VAR 350

VAR 350

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The 350 firms featured in this report are the guardians of nearly £22bn in B2B tech spend and employ enough people to fill Murrayfield Stadium.

From £1.6bn-revenue juggernaut Computacenter to the 20-employee niche consultancies that tail these rankings, they are together the prime in� uencers of B2B tech spending decisions in this country.

Any vendor wanting to crack the UK market must � rst win over this hugely in� uential army of trusted advisers.

As well as acting as the primary route to market for vendors including Microsoft, Cisco, HP, HPE, Dell, AWS, Canon, Check Point and Crestron, this elite squad are uniquely positioned to advise UK enterprises, SMEs and public sector organisations as they digitally transform and weigh up which workloads to move to the cloud, and when.

With demand for their services continuing to rise, the top 350 resellers, MSPs and other front-line tech providers on our radar grew collective revenue by 12.4 per cent year on year to £21.8bn in their latest � nancial years on record, equivalent to the GDP of Latvia.

� ankfully, margins are also on the rise, with median net pro� t margins across the 341 eligible � rms rising from 2.3 to 2.7 per cent (see p7, 8, 38 and 52 for more), and just two of last year’s crop going out of business last year (see p48).

Available exclusively to CRN Essential subscribers, VAR 350 is – we believe – the most comprehensive attempt ever to map the front line of the UK IT channel, and each year our data becomes more potent.

Having grown out of Top VARs, which we launched in 2011, this research encompasses 50

more � rms than last year’s VAR 300, with 74 new entrants in total this time around.

In a new development, we have opted to examine gross as well as net pro� t, and a breakdown of the former can be found on p31.

Meanwhile, we re� ect on some of the quotes and deals of last year on p28 and p35, respectively.

� is ranking list is far from exhaustive, but encompasses the VAR-type businesses on our radar which publicly disclose revenues and pro� ts (in a few cases, we have had to rely on estimates).

Outside reselling and servicing B2B tech, the companies featured often have little in common, with all-purpose enterprise tech powerhouses such as Computacenter, Softcat and CDW rubbing shoulders in the rankings with niche suppliers of computer-aided design software, managed print, cybersecurity, audio visual kit and – in one interesting case – assistive technology.

Despite a slight bias towards London and the M4 corridor, they are also a geographically diverse bunch. Some 14 VAR 350 � rms’ UK headquarters are in Scotland, six are in Wales and three in Northern Ireland (see p44). And picturesque Devon is called home by four representatives.

Whatever their specialism or geographic positioning, what is clear is that the role they play continues to evolve, with the ongoing push into services very much evident in the commentary of numerous VAR 350 � rms as we explore on p12.

As we head into a new decade, and technology continues to move to the heart of what all organisations do, few would bet against the companies featured in this exclusive CRN Essential report becoming even more in� uential.■ Doug Woodburn is editor of CRN.

Welcome to VAR 350

“”

With demand for their services continuing to rise, the top 350 resellers, MSPs and

other front-line tech providers on our radar grew collective revenue by 12.4 per cent year on year to £21.8bn in their latest financial years on record, equivalent to the GDP of Latvia

Incisive Media, New London House, 172 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5QR Tel: (020) 7484 9000

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© 2020 Incisive Media

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350. AVEX International LtdRevenue: £714,000 (-25%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 7Having incorporated its UK business in 2013, this Netherlands-headquartered Microsoft Surface Hub partner saw revenues on this side of the North Sea fall for the first time in its year to 31 December 2018. Counting Crestron, Samsung and Bose among its 39 vendor partners, Utrecht-based AVEX recently kitted out sports brand ASICS’ new EMEAR head office with Samsung welcome screens and videowalls.

349. Atlas Business Group of CompaniesRevenue: £1.1m (+4%)Net profit: 15.2% Staff: 12Operating its own datacentre from a former nuclear bunker, this Cheshire-based managed IT and infrastructure services outfit’s year to 31 March 2018 went off with a bang as net profits almost trebled to £169,000. Revenue topped £1.1m. With a second office in Leeds and operating

units in Manchester and London, Atlas partners with an array of technology and telecoms vendors, including HP, Cisco, Datto and Openreach.

348. Business ConnexionRevenue: £1.5m (+8%)Net profit: 9.3% Staff: 10Based in Stevenage, the UK arm of this South African tech supplier specialises in digital transformation for the mining/energy, healthcare and government sectors. It counts Dell EMC among its vendors. Globally, Business Connexion employs 6,000 staff in South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and the UK. It was acquired by South African carrier Telkom SA in 2015.

347. Fluent2Revenue: £1.7m (-6%)Net profit: 3.7% Staff: 9London-based Fluent2 claims to manage the IT systems of more than 50 hotels and other enterprises. It banked a £61,000 net profit on revenues that fell

six per cent to £1.7m in its year to 31 March 2018. The Veeam and SonicWall partner specialises in technology design and implementation for new builds and refurbishments, with clients including Hoxton Hotels and Hotel Indigo Leicester Square.

346. Datcom LLPRevenue: £1.9m (+3%)Net profit: 10.8% Staff: 23Part of accountant and tax adviser Duncan & Toplis, Datcom provides IT support, solutions and services to 150 SMEs in the Midlands from offices in Lincoln and Grantham. Calendar 2018 saw it treble net profits to £208,000 on roughly flat revenues of £1.9m. It recently renewed its Premier status with Cisco and also partners with Veeam, Microsoft, VMware, Symantec, Citrix and Sage.

345. Connecting LondonRevenue: £2.1m (-1%)Net profit: 8.9% Staff: 16Aiming to be the sole supplier of the IT needs of its small business

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customers, this London-based IT support outfit posted a £140,000 net profit on revenues of £1.6m in its shortened nine-month financial period to 30 September 2018. Since its year end it has sold a controlling stake to Ridgewall, a 100-employee reseller which itself was recently bought by private equity house Inflexion.

344. IC TechnologyRevenue: £2.1m (+29%)Net profit: 5.2% Staff: NATargeting schools and businesses, this Telford-based outfit claims to be one of the largest resellers of Dell client equipment in the UK, and also partners with Lenovo, Fujitsu, Acer, Zoostorm, HP and Ruckus Wireless. Its top and bottom lines both advanced in calendar 2018, with net profits nearly trebling to £110,000 and revenues bouncing by more than a quarter to £2.1m.

343. MinttulipRevenue: £2.6m (+35%)Net profit: 15.7% Staff: 13Founded in 2011, this Microsoft Gold partner’s impressive client roster includes REED Recruitment, Sainsbury’s and HPE. Specialising in helping organisations grow through investment in Microsoft technology, Minttulip enjoyed a barnstorming calendar 2018, logging a £407,000 net profit on revenues that vaulted 35 per cent to £2.6m. It claims its secret weapon is ‘Sally’, a Labrador who regularly visits its London WeWork office. In 2017 it sold up to Aberdeen-based MSP Sword IT.

342. European Office ProductsRevenue: £2.8m (-5%)Net profit: -1.2% Staff: 16This office supplies specialist is in the process of transitioning its brand to new owner Clare’s Office Supplies after selling up in February 2019. An HP Platinum partner, the West Sussex-based

outfit began a search for a buyer amid concerns over its long-term ability to turn a profit. Despite efforts to reduce its cost base, it slipped to a £40,000 net loss on revenues of £3.5m in the 15 months to 30 April 2019.

341. ScotiaRevenue: £3m (+36%)Net profit: 7.9% Staff: 17This Edinburgh-based audio visual reseller returned to profitability in its year to 30 April 2019 thanks to a winning combination of belt tightening and higher revenues. Founded in 1963, Scotia designs and installs a full range of AV equipment including projectors, digital signage, whiteboards and videoconferencing systems. Its client base spans the UK, Europe, Middle East, North America and the Far East.

340. Deans Computer ServicesRevenue: £3.3m (+7%)Net profit: 12.2% Staff: 48Bolstered by the contribution of 2017 acquisition Leckhampton Computers, this Wetherby-based IT support and accounting software specialist grew seven per cent in calendar 2018. Targeting owner-managed SMEs, the Sage and Pegasus partner said it is generating a “growing proportion” of sales from bespoke software. Weaker hardware and software sales moderated its growth during the period, however.

339. Green Cloud ITRevenue: £3.3m (+180%)Net profit: 5% Staff: 5Founded in 2014 by former Equanet salesman Dean Mason, this Manchester-based firm has set itself the goal of being a CRN top 100 UK reseller by 2024. Revenues virtually trebled to £3.3m in its year to 31 July 2019, according to accounts the company shared with us. Claiming to stock 80,000 products, the Lenovo, HP, Brother and Dell partner specialises in IT

support, hardware, managed print and networking.

338. Communicate Technology plcRevenue: £3.5m (+192%)Net profit: -47% Staff: 29Harbouring ambitions to list on AIM, this fast-growing Tees Valley-based firm specialises in providing network infrastructure solutions to landlords and developers of business parks and multi-tenant buildings. Its revenues virtually trebled in calendar 2018, although hefty depreciation, amortisation and goodwill write-off charges relating to its acquired cybersecurity business dragged it to a £1.6m loss for the year.

337. PinnacleRevenue: £3.7m (-3%)Net profit: 21.3% Staff: 26Despite seeing revenues shrink by three per cent in its year to 30 September 2018, this London-based fixed and mobile comms specialist is one of this report’s most profitable firms. Having merged with Mac Consultants in 2013, Pinnacle counts Apple among its key vendors alongside Avaya, Vodafone and Microsoft. It recently formally merged with mobile arm, The Word Telecom.

336. Eurotech Computer ServicesRevenue: £3.8m (-19%)Net profit: 2.4% Staff: 14Starting life delivering tape-based solutions to the oil and gas industry, this Surrey-based storage specialist today operates offices in Scotland, Norway and South Africa. Its top and bottom lines took a knock in its year to 30 April 2019, with revenues down nearly a fifth and net profits halving to £90,000. Its vendor allies include IBM, Nutanix and Avere.

335. Trustco plcRevenue: £4m (-5%)Net profit: 4.3% Staff: 12

VAR 350 VAR 350

343. MinttulipRevenue: £2.6m (+35%)Net profit: 15.7% Staff: 13

Net profit expressed as a percentage of revenues

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Between them they employ 69,166 staff, enough to fill Murrayfield Stadium, and up

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2 of last year’s VAR 300 firms (Gaia and Solutions Inc) went bust in 2019 (see

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Specialising in hybrid cloud and datacentre consolidation, this Hove-based solutions provider admitted it is yet to see sales rise back up to pre-referendum levels as it unveiled a five per cent revenue drop for its year to 31 March 2019. Net profits fell from £285,000 to £171,000. It recently completed a “full refresh” of its strategic vendors, with HPE, HP, Extreme Networks, Veeam and VMware among those now on board.

334. Nolan Business SolutionsRevenue: £4.1m (+0.5%)Net profit: 3.1% Staff: 47This Fleet-based NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics partner’s raison d’être is to improve the processes of the IT solution providers featured in this report, as well as firms in the professional services and internet/technology sectors. Despite flat revenues, net profits for its year to 30 June 2018 more than halved as it admitted that staff and related costs had stunted its bottom line. It recently achieved Microsoft Gold status for ERP.

333. KRCSRevenue: £4.2m (-21%)Net profit: -2.6% Staff: 20Operating three stores in Nottingham, Derby and Hull, this Apple Premium Reseller has been providing Apple solutions since the days of the Apple II. Although avoiding the fate of bankrupt rival Solutions Inc, KRCS endured a tough year to 30 June 2018, as revenues dived by over a fifth and net losses reached £109,000. It recently offered 10 per cent off any Apple iMac or MacBook in a Black Friday promotion.

332. Comtec EnterprisesRevenue: £4.3m (-4%)Net profit: -2.4% Staff: 27Founded by Nick Claxson in 1994, this Surrey-based consultancy works across the fields of

datacentre design and build, hybrid cloud, and cybersecurity and comms. The APC, Cisco Meraki, Datto and Carbonite partner fell to a £100,000 net loss in its year to 30 June 2018, as revenues dipped four per cent. Case studies trumpeted on its website include its work helping Cardiff University create a high-performance computing facility.

331. SecureCloud+Revenue: £4.4m (+51%)Net profit: 6.7% Staff: 39Specialising in public sector secure managed IT services, this Reading-based outfit swelled revenues by 50 per cent in its year to 31 March 2019, an achievement it expects to match in its current fiscal 2020. It also returned to the black, banking a £293,000 net profit. During the period it bagged a strategic contract to deliver a collaborative network platform for the UK’s new combat air system.

330. Lynx NetworksRevenue: £4.5m (+11%)Net profit: 6.3% Staff: 50Counting the British F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone among its IT support customers, this Milton Keynes-based VAR put its foot to the floor in its fiscal 31 March 2019. Its top and bottom lines both accelerated, with net profits widening from £224,000 to £282,000 and revenues rising 11 per cent. Founded in 1988, its vendor partners comprise Cisco, IBM, VMware, Veeam, Ruckus, HPE, Microsoft and Apple.

329. Evaris SolutionsRevenue: £4.6m (+18%)Net profit: -2% Staff: 22Formerly King of Servers, this Hertfordshire-based HP, HPE, Dell EMC and Microsoft partner rebranded as Evaris in December 2018 after acquiring Manchester-based MSP Think4IT. In its accounts covering a truncated, six-month period to 31 December 2018, Evaris insisted its trading

outlook remains positive as efforts to reposition the business pushed it to a £90,000 loss. Revenues hit £2.3m, up 18 per cent on a pro-rated comparison.

328. WTL plcRevenue: £4.7m (+8%)Net profit: 2.7% Staff: 11This Birmingham-based Solaris/Linux and managed services specialist grew revenues by eight per cent in its year to 31 October 2018. Counting Siemens, DPD and MG among its clients, WTL is a VMware Enterprise Solution Provider and Oracle Gold partner, and also partners with NetApp, HP, Dell EMC, Veeam, Veritas, Red Hat and Cisco. It cited growing its cloud provisioning business as its priority for the year ahead.

