor and technology-specific teams, or "regional practices", as part of the restructure, said Louth, and each one will be led by a regional director.

He stressed that Logicalis will continue to address the local markets in Ireland and the Channel Islands after the restructure.

Logicalis will form a UK and Ireland "cloud practice", a "digital infrastructure practice" and a "cybersecurity practice", he said.

The firm will also be introducing a regional management team to run the combined business and will bring in a regional CTO to oversee Logicalis' vendor relationships.

Louth said that he expects to have the new regional structure to be mostly completed by this October.

Logicalis UK underwent a previous restructure in early 2019 because the business was "not as agile and focused" as it should be, according to European boss Ruediger Rath, who said at the time that the process could involve some job losses.

However, Louth emphasised that this restucture is markedly different and is all about preparing the UK business to capture new growth opportunities.

"This structural change will allow us to engage a lot better with new customers and current customers," the MD said. "We're doing this for growth - we need to be ready for it because the markets there. And we need to make sure that we are structured in a way that can attack the growth correctly."

"Because we all operated separately, we had our separate P&Ls and we had a separate history from each other, it didn't allow us to collaborate like we shouldbe doing. This model not only brings us together, but it removes those barriers and really allows all of our teams to enjoy for our customers and our vendors a much broader relationship with Logicalis."