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Daisy Corporate Services COO talks M&A and sustainability

CRN caught up with the solutions provider for an update on its sustainability strategy and investment focus areas

Daisy Corporate Services (DCS) is gunning for continued growth with a particular focus on its key investment areas.

Speaking with CRN, chief operating officer Lyndsey Charlton lifts the lid on which parts of the business it plans to hone in on in 2024.

"This year we've tasked a team to find out what are our four biggest solution areas that we need to double down on," she says.

"And those are cloud and AI, WLAN, cybersecurity and device-as-a-service which is very much linked to circularity and disposal of IT and managing the device in the right way.

"We recently did a survey on the impact of IT waste and it's scary when you look into it.

"So we're looking into how we can manage that lifecycle, and part of that involves working with and challenging our vendors as to what they're going to do and how things are really part of that circular economy.

"And then how can we work with partners who will help us make sure things get recycled in the right way."

She added DCS is aiming to complete signing up to the science based targets initiative this year and has signed to the UN sustainable development goals.

Cutting out the sustainability noise

With channel partners increasingly ramping up their sustainability drive and the endless information out there, Charlton says a major challenge for DCS is wading through the jungle of information.

"One of the pledges we made as a board is we want to offer our customers a sustainable solution.

"When we looked at using the science based targets and the knowledge from our own ESG strategy was, it's not clear what is a true sustainable solution for a customer.

"We get a lot of information from different vendors that might not necessarily meet what we see as the requirements.

"That's a big challenge for us and our industry because it's something that we need to work on collaboratively together to make a difference in that space.

"We're working really closely with BSI and looking at the universal standards that they're going to put in place because at the minute, there's so many different standards, we spend a lot of time filling in different portals and everyone's using something different."

M&A strategy

DCS last flexed its M&A muscles in June when it snapped up ECSC.

On whether the channel can expect another acquisition announcement from the solutions provider this year, Charlton tells CRN M&A is still very much part of its strategy this year.

"We've just recruited a new head of acquisitions so that's something we're actively looking at, what the future holds in terms of M&A for DCS.

"The ECSC acquisition was very much a people and capability acquisition.

"We already did cybersecurity, but we didn't do absolutely everything. If we organically grew that, it would take too long to give the customers what they need more than anything.

"The other is, we might look in one of our other portfolio areas where we're actually doing really well but there might be a particular vertical that we want to do better in.

"So it could be based on the penetration of a certain vertical that we see as a key focus area for us. So that would be the customer side.

"Then there's skill, we might have a certain area that needs more skill.

"When you look at the strategy there's various options, and as a business it's about how we prioritise them."