327. AbsoftRevenue: £4.8m (-8%)Net profit: 4.6% Staff: 48This Aberdeen-based SAP consultancy is looking to exploit rising UK demand for SAP S/4HANA with ‘Adima’, its own pre-packaged version aimed at SME manufacturers. Defying an eight per cent revenue drop, net profits in its year to 30 April 2018 widened from £191,000 to £219,000. One of only 30 SAP Gold partners in the UK – and the only one based in Scotland – Absoft claims 80 per cent of its business is from repeat customers.

326. CapitoRevenue: £4.8m (+14%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 38This Livingston-based VAR claimed it is “poised for major nationwide expansion” as it unveiled former Bloxx sales director Mark Gibson as its new managing director in July 2019. Starting life as a computer rentals specialist, the Microsoft, Pure Storage, HP and Citrix partner turns 30 this year. Calendar 2018 saw it post flat net profits of £157,000 on revenues that vaulted

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VAR 350 VAR 350

XxxxxxxMargin momentumThe wafer-thin margins inherent in reselling and servicing business tech were branded as “bonkers” at CRN’s A-list dinner in November 2019.

“We say we’re providing cutting-edge digital transformation, but Lidl has a higher percentage EBITDA,” Chris Gabriel, director of technology at Logicalis, said during the discussion.

It is worth noting, however, that profitability is on the rise among the firms in this report, with average net profit margins across the 350 hiking significantly on the previous year.

In a bid to negate the undue influence of outliers (including M&A-focused monsters such as Daisy and Six Degrees, which make huge losses at a net level), this year we have opted to look at median rather than mean net profit margins.

Of the 341 firms included in the analysis, median net profit margins stood at 2.69 per cent, up significantly on the 2.28 per cent average the previous year.

Some 273 made a net profit, and 68 a net loss, which compares favourably with a 261:80 ratio a year previously. The majority (179) saw median net profit margins widen year on year, with only 162 seeing them shrink.

Splitting out profitability by company size, two of the three groups – namely the top 100 and those ranked from 201 to 350 – saw average median net profit margins rise. Those ranked from 201 to 300 were the only group to register a fall (see pages 8, 38 and 52 for a breakdown).

Although we can only speculate as to the factors behind this trend, considering the 341 sets of accounts together far fewer grumbled about the exchange rate and currency fallout in the wake of the Brexit referendum than a year previously. Countless firms also said efforts to embrace services and snub low-margin product deals has already boosted – or will eventually boost – their bottom lines (see p12 for more).

In any case, the UK channel is enjoying not just growth, but profitable growth.

This is also confirmed by our analysis of gross profits on p31. It shows that – on average – the 350 firms in this report posted roughly flat gross profit margins on higher sales in their latest years).

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and running SAP HANA platforms, Nottingham-based Centiq recently bagged top-tier status with open source software vendor SUSE. The LDC-backed business succeeded in trimming net losses from £933,000 to £4,000 in its year to 31 March 2019. This follows a “transformation” of the business the previous year which saw it pivot away from hardware and towards managed services.

321. BSI Cybersecurity and Information Resilience LtdRevenue: £5.5m (+3%)Net profit: -12% Staff: 52Having snapped up UK Info-Assure in 2016, UK standards body BSI has developed a penchant for acquiring cybersecurity VARs in other countries as well (most recently buying US outfit AppSec Consulting, in April 2019). BSI Cybersecurity and Information Resilience UK logged a £666,000 net loss on revenues of £5.5m in calendar 2018. The wider BSI business turns over more than £500m.

320. Fitzrovia ITRevenue: £5.8m (+18%)Net profit: 11.9% Staff: 47Taking its name from the district of central London in which it is situated, this managed services provider last year celebrated 20 years in business. Revenues pogoed by nearly a fifth in its year to 31 May 2018, with net profits of £616,000 putting it in a select squad of VARs with a double-digit bottom line. Fitzrovia’s vendor partners include Microsoft, Mimecast, HP, Custodian360, VMware and Cisco Meraki.

319. Microtech GroupRevenue: £5.8m (+11%)Net profit: 11.9% Staff: 62Starting life in 1986 as an IT and telecoms support outfit, Kilmarnock-based Microtech broadened its repertoire in 2015 when it acquired a failing digital

marketing agency, alongside e-health specialist Telehealth Solutions. Net profits of £695,000 on revenues that rose by a tenth to £5.8m in its year to 30 April 2018 put the Avaya and Microsoft partner in an elite pack of VAR 350 firms commanding a double-digit margin.

318. OptimityRevenue: £6m (-5%)Net profit: -51.1% Staff: 74This wireless broadband provider and MSP saw net losses widen to £3.1m in calendar 2018 as efforts to invest in its management team and network under private equity backer FPE Capital pushed it further into the red. The Hackney-based firm did, however, achieve its goal of returning to monthly EBITDA profitability by the end of the year. In March 2019 it secured an additional £2.5m of funding from Clydesdale Bank.

317. SilverbugRevenue: £6.1m (+21%)Net profit: 4.6% Staff: 49This Milton Keynes-based VAR bills itself as a “go-to provider for all things cloud” after last year snaring triple Gold status with Microsoft for Cloud Productivity, Cloud Platform and Data Centre. Silverbug returned to profitability in calendar 2018 as revenues leapt by over a fifth to top £6m. It has a near two-decade association with Wolves FC, and is currently the club’s official junior kit sponsor.

316. Workspace TechnologyRevenue: £6.4m (12%)Net profit: 7.9% Staff: 23Specialising in datacentre design and build, this Sutton Coldfield-based outfit counts APC by Schneider Electric, Aqua Cooling and Bryland among its vendor pals. It generated roughly flat net profits of £507,000 on revenues that pogoed 12 per cent in calendar 2018. During the year it invested in improving its rack hosting co-location facility.

Customers include Cockermouth Hospital and Defence Infrastructure Organisation.

315. TIGRevenue: £6.4m (+21%)Net profit: NA Staff: 48Billing itself as “the UK’s most trusted cloud managed service provider”, Watford-based TIG grew by over a fifth in its year to 31 March 2018. Holding Cloud Productivity and Cloud Platform Gold badges with Microsoft, the Business Growth Fund-backed firm strengthened its toehold in the financial services sector last January when it acquired netConsult.

314. Möbius Business TechnologiesRevenue: £6.5m (+51%)Net profit: 2.4% Staff: 10Having achieved a 51 per cent revenue hike in its year to 31 January 2019, this Reading-based virtualisation specialist promptly announced its sale to IBM partner Recarta in May. Founded in 2010, Möbius makes a virtue out of not employing any salespeople. Its new owner, which ranks 282nd in this report, was attracted to the firm’s vendor partnerships with HP, AWS, Microsoft and Mimecast.

313. NS OptimumRevenue: £6.7m (+7%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 42This Leamington Spa-based schools ICT specialist saw net profits almost halve to £122,000 in its year to 30 September 2018 amid a tough backdrop for edtech suppliers. The Microsoft, Lenovo and Clevertouch partner described its inclusion on Crown Commercial Service’s £550m Education Technology framework last June as an “exciting development”, however.

312. CSPIRevenue: £6.8m (-29%)Net profit: 113% Staff: 9

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VAR 350 VAR 350

14 per cent to £4.8m. It recently made the cut for G-Cloud 11.

325. Transparity Revenue: £4.8m (+47%)Net profit: 12.2% Staff: 31Dorset-based Transparity’s ploy of focusing solely on Microsoft Cloud appears to be paying dividends as it logged a fourth straight year of “significant growth” in the 12 months ending 28 February 2019. Dented by investments in people, skills, systems and processes, net profits rose by a more modest six per cent to £588,000. It claims to be among a “small number” of UK partners that hold 10 Microsoft Gold Partner accreditations.

324. Anchor Computer SystemsRevenue: £5.1m (+2%)Net profit: 9.7% Staff: 54Founded in 1981, this Bangor-based outfit has amassed over 300 customers for its in-house loan and lease management systems. Working with Veeam, Azure and AWS, it is also a cloud and managed services provider, snapping up MSPs VTG Managed Services and Databax last year. Net profits halved to £496,000 in its calendar 2018, with revenues roughly flat at £5.1m.

323. ECSCRevenue: £5.4m (+35%)Net profit: -23% Staff: 82

Following a disappointing 2017, this Bradford-based, AIM-listed cybersecurity provider’s second full year as a public company was more encouraging, as GDPR and high-profile data breaches helped fuel a 35 per cent revenue hike in calendar 2018. Aided by its decision to invest in a SOC in Brisbane the previous year, managed services sales bulged 56 per cent to £1.7m. Net losses for the year narrowed from £3.5m to £1.2m.

322. CentiqRevenue: £5.4m (-9%)Net profit: -0.07% Staff: 34Billing itself as the UK’s “leading specialist” in designing, building

Profit analysis: 201-350

Company Net profit margin

CSPI 113.3%Bistech Group 29.4%Pinnacle 21.3%Network Telecom (UK) Ltd 19.0%Codestone Group 19.0%DMW Group 18.7%Minttulip 15.7%Atlas Business Group of Companies 15.2%Certus Solutions Consulting Services

14.9%

United Carlton 14.3%

Most profitable firmsWhen it comes to profitability, the firms ranked from 201 to 350 are the pocket dynamos of this report, making up in bottom-line buoyancy what they lack in scale.

Relatively speaking, these sub-£20m revenue firms are by far the most profitable group, boasting average median net profit margins of 3.39 per cent in their latest financial years on record, up significantly on the 2.69 per cent average registered the previous year. Some 119 made a net profit and 29 a net loss, which compares favourably with a 110:38 ratio the previous year.*

Stand-out performers include Dorset-based comms specialist Bistech, which generated a sky-high £4.8m net profit on £16.5m revenues in its latest year; London-based Microsoft partner Minttulip and managed print VAR United Carlton (see table, right).

Looking at the top line, this group generated £1.57bn in collective revenues, a 10.2 per cent growth on the £1.42bn they hauled in the previous year. Some 100 grew, while 50 shrank.

*Two firms – Cinos and TIG – weren’t included in the profit analysis.

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Based in Wokingham, the UK arm of this global VAR’s net profits exceeded its revenues in its year to 30 September 2018 as the proceeds from the sale of German arm Modcomp GmBH artificially inflated its bottom line. With revenues of close to $80m, NASDAQ-listed CSPI offers its own cybersecurity products under the ARIA brand, and also partners with Aruba, Veeam, Netwrix, Dell EMC and Juniper.

311. Kick ICT GroupRevenue: £7.1m (+197%)Net profit: 7.8% Staff: 105This Scottish buy-and-build outfit claims it is a £12m-revenue business following its quick-fire acquisitions of Talon Business Solutions, Roxxap, Vorezo and Castle Computer Services. Specialising in Microsoft Dynamics and Infor software, the Glasgow-headquartered group doubles up as an MSP, counting SolarWinds, Citrix and Lenovo among its allies. Revenue in its year to 30 September 2018 virtually trebled to £7.1m.

310. Christie DataRevenue: £7.5m (+9%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: N/AThis Stroud-based storage and virtualisation reseller recently rolled out an HPE Nimble Storage solution for leading bakery supplier British Bakels. Revenues plumped up nine per cent to £7.5m in its year to 31 March 2018, with net profit hitting £273,000, compared with a £116,000 loss a year earlier. Part of AIM-listed hosting provider iomart, Christie Data offers seven services on the new G-Cloud 11 framework.

309. Babble CloudRevenue: £7.8m (+3%)Net profit: 0.6% Staff: 34Counting Which? and Birmingham Royal Ballet among its customers, this newly minted UC and contact centre outfit

returned to the black in its year to 30 November 2018 as revenues inched up three per cent. Formerly known as IP Solutions, the London-based outfit rebranded in 2018 under private equity backer LDC and is now on an M&A push. It claims its cloud-based approach puts it “ahead of the market”.

308. Peach TechnologiesRevenue: £7.8m (-4%)Net profit: 6.3% Staff: 69This Whitley-based comms provider described 2018 as a “transformational year” as its acquisition of fellow south-coast MSP, Taylor Made (ranked 287th in this report), propelled its revenue run rate to £20m. In an elongated 16-month financial period ending 31 December 2018, Peach banked a £654,000 net profit on revenues of £10.4m. During the year the Mitel and O2 partner invested further in an Autotask service management platform.

307. Boston NetworksRevenue: £7.8m (-17%)Net profit: 9.6% Staff: 85This Glasgow-based smart buildings and IoT specialist was recently picked to lead a £6m project to commercialise the Internet of Things across Scotland. Having acquired Boston Networks in 2018, Aliter Capital has since combined the Aruba, Cisco and Axis partner with Welsh counterparts Pinacl Solutions and Pinacl GDA (ranked 183rd in this report) to form a UK-wide organisation with over 300 staff. Revenues hit £7.8m in its year to 30 April 2019.

306. Insight SystemsRevenue: £7.9m (-4%)Net profit: 7.2% Staff: 41Working from offices in Kent, Essex, London and throughout the Home Counties, this Ricoh and Papercut partner claims to have over 3,000 machine

placements. Unaudited accounts for its year to 30 September 2018 show revenues tumbling four per cent and net profits sliding from £747,000 to £566,000. News that it recently completed the CompTIA Managed Print Trustmark is proudly trumpeted on its website.

305. Rail Asset Management SolutionsRevenue: £8m (+37%)Net profit: 2% Staff: 52Trading as EAMS Group, this enterprise asset and safety management specialist was acquired by Dutch group Arcadis in March 2019. Partnering with the likes of IBM Maximo, SAP, Autodesk and Infor and specialising in verticals including rail and transportation, the Canary Wharf-based outfit posted a £160,000 net profit on £8m revenues in its year to 31 August 2018. It recently won a deal with Transport for London.

