45. ANS Group - £47m

The Mancunian Cisco, VMware and NetApp VAR keeps on growing, rising 10 places on last year to enter our top 50. Sales rose from less than £30m in FY11, while gross profit was up 61 per cent to £10.6m. The expansion was helped by the £4.85m acquisition of rival Alpha in November 2010. And more strong growth is planned, with the company recently asserting its ambition to transform itself into a £100m company inside two years.