Top VARs 2021: Q&A with Logicalis' Alex Louth

The 83rd-ranked Top VARs’ UK MD shares his plans to return to growth

You announced a restructure in July that will unite the UK, Irish and Channel Islands businesses. Is that now complete?

It's all done now. This wasn't about streamlining operations. This was us saying ‘how can we have a larger, wider pool of talent? How can we take some solutions and services off the Irish team into the UK? How can the UK and Ireland lean on some of the security solutions that we have in the Channel Islands?' It's made us more powerful.

Logicalis' UK business has racked up losses and seen revenues fall from £200m to £51m since the loss of a key Welsh contract back in 2015. How close are you now to returning to growth, and breaking even?

Growth is exactly the right word now. When I first joined, we had a couple of datacentres - which is not really part of what we're looking to do - and we were very product centric. We've done a huge amount of work to understand what we're good at and where we fit into the market. We're operating profitably now, which is brilliant. There are a few chip issues with Cisco and other vendors that are making my hair go pretty grey, but we don't have any more heavy rocks to move.

To what extent has Covid been a setback to your strategy?

It just slowed us down. When it comes to driving to profitability, you want to go as fast as you can. We had to put a lot more attention on the wellbeing of our teams. But if we look over the last nine months, we are back to normal, and beyond.

Logicalis has made acquisitions recently, but not in the UK. How likely is it that you will acquire in the UK in the next 12-24 months?

We've looked at a few targets already, and we'll continue looking. Now we know what we want to be famous for, suddenly that makes M&A a lot easier. I think there will be something in the next few months.