304. Akhter GroupRevenue: £8.3m (+73%)Net profit: 6.7% Staff: 24Founded in 1979 by Professor Humayun Mughal, this Harlow-based public sector specialist assembles its own hardware and also partners with a wide range of third-party vendors. Supplying 820 Acer tablets to cadets at Sandhurst is among the case studies displayed on its website. Despite citing a “challenging business environment”, Akhter grew revenues 73 per cent pro rata in calendar 2018 as it pushed into the green energy market.

303. Open Systems TechnologyRevenue: £8.7m (-8%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 1Founded in 1997 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this US HPE, Dell EMC, NetApp and Microsoft partner expanded into the UK in 2013. Open Systems Technology maintains space in the offices of its primary UK client and services

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OST’s global clients with a UK presence. It generated net profits of $249,000 on revenues that rose from $11.7m to $12.1m in its year to 31 March 2018 (although using historical conversion rates revenues fell eight per cent in pound terms).

302. Amicus ITSRevenue: £8.7m (-10%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 63This Southampton-based MSP saw revenue drop 10 per cent in its year to 30 September 2018 as former parent Care UK continued to in-house elements of service delivery. Net profits also more than halved to £127,000. In November, Amicus was snapped up by local peer Aura Technology, a fledgling MSP that counts Sir Clive Woodward as a non-executive director. The duo boast a combined turnover of £10m.

301. Cinos LtdRevenue: £8.8m (-15%)Net profit: N/A Staff: 49Having folded comms arm Cinos Communications Services into its business in August 2019, this audio visual integrator claims it is now a £20m-turnover business. Cinos Ltd generated £10.2m revenues in the 14-month period to 31 December 2018, according to numbers it shared with us. That represents a 15 per cent drop pro rata. Its new head office in Frimley, Surrey, showcases technology from Crestron and Cisco.

300. Mirus ITRevenue: £9m (+19%)Net profit: 4.5% Staff: 96In a last hurrah as an independent outfit, Milton Keynes-based MSP Mirus IT registered solid annual top and bottom-line growth ahead of its sale to IT Lab in August 2019. Fuelled by higher Azure and Office365 sales, revenues in its year to 31 October 2018 hiked 19 per cent, while net profits widened from £251,000 to

£408,000. Seventy-sixth-ranked IT Lab said the deal would swell its revenue run rate to £75m and add a managed print string to its bow.

299. Pythagoras CommunicationsRevenue: £9.1m (+5%)Net profit: 0.9% Staff: 115Holding six Microsoft Gold competencies in total, Pythagoras bills itself as the UK’s largest privately held Microsoft Dynamics partner. The London-based firm returned to profit in its year to 31 March 2019, with the successful deployment of its Evolve product – which uses low code to streamline business processes – underpinning a five per cent revenue hike. It expects to grow at least 10 per cent in its fiscal 2020.

298. Excalibur Communications GroupRevenue: £9.2m (+13%)Net profit: 6.2% Staff: 64Excalibur’s staff were handed their second payout of the company’s £1m bonus scheme after the Swindon-based comms VAR recorded solid top and bottom-line growth in its year to 30 June 2019. It acquired IT services outfit Sensata during the period. The Vodafone and Microsoft partner announced last month that former CEO, James Phipps, will leave his role as executive chairman in April 2020, marking the completion of a management buyout performed in April 2018.

297. Pacific ComputersRevenue: £9.5m (-6%)Net profit: 3.4% Staff: 47Counting Madame Tussauds among its clients, this Basingstoke-based audio visual and IT integrator recently bagged a spot to supply AV equipment through public sector-owned buying organisation ESPO. The Crestron, Logitech and Polycom partner, whose offering spans DaaS, digital signage, videowalls

and videoconferencing, posted a net profit of £403,000 on revenues of £11.9m in its extended 15-month period ending 31 March 2018.

296. Pennine Telecom (now Avoira)Revenue: £9.5m (-2%)Net profit: 6% Staff: 74This Bury-based unified comms specialist claims it is now a £27m-revenue business after combining with two of its sister companies under a new brand – Avoira – in July 2019. Pennine enjoyed a “steady” calendar 2018 as net profit and revenues hit £566,000 and £9.5m. Avoira Ltd encompasses fellow Nycomm Group companies Videonations and Co-Channel, which focus on audio visual and two-way radio technology, respectively.

295. SCC AVSRevenue: £9.7m (-20%)Net profit: -10.6% Staff: 55This Chessington-based audio visual reseller blamed a “disappointing” annual revenue slump on the transition of its business under new owner SCC, which acquired it in November 2018. Revenues stood at £8.1m for the 10 months ending 31 March 2019, down a fifth pro rata, while net losses hit £859,000. Its rollout of a Polycom comms solution for Bupa Dental Care is among the case studies adorning its website.

294. PentesecRevenue: £9.7m (+42%)Net profit: 6.9% Staff: N/ACheck Point’s reigning UK growth partner of the year enjoyed a barnstorming year to 31 March 2019, with accounts it shared with us showing revenue bulging 42 per cent to £9.7m and net profits widening to £665,000. The Peterborough-based firm launched in 2014 with a “technology-first” approach to reselling, making it one of the youngest firms in this report. It

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recently inked a pact with email security vendor Proofpoint.

293. Fordway SolutionsRevenue: £9.7m (+14%)Net profit: 6.9% Staff: 51This Microsoft and AWS partner claims it recently helped Brent Council cut IT power consumption by 80 per cent through using desktop virtualisation. Despite facing “increasing commoditisation” in its traditional IT infrastructure market, Fordway succeeded in boosting both revenues and profits in its year

to 31 August 2018 as it doubled down on its niche of selling cloud services through G-Cloud. Net profits hit £670,000, compared with a £371,000 loss a year earlier.

292. Autodata ProductsRevenue: £9.9m (+8%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 14Based in London’s trendy Tech City, this cybersecurity-focused VAR fell tantalisingly short of the £10m revenue mark in its year to 31 March 2019 on the back of eight per cent growth. A Meraki wireless LAN project

for renewable energy firm Lightsource BP is among the case studies highlighted on Autodata’s website. It counts AWS, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Alienvault among its key vendor chums.

291. Incremental GroupRevenue: £9.9m (+51%) Net profit: 8.3% Staff: 108Backed by Dunedin LLP, this highly ambitious Scottish Microsoft Dynamics partner is targeting a headcount of 600, annual revenues of £75m and EBITDA of £15m by 2022.

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■ “As the reseller market comes under greater pressure, we have focused on planning and implementing the changes and investments required to migrate our business from a VAR to an MSP and consulting business.”81st-ranked Viadex revealed it is in year two of a “five-year evolution” which will see it migrate towards “higher-value technical, commercial and operational services”.

■ “Global systems integrators recognise that widespread adoption of cloud is inevitable in the future, but opportunities to implement cloud solutions for [their] clients have the disadvantage of cannibalising [their] existing revenue streams.”47th-ranked Cloudreach predicted that a small number of cloud-native services businesses, including Cloudreach itself, will dominate the global cloud market due to the split loyalties of established SIs.

■ “There is an accelerating trend towards accessing data via the cloud, and customers are seeing IT more as an operating expense rather than a capital expense. In moving our own infrastructure… the company has given our technical team the first-hand experiences that should prove beneficial in the future.”95th-ranked TET commented on eating its own dogfood when it comes to cloud.

■ “The move from on-premise to cloud can be technically challenging, so many

customers require help with this. As they philosophically move from a DIY approach to consumption of a service, many also find it desirable to outsource the day-to-day management of it. Both create opportunities for the technically able reseller-cum-service provider.”57th-ranked Total Computers claimed in its full-year strategic report that the reseller opportunities around cloud abound.

■ “While this move [away from the supply of product towards public cloud] continues, there remains an appetite in the market for on-premise solutions, in particular around a transition to a hybrid cloud methodology, combining the best of public cloud solutions with on-premise solutions for mission-critical workloads.”64th-ranked Celerity claimed many customers are gravitating towards a hybrid approach rather than going all in on public cloud.

At your service ■ “The directors are pleased to report improved results together with increased momentum in the transformation of Sol-Tec into a cloud-first firm.”288th-ranked Sol-Tec trumpeted its cloudy efforts in its latest annual accounts.

■ “The improvement [in profitability] has been realised from the new services and growth in managed services, which has replaced previous hardware transactions.”322nd-ranked Centiq claimed its services transformation was the key to improved numbers in its fiscal 2019.

■ “During the year, Lima have made solid progression in strengthening recurring revenue, with a deliberate shift away from traditional variable product sales into proactively promoted managed services and cloud services, resulting in longer-term

contracts and increased consistent revenue

streams.”248th-ranked Lima Networks said it made

“significant changes” to its strategy in its latest

fiscal year.

■ “Our strategy has been to acquire a higher proportion of our revenues from multi-year managed services contracts and large-scale migration projects, with less reliance on product sales. The board is delighted to note that this strategy is starting to pay off.”179th-ranked Bluesource Information said it enjoyed a “good year” as it pushed deeper into services.

■ “The increase in recurring revenue reflects a move from one-off capital projects to recurring cloud services and SaaS products, and we expect this trend to continue.”193rd-ranked IP Integration said its reorientation towards cloud and SaaS enabled it to boost recurring revenues from 58 to 68 per cent of its revenues in its fiscal 2018.

■ “This [increase in turnover and profit] is due to the company moving more firmly into the role of a managed cybersecurity service provider, driven by customers’ demand for a more turnkey solutions as they themselves struggle to recruit and retain skilled cybersecurity expertise.”262nd-ranked Satisnet said it is looking to grow its SOC to meet growing demand for outsourced cybersecurity services.

Although Computacenter, Softcat, CDW, SCC and Insight grew UK product revenues by a collective £808m in their latest years, this pattern was not repeated across the wider VAR 350. Countless firms outside the top 10 either reported lower demand for traditional hardware and software deals or moved to deliberately snub them.

Indeed, the continued shift to managed and cloud services emerged as a defining trend across the 350 sets of accounts encompassed in this report. Here we round up some of the best soundbites:

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Accounts for Incremental Group Ltd covering the year to 31 March 2019 show a £820,000 net profit on revenues that rose by more than a half to £9.9m. Its customers include Total, Aggreko, Shelter, Scottish Leather Group and Aberdeen City Council.

290. SAGlobal EuropeRevenue: £10m (+151%)Net profit: 6% Staff: 49Having entered the UK in 2017 by grabbing Cardiff-based M4 Systems, this global Microsoft Dynamics partner recently opened a third local office in Leeds. The site will act as a hub for its legal360 product. Headquartered in Hong Kong, SAGlobal employs 700 staff in 26 offices across 19 countries, and claims to support over 250,000 Microsoft Dynamics users worldwide. UK revenues hit £10m in calendar 2018.

289. Explorer UKRevenue: £10.1m (+25%)Net profit: 7.5% Staff: 33This Leeds-based Oracle database specialist enjoyed a bumper year to 31 August 2018, with revenues of £10.1m representing a 25 per cent hike on a pro-rated basis and net profits widening to £756,000. It was recently anointed as the UK Oracle User Group database partner of the year for a fifth year running and last month moved to a larger HQ. Customers include Premier Farnell and Prudential.

288. Sol-TecRevenue: £10.1m (+60%)Net profit: 6.6% Staff: 26This Reading-based public cloud migration outfit boasts one of the fastest-growing top and bottom lines in this entire report, with revenues and net profits swelling a respective 60 and 320 per cent in its year to 30 June 2018. Counting the DWP among its customers, the public sector specialist holds

six Gold badges with Microsoft and also partners with Archive 360, Corent, Cloudamize, Peer Software, Barracuda and RiverMeadow.

287. Taylor Made Computer SolutionsRevenue: £10.1m (+4%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: 114This Fareham-based MSP claimed it created a “formidable technology and telephony” company when it joined forces with comms counterpart Peach in August 2018. Due to a lack of group accounts reflecting Peach Technologies’ enlarged scale, we have opted to split out TMCS’ numbers one last time. Revenues for its 13 months to 31 December 2018 hit £11m, a four per cent pro-rata hike. Net profits rose sharply to £397,000.

286. CloudCoCo GroupRevenue: £10.2m (-1%)Net profit: -37% Staff: 102Formerly Adept4, this AIM-listed ‘IT-as-a-service’ provider ended 2019 with a different CEO, strategy and name than it began the year with. Having acquired CloudCoCo for £6.1m in October, it formally assumed the Microsoft, Citrix, AWS and Alibaba Cloud partner’s identity on 3 December. The firm completed a cost-cutting programme in March after fruitless endeavours to land new business pushed it to a £3.8m net loss in its fiscal 2018.

285. UtilizeRevenue: £10.2m (+13%)Net profit: 3.2% Staff: 100Having broken the £10m revenue barrier in calendar 2018, this Essex-based IT support outfit unveiled plans to move into a new warehouse and HQ in Basildon in 2019. Despite a 10 per cent hike in staff costs, the Microsoft, HP and Avaya partner succeeded in growing gross margins from 31.7 to 32.3 per cent during the year, with net

profits widening from £269,000 to £324,000. M&A is now on the agenda, it said.

284. Certus SolutionsRevenue: £10.3m (+39%)Net profit: 14.9% Staff: 58Having been gobbled up by Accenture in October 2018, this Guildford-based Oracle consultancy was recently liquidated following the transfer of its trade and assets to its new owner. For what it’s worth, the now defunct G-Cloud specialist enjoyed a bravura 15 months to 31 August 2018, hitting a £1.9m net profit on revenues of £12.9m (up from a £199,000 profit on £7.4m revenues the previous year).

283. Snelling Business SystemsRevenue: £10.3m (+28%)Net profit: 1.7% Staff: 50This Norfolk-based audio visual integrator recently helped create a “multi-sensory, experiential design” for Stella McCartney’s Bond Street store. Revenues vaulted by more than a quarter in its year to 30 April 2019 as its membership of the PSNI global alliance of AV integrators helped it generate £1.6m in overseas business. Founded in 1954 by Roy Snelling, it is owned by a charitable trust.

282. Recarta ITRevenue: £10.4m (+14%)Net profit: 5.6% Staff: 20This Surrey-based IBM partner moved to a new HQ in August after posting double-digit growth in its year to 31 March 2019. Touting itself as Big Blue’s second-largest UK support partner, Recarta’s 300 clients sit mainly in the banking/finance, retail, distribution and manufacturing sectors. Net profits widened from £337,000 to £580,000. Last May it snapped up virtualisation specialist Möbius (ranked 314th in this report).

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281. Frontline ConsultancyRevenue: £10.5m (+3%)Net profit: 7% Staff: 101Cheshire-based Frontline said its core ERP and managed services activities are both continuing to grow as it unveiled solid results for its year to 31 December 2018. Revenue ticked up three per cent, while net profits slipped from £758,000 to £729,000. Billing itself as “the UK’s leading SAP Business One and Sage X3 ERP consultancy”, it operates two datacentres and also partners with IBM, Veeam, VMware and Cisco.

280. Microlink PCRevenue: £10.6m (+25%)Net profit: -8.7% Staff: 77This assistive technology specialist declared the 12 months to 31 July 2018 a “breakthrough year” as it delivered 25 per cent growth. Its top two customers, which together contribute 60 per cent of total revenues, have both renewed since year end, it added. Net losses for the Eastleigh-based outfit, which claims to have enabled over 250,000 people with health conditions to succeed in education and employment, narrowed slightly to £920,000.

279. Plan-NetRevenue: £10.6m (-7%)Net profit: 4.9% Staff: 136Specialising in the financial and legal verticals, this Microsoft and VMware partner sold up to fellow London-based MSP Acora (ranked 221st in this report) in August 2019, creating a £30m-revenue company with 250 customers. Plan-Net suffered a seven per cent revenue dip in its year to 31 December 2018 as it pursued recurring support services and tightened its focus on profitability.

278. Involve Visual CollaborationRevenue: £10.7m (-13%)Net profit: -0.1% Staff: 122This Warrington-based audio

visual and collaboration specialist’s website features several case studies with NHS trusts, including a project to provide “state-of-the-art” multi-disciplinary team rooms to United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trusts. Part of the PSNI global network of AV integrators, Involve slipped to a £6,000 net loss in its year to 31 December 2018 on revenues that dropped 13 per cent – results it said reflected a “competitive marketplace”.

277. New Signature UKRevenue: £10.8m (+57%)Net profit: -14.9% Staff: 75Microsoft’s reigning UK partner of the year saw revenues pogo 57 per cent in its year to 30 June 2018 as recent acquisition Paradigm Systems and organic growth combined to bolster its top line. Globally, Washington DC-based New Signature employs 500 staff in the US, Canada, the UK, Philippines and South Africa. The “cloud-first, full-service” Microsoft partner’s recent client wins include Virgin Atlantic.

276. SICLRevenue: £10.8m (+19%)Net profit: 10.5% Staff: 60Counting Chester Zoo and Nissa Retail among its clients, Leeds-based SICL claims it was one of Cisco’s first ever partners, and remains a Premier partner of the networking giant to this day. Net profits of £1.7m on revenues of £16.2m in its 18-month fiscal period to 31 December 2018 rank it among an exclusive double-digit margin club. Having acquired SICL in 2018, owner MXLG last year bought two other VARs, including 256th-ranked 365 ITMS.

275. Bamboo TechnologyRevenue: £10.9m (-9%)Net profit: 7.2% Staff: 47Despite the “major logistical exercise” created by changes to its commercial agreement with

key supplier O2, this converged comms provider succeeded in trebling net profit to £783,000 in its year to 30 June 2018. Revenues slumped nine per cent, however. Since year end it has kicked off a buy-and-build drive, grabbing fellow Cheltenham firm Tech OP – an IT managed services provider serving SMBs across the South West – in May 2019.

274. MBA ITRevenue: £11m (-5%)Net profit: 2.6% Staff: 21This London-based outfit claims its decision to double down on its core VAR and consultancy activities (it sold off its MSP arm in 2016) is paying off as net profits more than doubled in its year to 31 December 2018 – defying a five per cent revenue dip. As well as partnering with HP, IBM, Lenovo, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, VMware and Nutanix, MBA has a tab on its website dedicated to backup vendor Veeam.

273. JT GlobalRevenue: £11m (-19%)Net profit: -8.6% Staff: 56Founded in 1888, JT claims it is the oldest and largest telecoms operator in the Channel Islands and is fully owned by the people of Jersey. UK trading entity, JT (Global) Ltd – whose customers include Kraft Heinz– saw net losses widen to £953,000 on revenues that fell nearly a fifth to £11m in its year to 31 December 2018. A Cisco Gold and Avaya Platinum partner, JT employs 600 staff and turns over £261m globally.

272. HighSpeed OfficeRevenue: £11m (+10%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 45As well as partnering with 31 vendors including AWS, Cisco, Fortinet and Equinix, this cloud and telecoms supplier operates its own MPLS network. Management revealed they are in the process of raising additional funds to

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finance expansion as they unveiled a 10 per cent revenue hike for the firm’s year to 31 March 2019. The London-based outfit recently made it onto two Lots of the Network Services 2 framework.

271. Acuma SolutionsRevenue: £11.1m (+5%)Net profit: 5.3% Staff: 16Counting Microsoft, Talend and SAP as its three core vendor chums, this Stockport-based business intelligence specialist has generated over £6m in sales through the government’s G-Cloud framework. Its legacy in the resell space “provides it with an outreach to seek additional and sticky revenue”, Acuma said in its strategic report for its year to 31 March 2019, which showed revenue swelling five per cent. It is owned by Chennai-based IT firm Saksoft.

270. SwitchshopRevenue: £11.1m (+17%)Net profit: 6.9% Staff: 27

Boasting offices in Hitchin and Leeds, this networking specialist was recently crowned an HPE Aruba Platinum partner. Revenues for its year to 31 May 2019 rocketed 17 per cent to £11.1m, with net profits of £766,000 ensuring it possesses one of the healthier bottom lines in this report. Specialising in Aruba’s switching, wireless, Clearpass and Introspect offerings, Switchshop also partners with SonicWall, Ruckus, Splicecom and Fortinet.

269. VetasiRevenue: £11.2m (-9%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 85This globe-trotting work and enterprise asset management consultancy recently set up an Australian office and invested in Polish peer Opsenio. The IBM Maximo partner – which targets the FM, utilities, transportation, oil and gas, life sciences, manufacturing and mining sectors – saw revenues dip by nine per cent to £11.2m in its year

to 30 September 2018, even as international revenues hiked 41 per cent to £3.9m.

268. Jade SolutionsRevenue: £11.3m (-9%)Net profit: 0.7% Staff: 44In perhaps the most lugubrious business review of all 350 firms in this report, this Merseyside-based WiFi specialist described 2018 as a “very disappointing year” as it admitted its acquisition by Belgian reseller Econocom did not pan out as hoped. After anticipated sales growth failed to materialise, its two directors bought back the 85 per cent stake they’d sold in July 2019. On a sunnier note, it recently won WiFi deals worth over £5m with four major retailers.

267. Media PowerhouseRevenue: £11.4m (+14%)Net profit: 2.8% Staff: N/AThis audio visual reseller counts supplying the video systems for the sell-out Pink Floyd exhibition

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at London’s V&A in 2017 among its claims to fame. Having logged a £319,000 net profit on £11.4m revenues in calendar 2018, the St Albans-based outfit last summer bought the goodwill and assets of fallen rival Feltech in a pre-pack administration. Feltech founder Peter Fell and about 30 other staff moved over, CEO Michael Breen told CRN.

266. Network TelecomRevenue: £11.7m (+4%)Net profit: 19% Staff: 96This comms provider assured its clients in September that “business will continue as usual” as it sold up to 750-employe Dutch telecoms and IT group Enreach. Founded in 1997, the Telford-based Gamma, Microsoft and Panasonic partner boasts more than 2,000 customers. Net profits for calendar 2018 were flat at £2.2m, making it one of the most profitable firms in this entire report, relatively speaking.

265. RisualRevenue: £11.8m (+10%)Net profit: 6.5% Staff: 141Recently named a Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Services Provider, this Staffordshire-based consultancy returned to both growth and profitability in its year to 31 December 2018. It attributed the upturn to an investment in its sales operation. According to government data, Risual has bagged over £4.3m in sales through G-Cloud to date, including a £366,000 cloud support deal with Highways England in November 2018.

264. Spectrum Computer SuppliesRevenue: £11.8m (-24%)Net profit: 5.6% Staff: 43Having turned over more than £50m as recently as 2012, this Bradford-based IT consumables specialist saw revenue limp in at £10.9m in the 11-month period to

30 September 2018, a 24 per cent pro-rata fall. It sold up to larger rival Banner (ranked 21st in this report) just before its year end, and is currently styling itself “part of the Banner Group” on its website. A hybrid reseller and distributor, it claims to offer 4,000 products.

263. Smarter BusinessRevenue: £11.9m (+139%)Net profit: 8.3% Staff: 197This utilities services company is now a major player in the government IT space following its 2018 acquisition of tech consultancy Visionist. Founded in 2015, Smarter Business strives to save SMEs money on energy, water, waste and other utilities. With Visionist on board, some £3.5m of its £8.3m revenues in calendar 2018 were from digital transformation. Net profits widened from £410,000 to £664,000.

262. SatisnetRevenue: £11.9m (+16%)Net profit: 8.2% Staff: 48This Luton-based security provider credited an uplift in its performance in its year to 31 October 2018 to its evolution into an MSSP and cyber-training organisation. As well as reselling security software from the likes of Tenable Networks, IBM and Splunk, Satisnet operates three UK SOCs. Net profits more than doubled to £971,000 on revenues that jumped 16 per cent. It claims it now has more than 35 SIEM employees in-house.

261. Content and CodeRevenue: £11.9m (-1%)Net profit: 9.6% Staff: 83With new owner IT Lab not yet having recognised a full year of Content and Code’s revenues, we have opted to break out this highly profitable Microsoft Sharepoint consultancy’s numbers in a separate profile one last time. The London-based outfit posted £14.8m revenues in the 15 months

to 31 March 2019, roughly flat pro rata. Seventy-sixth-ranked IT Lab told us it achieved pro-forma revenues of £69m last year.

260. TryzensRevenue: £12m (+70%)Net profit: -12.5% Staff: 172This digital commerce specialist chalked up a 70 per cent revenue boom in its year to 31 March 2019 to “tremendous focus around digital growth and transformation in retail”. Partnering with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, IBM and Adobe-owned Magento, Tryzens’ customers include Sweaty Betty, TM Lewin and Liberty London. Overseas revenues bulged from £2.5m to £7.1m in its latest year.

259. Port-PRevenue: £12.1m (+6%)Net profit: 4.7% Staff: 17With a 220-strong client-base, this 25-year-old, Birmingham-based reseller claims it is “a little bit different from the rest”, citing the fact its owners still come into the office and roll up their sleeves every day. A drive towards annuity and service business helped the Microsoft, HPE and VMware partner post record gross profits in calendar 2018. Its website is currently pushing Microsoft 365 and HPE GreenLake.

258. Escape TechnologyRevenue: £12.2m (-25%)Net profit: -0.5% Staff: 25With clients including post-production studio MPC, this London-based reseller provides workstations, software and services to computer graphics artists and studios. Revenues tumbled by a quarter in its year to 28 February 2019 as the Autodesk, Adobe and Chaos Group partner swung to a £56,000 net loss. It is part of server and storage manufacturer Boston Limited, which turns over nearly £90m.

VAR 350 VAR 350

Most VAR 350 firms have names that loosely describe what they do – or at least did – top and second-ranked Computacenter and Softcat (or ‘Software Catalogue’ as it began life) being prime examples.

One simple variation on this theme is to do this but in Latin, a tactic both Servium (to serve) and Teneo (to know or possess) have deployed.

Some have sought to associate their brands with a famous role model, with both Columbus and Natilik naming themselves after explorers.

Clearly keen to make hay from the reputation of their founders (or perhaps just lacking ideas!), others, however, have gone down the Michael Dell route by selecting eponymous

names for their businesses.In some cases, the figurehead behind the company remains actively

involved in the business. This includes 251-ranked Pugh Computers chief executive Jeffrey Pugh (pictured), who last May scooped a Director of the Year award from the Institute of Directors for Wales – having founded the Aberystwyth-based schools supplier in 1981.

Other eponymous firms in the top 350 include 26th-placed Bell Integration, which was founded by Alastair Bell in 1996; 334th-ranked Nolan Business Solutions; and 287th-ranked Taylor Made Computer

Solutions, whose founders Nigel and Aly Taylor sold the business to fellow South Coast-based MSP Peach in 2018.

283rd-ranked Snelling Business Systems’ founder, Roy Snelling – who launched the Norwich-based audio visual specialist in 1954 – sadly passed away in 2012 aged 88.

In one’s own image

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257. WanstorRevenue: £12.4m (+11%)Net profit: 10.1% Staff: 141Counting restaurant chain Wagamama among its long-standing customers, this highly profitable, London-based MSP aims to provide a single service desk for clients in the retail, hospitality, finance, education and not-for-profit sectors. It banked flat net profits of £1.2m in its year to 30 September 2018 on revenues that rose 11 per cent to £12.4m, making it one of only 34 firms in this report with a double-digit net profit margin.

256. 365 ITMSRevenue: £12.4m (-11%)Net profit: 1.7% Staff: 77If there were a prize for undergoing the most rapid series of ownership changes, this Reading-based MSP would be the winner. Having bought 365 ITMS for £5.4m in 2017, 103rd-ranked IDE Group flogged it for £2.84m in an MBO in October 2018, only for investment vehicle MXLG to snap it up in May 2019. The Microsoft and Cisco partner returned to profitability in its year to 31 December 2018, despite a 10 per cent revenue dip.

255. ProlinxRevenue: £12.5m (+9%)Net profit: 7.1% Net profit: 77This Oxford-based provider of secure managed services for the defence, government and public sectors enjoyed a stellar calendar 2018 as its success landing multi-year contracts and renewals bolstered its top and bottom lines. Revenues rose nine per cent, with net profits more than doubling to £886,000. The secure, long-term nature of its core business makes it “well placed to succeed and grow”, the Cisco, Fortinet and Dell EMC partner added.

254. Modality SystemsRevenue: £12.5m (+43%)Net profit: -17.5% Staff: 101

Billing itself as the world’s largest Microsoft communications and collaboration practice, this St Albans-based VAR boasts operations in the US, Asia and Australia. It was snapped up last June by larger rival GCI (ranked 45th in this report). Its most recently filed annual accounts, covering calendar 2017, show a £2.2m net loss on revenues of £12.5m. The Microsoft Skype for Business and Teams specialist holds 10 Microsoft Gold badges.

253. Prodec Networks Revenue: £12.5m (-5%)Net profit: 0.6% Staff: 81This Reading-based Cisco, HPE, Aruba and Palo Alto Networks partner recently announced a partnership with video collaboration and meeting solution vendor Zoom. Despite some “significant” new business wins, the networking specialist registered a five per cent revenue drop in its year to 30 April 2018. It is part of £25m-revenue outfit Barstone Group, whose other subsidiaries include schools AV specialist Smarter Interactive.

252. Symec TechnologiesRevenue: £12.6m (-5%)Net profit: 1.9% Staff: 43This Bristolian Samsung, Honeywell, Zebra, Panasonic, SOTI and Scandit partner claims over 30,000 mobile devices passed through its Polish technical centre for repair or configuration work in its year to 31 July 2018. Efforts to pursue recurring revenue streams caused net profits to sink by nearly two thirds to £244,000 during the period, as revenues dropped five per cent to £12.6m. The mobile technology supplier recently rolled out 800 Samsung smartphones for Arriva.

251. Pugh ComputersRevenue: £12.6m (+10%)Net profit: 2.9% Staff: 17Rolling out Microsoft Surface devices for Wellington College

is among the case studies featured on the website of this Aberystwyth-based VAR, which was founded in 1981 by Jeffrey Pugh. Specialising in software licensing for the education and charity sectors, the Microsoft, Adobe and Sophos partner enjoyed a solid year to 31 January 2019, with net profits widening from £329,000 to £366,000 on revenues that hiked 10 per cent.

250. CodestoneRevenue: £12.7m (+13.1%)Net profit: 19% Staff: 107This Poole-based consultancy recently won recognition from SAP for generating the most Business One revenue of any UK partner in 2018. Its website features case studies with diamond company Graff and e-cigarette maker Totally Wicked. Organic growth underpinned a 13 per cent revenue hike in its year to 30 September 2018. Net profits of £2.4m, meanwhile, make it one of the most profitable firms in this report.

249. Man and MachineRevenue: £12.7m (+17%)Net profit: 2.5% Staff: 33One of the few hybrids in this report, this Autodesk software reseller doubles up as a graphics cards distributor through its Elmtec brand. Total revenues bulged 17 per cent to £12.7m in its year to 31 December 2018, with its VAR arm leading the charge with a 44 per cent uplift. The Oxfordshire-based outfit its part of 750-employee German powerhouse Mensch und Maschine Group.

248. Lima NetworksRevenue: £12.7m (+2%)Net profit: 6.9% Staff: 58This Salford-based MSP made a “deliberate shift” away from traditional variable product sales towards managed and cloud services in its year to 31 December 2018. Net profits

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for the period rocketed from £164,000 to £875,000 on roughly flat revenues of £12.7m. In August 2019, the Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Cisco partner snagged a £12m investment led by private equity house Maven Investor Partners.

247. Universal AVRevenue: £12.7m (+2%)Net profit: 6.2% Staff: 85Installing a lecture capture system for Leeds University is among the case studies plastered on the website of this Bradford-based audio visual specialist. Counting universities as its main stomping ground, Universal Group Holdings said its performance in its year to 31 December 2018 was “on a par” with the two previous years, as revenue inched up two per cent and net profit slipped from £834,000 to £784,000.

246. SysGroupRevenue: £12.8m (+22%)Net profit: -5.7% Staff: 87This acquisitive, AIM-listed MSP is expanding at pace, generating £9.3m revenues in H1 of its fiscal 2020 after gobbling up rivals Certus IT and Hub Network Services in quick succession. Some 80 per cent of its revenues are now recurring in nature, with the remaining 20 per cent drawn from reselling. In its last full year, ending 31 March 2019, SysGroup posted a £722,000 net loss on revenues that leapt by more than a fifth to £12.8m.

245. m-hanceRevenue: £12.8m (-8%) Net profit: -4.9% Staff: 119This Cheshire-based Microsoft Dynamics partner is “progressing well” under the leadership of new CEO Alan Moody, private equity backer Better Capital said in its annual results last July. Revenues for m-hance’s year to 31 December 2018 tumbled eight per cent, however, due to project

delays and the disposal of its AX business the previous year. The not-for-profit sector specialist counts Solent Mind, Amnesty International and Oxfam among its clients.

244. Roche Audio VisualRevenue: £12.8m (+8%)Net profit: 4.7% Staff: 50This Leeds-based audio visual integrator claims its “unique” bulk purchasing policy enables it to obtain “extremely competitive pricing” from its suppliers, which include Casio, Clevertouch, Epson, Hitachi and Smart. It posted roughly flat net profits of £605,000 on revenues that rose eight per cent in its year to 31 December 2018. Founded in 1973, Roche claims to feature on a unique combination of education purchasing consortia.

243. VysiionRevenue: £12.8m (-13%)Net profit: -7% Staff: 147This Chippenham-based G-Cloud supplier recently deployed a Microsoft DaaS solution for Forestry England’s 1,200 users. Several projects of this nature propelled its cloud, enterprise and colocation revenues from £6.2m to £7.6m in its year to 30 June 2018. Delays to multiple major offshore wind farm contracts, however, ensured wider revenues dipped 13 per cent, as various charges dragged it to a £894,000 net loss.

242. Arcus GlobalRevenue: £13m (+34%)Net profit: -5.9% Staff: 111This AWS partner’s ‘Arcus Answer’ platform provides a bot for local authorities that will interact with customers and complete basic tasks. In May 2019 existing investor YFM Equity Partners pumped a further £2.5m in Series A funding into the Cambridge-based outfit, whose cloud solutions are designed to help the public sector digitally

transform. In its year to 30 June 2018, Arcus narrowed net losses to £763,000 on revenues that rose by a third.

241. Blue Cube SecurityRevenue: £13m (+63%)Net profit: 1.9% Staff: 12This West Sussex-based cybersecurity VAR posted revenues of £19.4m in an elongated, 18-month period ending 30 June 2018, according to unaudited accounts it shared with us. That equates to a 63 per cent rise, pro rata. As well as launching a dedicated professional and managed services team under the Cynergy banner last year, the Fortinet, Trend Micro and Sophos partner recently became an AWS Consulting Partner.

240. York TelecomRevenue: £13m (-3%)Net profit: -11.8% Staff: 70Based in Basingstoke, the EMEA arm of this global visual comms powerhouse suffered a contraction in both its top and bottom lines in its year to 31 December 2018 as it complained of “uncertainty in the economy”. A “large” exchange rate loss caused net losses to widen from £1.2m to £1.5m, while revenues fell three per cent to £13m. The Microsoft Teams and Surface Hub reseller’s global HQ is in New Jersey.

239. TransputecRevenue: £13.1m (-11%)Net profit: 1.1% Staff: 50A ploy to focus more on high-margin services and less on hardware helped this London-based MSP maintain gross profit levels in its year to 31 March 2018, despite registering an 11 per cent revenue dip. A £217,000 loss at newly established subsidiary Crises Control Ltd ensured its bottom line nearly halved to £138,000, however. Founded in 1977, Transputec boasts overseas offices in Dubai, India and Manila.

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238. Western ComputerRevenue: £13.6m (+7%)Net profit: 1.1% Staff: 64Founded in 1984 by mathematics graduate Keith Courtman, this Apple Premium Reseller opened two new stores in Chelmsford and Chester in 2019, adding to its existing outlets in Cheltenham, Cirencester, Leamington Spa, Oxford, and Bristol HQ. Targeting businesses and education as well as consumers, Western enjoyed “continuing progress” in its year to 2 January 2019, with net profits and revenue both rising modestly.

237. Cloud DirectRevenue: £13.7m (+35%)Net profit: -25.4% Staff: 135Calendar 2018 was a “significant and successful year” for this Bath-based cloud migration specialist as it completed the acquisitions of Ezis and Think S3, and became a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP. Revenues for the period pogoed 35 per cent, although net losses reached £3.5m as amortisation of goodwill associated with historic acquisitions left their mark. It made a “significant” investment in its Cape Town service centre during the year.

236. Britannic TechnologiesRevenue: £13.9m (-4%)Net profit: 10% Staff: 79Despite recording its first annual revenue dip for six years, this Surrey-based comms VAR grew net profits from £1.3m to £1.4m in its year to 31 March 2019. During the period, it extended its software development to include DevOps. A Mitel Platinum, Avaya Sapphire and Skype for Business partner, Britannic recently rolled out a cloud-hosted Mitel contact centre platform and new voice infrastructure for the Kennel Club.

235. Ocean Intelligent CommunicationsRevenue: £13.9m (+19%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 52

Having been acquired by German reseller Cancom in March 2018, this London-based unified comms, collaboration and cloud specialist now goes by ‘Cancom Collaboration and Communication’, and recently moved into Cancom UK’s new Shoreditch HQ. It claimed it put in a “strong performance” in its fiscal year to 31 August 2018 as a 31 per cent uptick in managed services revenues shored up its top line.

234. Retail AssistRevenue: £14m (+2%)Net profit: 9.8% Staff: 238Counting Oasis, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols among its customers, Retail Assist provides managed services and software to retailers and hospitality firms. Despite logging revenue growth of just two per cent in its year to 30 June 2019, the highly profitable, Nottingham-based outfit said it expects its growth to accelerate as its retail customers outsource to save internal costs. It recently celebrated its 20th birthday.

233. Reflex Revenue: £14.1m (-5%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 57This Reading-based ‘full service’ audio visual integrator recently helped replicate a modern newsroom for students of City, University of London’s journalism school. Delays in the completion of multiple projects sparked a five per cent revenue rollback in Reflex’s year to 31 December 2018, with net profits more than halving to £134,000. It recently bagged Elite Partner status with Crestron.

232. Majenta SolutionsRevenue: £14.1m (+23%)Net profit: -0.1% Staff: 47The digitalisation of the UK manufacturing and construction industries is handing Majenta Solutions “great opportunities for growth”, the Dassault Systèmes

partner said as it unveiled a 23 per cent revenue uplift for calendar 2018, along with a small £18,000 net loss. In April 2019 it sold its £3m-revenue Autodesk division to rival Symetri, marking the completion of a strategic organisation at the Brentwood-based outfit.

231. ITM CommunicationsRevenue: £14.4m (+20%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 76The holding company for this Milton Keynes-based ICT infrastructure specialist posted a sixfold rise in net profits in its year to 30 September 2018 to £332,000 as it added £2.4m in revenues “with no significant increases in overheads”. Targeting blue-chip clients in the UK and Europe, the HPE Aruba partner counts structured cabling and wireless, datacentre infrastructure, and converged solutions as its sweet spots.

230. CovencoRevenue: £14.4m (-7%)Net profit: -1.4% Staff: 71Starting life in 1989 selling IBM’s System 36 and AS/400 servers, this hardware broker still puts Big Blue at the heart of its business 30 years later, buying, selling and renting IBM hardware alongside kit from Lenovo, HPE, Cisco, Dell EMC and NetApp. Covenco slipped to a £105,000 net loss in its year to 31 December 2018 as revenues fell seven per cent. It claims to manage more than 170,000 items in its Banbury warehouse.

229. Pinnacle Computing (Support)Revenue: £14.9m (+10%)Net profit: 7.7% Staff: 116With 11 offices across the UK and Ireland and 1,300 customers, Pinnacle claims to be the UK’s largest Sage 200 Business Partner. The Belfast-based firm claimed “exceptional” customer service levels helped it retain and attract

new customers in calendar 2018 as it grew both revenues and net profits by double digits. Founded in 1993, it recently scooped the Sage 200cloud Partner of the Year award for a sixth straight year.

228. Circle ITRevenue: £14.9m (+39%)Net profit: 2.5% Staff: 75Circle IT founder Roger Harry admitted last May that the Welsh VAR needed “a more grown-up attitude to take the business to the next level” as he unveiled former Esteem Systems boss David Jones as his successor in the chief executive role. Having grown revenues a whopping 39 per cent in its year to 30 November 2018, the Dell EMC partner is now gunning for £50m revenues through organic and acquisitive growth.

227. ZenOfficeRevenue: £15m (+1%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 79Targeting SMEs in the North-West of England, Manchester-based ZenOffice offers managed print solutions alongside an array of office supplies including staples, safety signs, lanyards and hard hats. The HP and Xerox Gold partner, which was acquired in 2018 by Better Capital-backed OfficeTeam, attributed a one per cent revenue rise in its year to 31 December 2018 to increased sales and marketing activity.

226. NettitudeRevenue: £15m (+20%)Net profit: 13.2% Staff: 125Rowland Johnson, founder of this fast-growing, Leamington Spa-based penetration testing specialist, is also a director of not-for-profit cybersecurity certification body Crest. Nettitude sold up to professional services giant Lloyd’s Register in March 2018 in a move Johnson said would “supercharge” its growth. Revenues for its year to 31 March 2018 vaulted by a fifth, with net profits

nearly quadrupling to £2m. Last May it opened a Singapore office.

225. PrincipalRevenue: £15m (-5%)Net profit: 9.5% Staff: 96Along with IT sister company, 4th Platform, this Horsham-based managed print provider claims to supply and support more than 5,000 UK organisations. Holding company Principal Corporation managed to maintain net profits at £1.4m in its year to 31 March 2018, despite suffering a five per cent revenue slippage. The HP, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Canon and Microsoft partner also has offices in Ashford, Fareham and London.

224. Comcen Computer SuppliesRevenue: £15.1m (+11%)Net profit: 3% Staff: 58This Swansea-based audio visual, managed print and IT reseller defied “diminished confidence” in its core markets to more than double net profits on revenues that jumped 12 per cent in its year to 31 December 2018. During the period it merged its Leeds and Harrogate offices into a central location in Harewood. The HP Gold partner, which is currently leading on HP supplies on its homepage, claims to stock 100,000 products in its warehouse.

223. Krome TechnologiesRevenue: £15.4m (+12%)Net profit: 1.6% Staff: N/AHaving broken the £15m revenue barrier in its year to 31 October 2018, this Dell EMC partner last year moved into a new head office in Chertsey, two miles from its previous Addlestone HQ. Net profits during the period were flat at £240,000. In business since 2009, Krome also has offices in London and Manchester. Rolling out a Citrix VDI solution for law firm Davies Arnold Cooper is among the case studies featured on its website.

222. Park Place TechnologiesRevenue: £15.4m (+334)Net profit: -0.7% Staff: 98The UK arm of this global datacentre maintenance giant more than quadrupled in size in calendar 2017 thanks to an M&A frenzy. After laying down £5.7m to buy Prestige Technologies Solutions, it then grabbed third-party maintenance specialist NCE Group in August for £33m. Ohio-based Park Place also owns 105th-ranked MCSA, whose numbers we have split out separately due to a lack of consolidated accounts.

221. AcoraRevenue: £15.9m (-5%)Net profit: -3.8% Staff: 155This Burgess Hill-based Microsoft partner claims it is now a near-£30m-revenue firm following its acquisition of 279th-ranked Plan-Net in August. Revenues for its year to 31 August 2018 clocked in at £15.9m as net losses hit £596,000 on the back of a whopping £1.63m exceptional charge. Acora’s service offerings span managed services, cloud, workspace and business software. It claims to employ 40 Microsoft Dynamics specialists.

220. Form IT SolutionsRevenue: £16.1m (+21%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 38This Luton-based reseller defied “difficult market conditions” to post flat net profits of £525,000 on revenues that vaulted by over a fifth in its year to 31 March 2019. Form IT Solutions has seven strategic vendor partners in the shape of Dell EMC, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, HPE, Cisco and Sophos. The two case studies currently displayed on its website concern Office 365 migration and penetration testing, respectively.

219. GaltecRevenue: £16.2m (+16%)Net profit: 3.4% Staff: 29A 16 per cent calendar 2018

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revenue hike prompted this Leeds-based reseller to dish out a six-figure bonus allocation to its longer-serving staff. Net profits also rose, from £386,000 to £548,000. Founded in 2004, HPE, Fujitsu, VMware, HP, Lenovo, Dell EMC and NetApp partner Galtec said it is on course to break £20m revenues in its fiscal 2019. It recently appointed four new directors.

218. Diversified LtdRevenue: £16.4m (+89%)Net profit: 9.3% Staff: 58US-based audio visual integrator Diversified said its acquisition of UK counterpart Digitavia in June 2018 would expand its international footprint to EMEA and propel its offering in standardised meeting rooms “to the next level”. Diversified Ltd posted net profits of £2m on revenues of £21.8m in the 15-month period to 31 December 2018 (figures we have annualised for this profile). Globally Diversified turns over $950m, employing 2,400 staff.

217. Bistech Group Revenue: £16.5m (+7%)Net profit: 29.4% Staff: 73This highly profitable networking and comms VAR expanded its Dorset HQ last year after logging a ninth consecutive year of growth in the 12 months to 31 July 2018. The Mitel, Cisco, Microsoft and Juniper partner’s swish website features an array of video case studies from customers including Reading Buses. Founded in 1988, it is one of a minority of VAR 350 companies to have a female managing director in the form of Jocelyn Brown.

216. Somerford AssociatesRevenue: £16.5m (+183%)Net profit: 5.4% Staff: 42Winning new customers and selling more to existing ones helped this Cheltenham-based Splunk, Okta and Varonis

partner nearly treble revenues in its year to 31 December 2018. Specialising in authentication, data risk management and CASB, Somerford recently snared a deal to roll out Splunk’s VictorOps solution at the security operations centre of a central government body. In October, it signed a sponsorship deal with Gloucester Rugby Club.

215. United CarltonRevenue: £16.5m (+1%)Net profit: 14.3% Staff: 115This Gateshead-based managed print provider was snapped up by southern rival DMC Canotech in June, creating a 250-employee outfit with 4,500 customers, seven offices and major partnerships with Sharp, Toshiba and Canon. United Carlton’s holding company generated £2.4m net profits on revenues of £16.5m in the year to 30 June 2018, making it one of the most profitable firms in this entire report.

214. OCFRevenue: £16.6m (-9%)Net profit: 1.6% Staff: 42Having swept to power in an MBO in November, new management have promised “business as usual” for this high-performance computing and storage integrator. The Lenovo, IBM and NetApp partner is now bossed by Russell Slack, who joined the Sheffield-based outfit in 1995 as a systems engineer. Revenue fell by nine per cent in its year to 31 March 2019, with net profits halving to £271,000. It recently earned Platinum Solution Provider status with Dell.

213. Circular ComputingRevenue: £16.8m (-6%)Net profit: 4.4% Staff: 224This sustainable IT specialist claims it now has the capacity to remanufacture 10,000 laptops a month after expanding its United Arab Emirates facility, a figure it hopes to increase to 50,000 within

three years. The Portsmouth-based outfit, whose founder Rod Neale stepped down as CEO in July to be succeeded by Scott Mac Meekin, saw revenue fall six per cent in its year to 30 September 2018. Net profits more than doubled to £744,000.

212. Khipu NetworksRevenue: £16.9m (+37%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 63Having grown by over a third in its year to 31 December 2018, this network security specialist is gunning for £50m revenue within five years, all via organic expansion. With offices in Fleet and Cape Town, Khipu develops and supports its own-brand managed services. In September it bagged a spot on the Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint, Alcatel-Lucent and Infobox Lots of Jisc’s new public sector framework.

211. Perfect ColoursRevenue: £17.2m (-11%)Net profit: 0.8% Staff: 55This London-based large-format printing specialist’s revenues contracted a further 11 per cent in its year to 31 December 2018 amid continued efforts to focus on profitable product lines. It did, however, return to the black, posting a £130,000 net profit. The HP, Canon, Xerox and Epson partner, whose clients include Disney and Hamleys, recently invited customers to its Sheffield innovation centre to witness HP’s new ‘Stitch’ dye-sub printer in action.

210. Complete I.T.Revenue: £17.5m (+19%)Net profit: 6.1% Staff: 151This High Wycombe-based IT support outfit will retain its name and operate as an independent business following its acquisition by Japanese electronics giant Sharp in August. The Microsoft and Datto partner, which saw revenues vault 19 per cent to £17.5m in its year

to 31 March 2019, said the deal will boost its technical resource and technology offering. Recent acquisitions Quorum and AMA Business Systems added to its top line.

209. 1SpatialRevenue: £17.6m (+4.1%)Net profit: -8.1% Staff: 167Specialising in managing geospatial data for utilities, transportation and government organisations, this AIM-listed Oracle Gold partner branded its year to 31 January 2019 one of “refocus and realignment”. Revenues rose by four per cent despite its decision to dispose of £7m-revenue MSP arm Enables IT during the year for a nominal sum of £1. Net losses hit £1.4m. Since year end it has acquired French outfit Geomap-Imogis.

208. Complete IT SystemsRevenue: £18.1m (+9%)Net profit: 2.6% Staff: 61The directors of this Bradford-based VAR said they were “pleased” that it maintained an 18 per cent gross profit percentage while boosting revenues by £1.5m in its year to 30 April 2019. Net profits rose from £168,000 to £177,000. The Lenovo and Kasperksy Lab Platinum partner specialises in IT support, IT hardware/infrastructure and software/licensing.

207. swcommsRevenue: £18.4m (-0.5%)Net profit: 0.03% Staff: 134Rolling out a converged comms solution for Sandy Park Stadium (which houses the Premiership rugby club chaired by its founder Tony Rowe OBE) is among the case studies trumpeted on the website of this Exeter-based comms VAR. The Mitel, Gamma, Cisco and Veeam partner broke even on flat revenues in calendar 2018. It recently launched an energy arm, swcomms-energy, in partnership with Fidelity Energy.

206. ONIRevenue: £18.5m (+4%)Net profit: 2.8% Staff: 76A recent top management overhaul – which included the reappointment of founder Kevin Kivlochan as chief executive – has helped to “drive a more dynamic culture” at ONI, the Luton-based Cisco Gold partner claimed in the strategic report for its year to 31 March 2019. “High-profile” wins for its Nimbus private cloud platform, including with two retailers, helped push revenues four per cent higher during the period. ONI claims it has achieved eight years of 100 per cent uptime for its clients.

205. DMW GroupRevenue: £19m (+29%)Net profit: 18.7% Staff: 66With offices in London, Leeds and Manchester, this independent tech consultancy claims it has managed over £1bn of cloud projects and migrated more than 250,000 workloads to the cloud over “the last few years”. In line with expectations, DMP grew revenues by over a quarter in its year to 31 March 2018, with net profits of £3.5m making it one of this report’s most profitable outfits, relatively speaking.

204. IT Professional Services (ITPS)Revenue: £19.2m (+15%)Net profit: 2.6% Staff: 124The website of this Gateshead-based IT managed services provider is currently plastered with warnings of the dangers of remaining on Windows 7 following its end of life. Founded in 2000, ITPS saw revenue bounce 15 per cent in its year to 31 May 2018 as a £1.5m outlay helped it bag new datacentre contracts and bolster its cloud services offering with the introduction of Azure Stack. During the year it implemented ConnectWise as its new ERP system.

203. Stanford MarshRevenue: £19.3m (+3%)Net profit: 0.5% Staff: 118This wide-format print specialist pinpointed its diversity as a key strength as it logged a three per cent revenue uptick in its year to 31 January 2019. Net profits halved to £90,000, however. Alongside its core business, where it works with vendors including HP and Canon, the Worcester-based outfit operates 3D print and CAD arms, the latter of which it bolstered in May 2019 by acquiring Bridgend-based Autodesk partner Envisage.

202. 4NET TechnologiesRevenue: £19.4m (+50%)Net profit: 3.2% Staff: 63This Manchester-based Avaya partner recently snagged a £16.3m, three-year deal to provide its ANTENNA cloud comms service to HM Courts & Tribunals Service. Having moved its financial year end from 31 March to 30 June (to alleviate pressure created by the January to March spike in public sector business), YFM-backed 4NET’s revenues hit £24.3m in its elongated, 15-month fiscal 2018 – a 50 per cent spike pro rata.

201. Exception LtdRevenue: £19.5m (-12%)Net profit: 7.8% Staff: 41This ‘digital solutions company’ claims it became the first Scotland-headquartered partner of ServiceNow in May 2019, and also holds AWS Select Consulting Partner status. Edinburgh-based Exception saw net profits swell from £935,000 to £1.5m in its year to 31 December 2018, even as revenue rolled back 12 per cent to £19.5m. Its first large contract, in 2003, was leading the infrastructure integration of Churchill Insurance and Direct Line.

200. Clarity CopiersRevenue: £19.5m (-13%)Net profit: 5.9% Staff: 21

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This print and copier dealer claims it enjoyed “another good year” as a restructuring drive enabled it to maintain profits on lower revenues in the 12 months to 31 August 2019. Based in Newton Abbot in Devon, the Sharp, Kyocera, Ricoh and OKI partner operates a franchise model aimed at helping sales pros start a local business with national backup. Its empire comprises 31 offices, from Bodmin in Cornwall all the way up to Argyll in Scotland.

199. Midshire Business SystemsRevenue: £19.6m (+11%)Net profit: 1.1% Staff: 147This West Bromwich-based print and telecoms VAR claims it smashed industry averages by cutting its key metric of average response time to three hours and 14 minutes in the seven-month period ending 31 March 2018. Its main trading arm hit £11.4m revenues during the truncated financial period, an 11 per cent pro-rated fall. Having acquired Midshire in 2017, Japanese parent Sharp acquired 207th-ranked MSP Complete IT in August.

198. XantaroRevenue: £20m (-5%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 12Specialising in carrier-class network technologies, this Juniper Networks Elite partner employs 150 staff across four offices in its native Germany and one in London. Opened in 2010, its UK arm registered a small dip in both revenues and profits in its year to 31 August 2018. At a group level, Hamburg-based Xantaro also partners with the likes of A10 Networks, Nokia, Arista Networks and Smartoptics.

197. EACSRevenue: £20m (+25%)Net profit: 2.8% Staff: 89The CEO of this Huntingdon-based MSP recently admitted

that EACS had shelved a planned M&A spree due to an “overinflated value” of businesses in the channel. Although informally it told us 2019 revenues hit £23m, the last set of accounts filed on Companies House as we went to press – covering the year to 31 March 2018 – show a £565,000 net profit on £20m revenues. It now generates more than half of its top line from recurring revenues.

196. Highlander Business SolutionsRevenue: £20m (-0.4%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 76Rolling out a Nimble Storage hybrid array for building services firm TB+A is among the case studies adorning the website of this Sheffield based reseller – which bills its staff as “a bunch of Yorkshire lads and lasses who love IT”. Highlander registered a small dip in both revenues and net profits in its year to 31 August 2018 as it admitted that trading “continues to be challenging”. Its 15 strategic vendors include Cisco Meraki, Dell EMC and Netsuite.

195. QUANTIQRevenue: £20m (+27%)Net profit: 5.4% Staff: 146Feverish mid-market demand for Microsoft Dynamics fuelled a higher-than-anticipated 27 per cent revenue hike for QUANTIQ in its year to 31 December 2018, CEO Stuart Fenton told CRN. Net profits widened from £704,000 to £1.1m. The London-based outfit, which claims to have delivered over 1,000 Microsoft Dynamics 365 projects, recently acquired the Dynamics business of Profile Enterprise Solutions and opened an office in Manila.

194. Aspire TechnologyRevenue: £20.2m (+26%)Net profit: 18% Staff: 139This Gateshead-based managed services provider enjoyed a

barnstorming year to 28 February 2019, with revenues powering up by more than a quarter and net profits bouncing from £2.5m to £3.6m. A project to install a Mitel telephony system and IT infrastructure for a distillery in the Lake District is among the case studies trumpeted on its website. Its portfolio spans hosted services, datacentre solutions, communications and IT support.

193. IP IntegrationRevenue: £20.4m (+1%)Net profit: -1.5% Staff: 101This Reading-based contact centre specialist said its success in boosting recurring revenues from 58 to 68 per cent of its total top line in its year to 30 September 2018 helped it to invest in the business by increasing visibility of future revenues. Total turnover inched up one per cent to £20.4m as the Avaya Diamond partner – whose clients include Direct Line and Autoglass – benefited from three months of sales from June 2018 acquisition Managed Networks.

192. Axial SystemsRevenue: £20.5m (+3%)Net profit: 0.1% Staff: 54This Maidenhead-based network security integrator saw net profits fall by three quarters on virtually static revenues in its year to 31 May 2018 as it encountered delays to projects it expected to win. Under new CEO Antony English, the McAfee, Ixia and Gigamon partner is, however, anticipating growth in both its top and bottom lines following some “hard preparatory work” carried out across its business.

191. ACS SystemsRevenue: £20.6m (-5%)Net profit: 1.1% Staff: 103This office solutions specialist admitted economic conditions “continue to be challenging” as it logged a five per cent revenue dip in its year to 31 March

2019. Offering cybersecurity, technology, comms and interiors, ACS has showrooms in its native Northampton, as well as in London and Glasgow. In 2018 it supported the first high-density stadium WiFi solution for Gloucester Rugby.

190. KinlyRevenue: £20.8m (+26%)Net profit: 0.9% Staff: 88A Cisco Master Collaboration partner, this Amsterdam-based videoconferencing specialist turns over €150m globally, employing 600 staff in seven countries. Its UK arm – whose HQ in London’s Threadneedle Street includes demonstration facilities – saw

revenues climb by over a quarter in its year to 31 December 2018. The directors admitted they are focusing on cost control after net profits tumbled from £1.2m to £177,000, however.

189. Phoenix DatacomRevenue: £20.8m (+49%)Net profit: 3.9% Staff: 33Large-scale security breaches and new compliance requirements fuelled higher demand for this Ixia, Riverbed and ExtraHop Networks partner’s products and services in its year to 31 March 2019, with new orders doubling. Targeting telcos, broadcasters, government ministries and financial services firms, the

Aylesbury-based outfit aims to improve security and performance for critical, large-scale networks.

188. Meridian ITRevenue: £20.9m (+14%)Net profit: 1.3% Staff: 39Boasting Bernard Matthews, Admiral and Debenhams among its clients, this Warwickshire-based IBM partner is part of Meridian Group International, an Illinois-headquartered global solution provider with 800 staff. Revenues for its year to 31 March 2019 hiked 14 per cent to £20.9m, with net profits more than doubling to £267,000. It was recently crowned HPE’s UK&I Rising Star.

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This ambitious managed print specialist is looking to double in size in the next three years, the 184th-ranked outfit’s managing director tells CRN

Is the print market in decline, and how important is it for print specialists such as ASL to widen their repertoire?The outlook from analysts is that the market is quite stable. Many of our customers are looking to optimise their print and document infrastructure, which is fuelling growth in technology solutions, cloud computing, document management and software applications.

Production print is a growth market, especially with the migration from litho to digital print, which gives businesses an economically viable solution for short print runs.

You finished your fiscal 2018 on £21.4m revenue. Can you give us any insight into your fiscal 2019 performance or the longer-term growth ambitions of ASL?We grew our 2019 revenue by almost 30 per cent, finishing the year on £27.8m, although with acquisitions our run rate is over £37m. Our aim is to double our turnover in the next three years, which we’ll achieve through a strategy of organic growth and further acquisitions.

Unified communications remain a growth hotspot for us. We see increasing demand from customers

moving their IT operations to the cloud, and they are looking for a trusted partner to optimise their print, comms and IT infrastructure.

Where are the growth hotspots in print?Production print, as mentioned above, is undergoing a transformation due to the transition from litho to digital within the commercial print environment as it offers flexibility of digital technology to high- and low-volume jobs.

Other areas of growth that we see include technology-based solutions that improve sustainability, enhanced security for print and cloud-based print management.

Will we see any changes in your M&A strategy under your new private equity backer, Primary Capital Partners?Our strategy remains the same, organic growth and further acquisitions. Our new private equity backing will enable us to accelerate new business acquisitions in 2020.

Q&A: Mark Garius, ASL Group

26 27

187. G3 CommsRevenue: £21.2m (+19%)Net profit: 9.2% Staff: 81This Avaya partner is being merged with similar-sized rival Connect Managed Services under new private equity owner Apiary Capital. Apiary bought G3 Comms in March before grabbing Connect in July, with Connect chief executive Alex Tupman now leading the enlarged – £55m-revenue – outfit. London-based G3 – which sells directly to the mid-market and through a reseller channel via its ‘Genius’ brand – generated a £2m net profit on revenues of £21.2m in its year to 30 April 2019.

186. Concept GroupRevenue: £21.3m (+3%)Net profit: 9.1% Staff: 185This Xerox-owned office equipment dealer saw net profits hike from £1.5m to £1.9m in its year to 31 December 2018, an “exceptional result” it attributed to higher revenue, improved productivity and tight control of overheads. Based in Sterling, Concept also has offices in Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Newcastle and London, counting not only Xerox but also Kofax and ELO among its vendor partners. Its clients include brewery and pub chain Brewdog.

185. Vision GroupRevenue: £21.3m (-6%)Net profit: 6.4% Staff: 101This managed print specialist exited its fiscal year to 30 September 2018 with lower revenues but higher profits after taking the decision to wind up its telecoms business the year before. The Hertfordshire-based HP, Ricoh, Samsung, Canon and Nuance partner is now looking to shore up its core business via acquisition, and in 2019 gobbled up two print dealers in the shape of Unidoc and Abbey Business Group’s print division.

184. ASLRevenue: £21.4m (+8%)Net profit: 7.1% Staff: 108This managed print specialist is already delivering on its pledge to accelerate M&A under new private equity backer Primary Capital Partners, snapping up dealers Reprotec and Smart Print in July and November 2019, respectively. The Cambridge-based Kyocera and Ricoh partner saw revenue pogo eight per cent to £21.4m in its year to 30 September 2018, and has told CRN informally that its 2019 haul rose to £28m (see interview, p25, for more).

183. Pinacl SolutionsRevenue: £21.5m (+15%)Net profit: 6.5% Staff: 108Adding in the £11.9m contribution of sister company Pinacl GDA, this North Wales-based smart cities and IoT specialist broke the £20m revenue barrier in its year to 30 April 2019. Having sold up to private equity firm Aliter Capital in April 2019, Pinacl and Pinacl GDA now sit in a holding company that houses three other recent Aliter acquisitions – including 307th-ranked Boston Networks.

182. CommsworldRevenue: £21.6m (+40%)Net profit: 8.1% Staff: 100This Edinburgh-based outfit has in recent years transformed itself from a telco reseller into a “stand-out” national network operator, according to new investor LDC. In calendar 2018, Commsworld tripled net profits to £1.7m on revenues that powered up by 40 per cent to £21.6m. Established in 1994, it provides connectivity, cloud, security, unified comms, and IT infrastructure services. Clients include Taylor Wimpey and Edinburgh Airport.

181. OGL Computer ServicesRevenue: £21.6m (+8%)Net profit: 8.1% Staff: 264

This Kidderminster-based Microsoft, HP, WatchGuard and Kaspersky partner delivered solid growth in calendar 2018, with revenues up eight per cent and net profits rising from £1.6m to £1.8m. It operates three divisions focused on business software, IT solutions and cybersecurity, the latter of which it only launched in 2017 under the CyberGuard banner. Originally named ‘Oliquip’, OGL began life in 1976 as an Olivetti typewriter dealer.

180. CCERevenue: £21.9m (+3%)Net profit: 1.9% Staff: 155Based in West Drayton, Middlesex, this Microsoft, HP, Dell, Cisco and VMware partner claims to work with over 430 customers. Although its core maintenance business was “steady” during the year, growth in its managed services and IP solutions arms enabled CCE to deliver three per cent growth in its year to 31 March 2019. Net profits were flat at £410,000.

179. Bluesource InformationRevenue: £22.2m (-9%)Net profit: 0.3% Staff: 92This London-based Veritas and Microsoft partner’s fiscal year to 30 September 2018 saw it tilt its business away from product sales and towards more multi-year managed services contracts and large-scale migration projects. Revenue consequently dipped nine per cent, with net profit also contracting due to investments in its own services and software. The data protection, governance and management specialist’s customers include Toyota Financial Services.

178. Corona Corporate ServicesRevenue: £22.5m (+25%)Net profit: 7.7% Staff: 83Despite flagging up the rise of the “paperless office” as a potential

threat to its business, this acquisitive print and telephony provider is embracing the green agenda, having recently launched a “Save the Toner” campaign. London-based Corona enjoyed a bumper year to 31 March 2018 as revenues rose by over £4m and net profits virtually doubled to £1.7m. It gobbled up three print dealers in 2019, including Coventry-based Konica Minolta partner BBT.

177. Capital Document SolutionsRevenue: £22.7m (+7%)Net profit: 1.4% Staff: 205Counting St Andrews University among its customers, this Ricoh, Konica Minolta, HP and Canon partner claims to be Scotland’s leading managed print provider. Steady growth in the number of machines in field helped the Edinburgh-based outfit swell revenue seven per cent to £22.7m in its year to 31 March 2019. Net profits fell by two thirds to £321,000 due to a hefty exceptional write down relating to a 2013 acquisition.

176. Columbus Global UKRevenue: £22.9m (+22%)Net profit: 9.5% Staff: 179Rolling out a Microsoft Dynamics AX solution for the UK’s second-largest branded cereal maker, Weetabix, is among the slick video case studies featured on this ERP specialist’s website. Headquartered in Denmark, Columbus saw global revenue rocket 54 per cent to DKK 1.9bn (£220m) in calendar 2018. Its local UK arm grew by over a fifth as recent acquisition Cambridge Online Systems was completely hived up into its business.

175. ServiumRevenue: £23m (+4%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 34This Chessington-based HP, HPE, Lenovo, Microsoft and Dell EMC partner attributed a four per cent

revenue uplift in calendar 2018 to winning new customers and selling more to existing ones. Net profits dropped by £100,000 to £403,000 as the cost of opening an office in Glasgow drove up overheads. Founded in 2010, Servium last year bagged Platinum partner status with Lenovo.

174. WavenetRevenue: £23m (+60%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 97This Birmingham-based unified comms provider has a revenue run rate of close to £50m following its acquisition of similar-sized rival Solar Communications in August 2018. Results for its year to 30 April 2018 show its top line rising 60 per cent to £23m thanks mainly to three acquisitions made during the year. The Beech Tree-backed outfit was recently crowned one of only three UK Silver Peak Platinum partners.

173. ACS Business SuppliesRevenue: £23.1m (+31%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 105The “steady and consistent growth” achieved by this West Yorkshire-based office supplies, IT solutions and managed print specialist prompted it to move to a larger HQ in Baildon in late 2019. The HP, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Microsoft, Brother, Canon and Xerox partner saw revenue leap by almost a third in its year to 31 December 2018, with net profit fattening to £353,000. It aims to boost headcount to 150 before the end of 2020.

172. UK Computer GroupRevenue: £23.4m (+54%)Net profit: 4.7% Staff: 57Trading under the UKCS brand, Northampton-based UK Computer Group lived up to its claim of being “one of the fastest-growing end-to-end IT partners in the UK” by logging 54 per cent growth in its year to 31 December 2018. Having acquired the naming

rights to Misco the previous month, it relaunched the historic brand on 1 July 2019, before last month buying the rights to the Comet brand.

171. IDN SuppliesRevenue: £23.4m (-4%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 66The major shareholder of IDN Supplies, Gareth Stocks, departed in November 2018 as part of a management buyout at this Bolton-based IT VAR. Starting life in 1988 punting IBM printer ribbons, today it offers a range of IT and audio visual products. In its year to 31 July 2018, revenues slipped four per cent to £23.4m, while net profits were flat at £224,000.

170. Shearwater GroupRevenue: £23.5m (+276%)Net profit: -25% Staff: 102This fledgling cybersecurity group announced in October that its VAR arm, Brookcourt Solutions, had bagged an enormous, £8.5m managed services deal with a “FTSE 100 global telecoms company”. Five and a half months’ contribution from Brookcourt fuelled a 275 per cent rise in AIM-listed Shearwater’s revenues in its year to 31 March 2019. It also owns 2FA vendor SecureEnvoy and acquired security testing firm Secarma last April.

169. Arena GroupRevenue: £23.6m (-0.1%)Net profit: 8.6% Staff: 208This Wakefield-based Toshiba, Kyocera, Xerox and Epson partner’s calendar 2018 results were as flat as the paper that accompanies the printers it sells, with revenue and net profit static year on year at £2m and £23.6m, respectively. As well as supplying and supporting MFDs, Arena develops its own electronic document management and workflow software. Following a “lengthy” handover, co-founder Harry Wells exited the business during the year.

VAR 350 VAR 350

28 29

VAR 350 VAR 350

168. Charterhouse Voice & DataRevenue: £23.7m (+16%)Net profit: 9% Staff: 119This highly profitable, London-based unified comms VAR described its fiscal 2018 to 30 November as “another good year” as an acceleration in cloud deployments helped it log 16 per cent growth. Replacing law firm Plexus Law’s existing Alcatel telephony with a cloud-based Mitel solution is among the case studies publicised on its website. During the year it received investment from PE house August Equity and achieved Mitel Platinum status.

167. TeneoRevenue: £23.8m (+20%)Net profit: 2.2% Staff: 44Riverbed Elite partner Teneo is one of the UK’s most geographically diversified VARs, drawing a respective 49 and 13 per cent of its £55.6m group revenue in its year to 30 June 2018 from the US and mainland Europe. Although UK revenues leapt by a fifth to £23.8m, gross margins slipped from 24.4 to 20.8 per cent, which the Reading-based firm chalked up to product commoditisation.

166. Jarvis TechRevenue: £23.9m (-1%)Net profit: 4.5% Staff: 34Billing itself as the UK’s largest stockist of HP Renew PSG equipment and new ‘end of line’ HP equipment, Jarvis Tech’s top and bottom line were both virtually static in its year to 31 March 2019. It claims to hold £3.2m of HP stock in the UK and configure over 20,000 desktops, notebooks and workstations each year. Headquartered in East Sussex, it also has an office in Tamworth.

165. VodatRevenue: £24.1m (+81%)Net profit: -2.2% Staff: 98

“Expansion into North America is the logical next step for Edenhouse, as it is for any ambitious tech company.”Paul Solomon, CEO of Edenhouse Solutions, on the opening of the 110th-ranked firm’s first international office in Canada in October.

“We’re at 26 per cent and it’s not enough.”Cliff Fox, COO at Pure Technology, admitted in December that there’s still “some way to go” to achieve a balanced female-to-male ratio at the 147th-ranked VAR.

“We’ve noticed in the marketplace at the moment that there is an overinflated value of businesses right now, and I think it’s because there has been a reasonable amount of M&A activity over the last couple of years.”Kevin Timms, CEO of 197th-ranked EACS, admitted in May that the Huntingdon-based MSP had shelved a planned M&A spree amid concerns that targets are overvaluing themselves.

“The management team was talking about Brexit in more ways and more detail than they have before, and we quickly shut them down on that, as we’re trying to hold them accountable to results that don’t factor in that backdrop.”In April PCM CEO Frank Khulusi refused to accept Brexit as a reason for a potential slowdown in the growth of its UK arm, ranked 118th here. In August PCM sold up to larger rival Insight.

“We need that more grown-up attitude to take the business to the next level.”Roger Harry, founder of 228th-ranked Circle IT, admitted that the Welsh VAR needed more experienced management to fulfil its ambitions of hitting £50m turnover as he unveiled former Esteem CEO David Jones as Circle’s new chief executive.

“We are truly solving a growing need, and I want to be part of that journey, also for the positive environmental aspects of it.”Robbert Bakker highlighted the green credentials of the video collaboration market as he was unveiled as the new CEO of 190th-ranked Kinly in October.

“We are now moving on to the next stage of our growth strategy and ramping up activity with an aggressive acquisition trail.”Lorrin White, MD of 275th-ranked Bamboo Technology, revealed in May that its acquisition of fellow Cheltenham firm Tech OP Solutions marks the start of a planned M&A drive.

“This new investment from existing shareholders is a huge sign of confidence in the execution of our strategy to deliver innovative cloud solutions to enable the digital transformation of the public sector.”Denis Kaminskiy, CEO of 242nd-ranked Arcus Global, pledged in May to invest a £2.5m Series A funding round in its product portfolio, particularly its flagship local government platform and Amazon Alexa-powered voice solution.

Having acquired Cisco Gold partner Axonex in November 2017, this Stockport-based, PE-backed networking and comms VAR smashed the £20m revenue barrier in its year to 31 March 2019. Although both its brands were profitable, the holding company fell to a £523,000 net loss as it ate nearly £1m in amortisation of goodwill related to the deal. The BT, Vodafone and Cisco partner counts retail and hospitality among its core verticals.

164. ITC SecureRevenue: £24.1m (+64%)Net profit: -6.9% Staff: 110This ambitious MSSP promised further investment in the orchestration and automation capabilities of its SOC as it moved into a new “state-of-the-art” HQ in London’s Canary Wharf in October 2019. A brace of recent acquisitions, including that of Washington-based SBD, helped the C5 Capital-backed firm to record 64 per cent pro-rated growth in the 13 months to 31 December 2018. Its impressive roster of clients includes Schroders and British American Tobacco.

163. NorthdoorRevenue: £24.4m (-7%)Net profit: 7% Staff: 56This London-based IBM and Microsoft partner saw revenue and net profit both contract in its year to 31 May 2019 due to a fall in high-margin project revenue. Billing itself as an IT consultancy specialising in data, Northdoor claims it has delivered IBM solutions for more than 250 customers, and holds four Microsoft Gold competencies. The sale of intellectual property to a customer brought in £365,000 during the year.

162. CaretowerRevenue: £24.8m (-10%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 55

This London-based cybersecurity integrator registered a 10 per cent revenue dip in its year to 31 December 2018 as it was unable to fill the hole created by a “substantial, one-off contract” that closed the previous year. Static overheads on lower sales also meant net profits halved to £253,000. Awarded McAfee’s UK & Ireland Commercial Partner of the Year for both 2017 and 2018, Caretower was recently approved as a supplier on G-Cloud 11.

161. Dacoll GroupRevenue: £25.1m (+12%)Net profit: 0.8% Staff: 249This Scottish outfit topped £25m revenues in its year to 31 March 2018, with its main arm, MSP Dacoll Ltd, contributing £18.7m to the total. Dacoll’s interests span an array of fields, from making electrical cables and automatic number plate recognition systems, to MOTs and vehicle repairs. With offices in Bathgate and Aberdeen, Dacoll Ltd counts Microsoft, VMware, Dell EMC, Fortinet, HPE and Commvault as its key vendors.

160. PCS Business SystemsRevenue: £25.1m (+12%)Net profit: 4% Staff: 60This Kettering-based reseller and MSP claims it “bucked the general market trend” by growing its gross profit margins (from 19.6 to 20 per cent) in its year to 31 May 2019, which it said highlights its “comfortable mix of service sales and product sales”. The HP, Microsoft and Dropbox partner also smashed the £25m revenue barrier, while net profits nearly doubled to £1m. Born in 1995, PCS today claims to have 1,200 active accounts.

159. Ethos GroupRevenue: £25.2m (+28%)Net profit: 7.1% Staff: 152This acquisitive VAR’s six brands

QUOTES OF THE YEAR

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VAR 350 VAR 350

For the first time – and in response to feedback from our readers – we opted this year to track the gross as well as net profits of each firm to capture an alternative picture of what is happening to margins across the industry.

Average gross profit margins across the 339 firms* that disclosed the relevant figures in their latest accounts held up year on year, with the mean figure falling fractionally from 32.44 to 32.38 per cent and the median swelling slightly from 28.5 to 28.7 per cent.

Owing to the varying nature of what these 339 firms do, gross margins ranged spectacularly, from as high as 92.8 per cent in the case of retail-focused MSP Retail Assist, to 2.8 per cent for volume Apple reseller GBM. Almost half (49 per cent), however, had a gross profit margin of between 10 and 30 per cent.

Those with the highest gross margins tend to be services-focused outfits whose main asset on sale is their staff. This includes classic MSPs such as Mirus IT, Complete I.T. Redcentric, SysGroup, Kick ICT and Fitzrovia, and business software consultancies such as Invenio, Columbus, Sapphire, Datel, Deans Computer Services and m-hance.

In contrast, those in the lower echelons of the table below tend to be either volume product shifters – including Microsoft partners Comparex,

SBL, Phoenix Software, Bytes and SoftwareONE – or retail and e-tail-focused outfits such as eBuyer, Scan, Technoworld and Stormfront.

The largest firms in this report tend to have fairly modest gross profit margins, relatively speaking, with Computacenter, for instance, ranking 308th out of 339, SCC 295th, Softcat 288th and CDW 263rd.

Unlike gross profits, median net profits among the top 350 were up fairly sharply year on year (see p7) – a contrast some would see as evidence that resellers are doing a better job of cutting their cloth to suit a tough trading environment.

Gross injustice

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80

100100

80

60

40

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10-20%20-30%

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40-50%

50-60%

60-70%

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Over 90%

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Gross margins

GP% Previous year

Retail Assist 93% 94%

Nettitude 88% 84%

SecureCloud+ 86% 75%

Invenio Business Solutions

80% 74%

Columbus 80% 80%

Somerford Associates

78% 74%

m-hance 74% 75%

Sapphire Systems 73% 73%

Castleton Technology

72% 69%

Blue Chip Customer Engineering

72% 70%

Acora 70% 68%

Deans Computer Services

69% 64%

Datel 66% 64%

Data Intensity 65% 58%

Network Telecom 64% 65%

Fitzrovia IT 64% 62%

TIG 64% 66%

Kick ICT Group 64% 71%

Node4 61% 62%

SysGroup plc 61% 57%

Mirus IT 61% 65%

Redcentric 60% 60%

Park Place 60% 74%

Complete I.T. 59% 58%

Silverbug 58% 69%

Corona Corporate Services

58% 58%

Navisite Europe 58% 63%

Britannic Technologies

58% 58%

Centiq 58% 49%

CACI 58% 60%

*The 11 firms excluded from this analysis were BT, WWT, Capita, SHI, Egton, KCOM Enterprise, Crayon, Lombard Technology, Cooper Parry, Snelling and Cinos

claim to serve a combined 4,000 customers, working with a selection of comms and managed print vendors including Xerox, Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Nuance and Gamma. The London-based outfit’s last set of results filed on Companies House, covering its year to 30 November 2017, show an impressive £1.8m net profit on revenues that bounced 28 per cent to £25.2m.

158. D4t4 SolutionsRevenue: £25.2m (+37%)Net profit: 23.1% Staff: 122Starting life in 1985 as a hardware reseller under the IS Solutions brand, today D4t4 is a data analytics specialist that touts its own ‘Celebrus’ software alongside solutions from Dell EMC, Teradata, Microsoft and Adobe. The AIM-listed firm proclaimed its fiscal 2019 ending 31 March “another excellent year”, with net profits doubling to £5.8m on revenues that soared 37 per cent to £25.2m, £18.8m of which were generated in the US.

157. SmartcommRevenue: £25.5m (+30%)Net profit: 0.3% Staff: 90This fast-growing Crestron and Polycom partner recently completed a 22-month audio visual, lighting and IT installation project at Centre Point Residences in central London. Despite seeing 30 per cent revenue growth in its year to 31 December 2018, the High Wycombe-based outfit admitted that its results were “adversely impacted” by project cost overruns that led it to eat a £589,000 writedown. It recently inked a partnership with videoconferencing vendor Zoom.

156. Invenio Business SolutionsRevenue: £25.5m (+51%)Net profit: 21.7% Staff: 468Headquartered in Reading, this

geographically diverse, highly profitable SAP partner recently completed the implementation of a new VAT system in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A lack of fresh accounts means we have had to fall back on numbers for its year to 31 March 2018, which show net profits doubling to £5.5m on revenues of £25.5m. Invenio employs 950 staff in the UK, Germany, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Fiji, India and the US.

155. Navisite EuropeRevenue: £25.8m (+10%)Net profit: -10.5% Staff: 55The “uncertainty surrounding Brexit” resulted in lower than expected growth for the UK arm of this US-headquartered managed cloud provider in calendar 2018. A Microsoft Azure and VMware partner, Navisite boasts offices in Massachusetts, Surbiton and Haryana, India and has six global datacentres. It changed ownership in September 2019 when previous parent, NASDAQ-listed Charter Communications, sold the business to acquisitive cloud MSP RDX.

154. SecureLinkRevenue: £25.8m (-7%)Net profit: -0.5% Staff: 48French telco Orange followed up its purchase of 96th-ranked Top VAR SecureData by acquiring pan-European MSSP SecureLink for €300m in May 2019. Netherlands-based SecureLink had built itself into a €250m-revenue business via a raft of acquisitions, including the UK’s Nebulas. Its UK arm blamed heightened competition from general IT infrastructure providers and the move to cloud for a seven per cent dip in sales and a £137,000 net loss in calendar 2018.

153. Cloud Technology Solutions

Revenue: £26.1m (+42%)Net profit: 0.4% Staff: 113A 42 per cent annual revenue boom at this Manchester-based cloud migration specialist was “a decade in the making”, chief executive James Doggart told us. “We were early to the cloud space and were waiting for the market to catch up,” he said as the NorthEdge Capital-backed Google Premier partner posted net profits of £108,000 on revenues of £26.1m in its year to 31 March 2019. During the year it acquired Dutch counterpart Qlouder.

152. HighPointRevenue: £26.3m (+75%)Net profit: 3.8% Staff: 34Based in Greenford, Middlesex, the UK arm of this global networking reseller enjoyed a barnstorming year to 31 December 2018, with revenues booming 75 per cent to $33.4m and net profits more than trebling to $1.3m (as its primary denomination, HighPoint reports its UK numbers in dollars). Its New Jersey-based parent works with 12 ‘foundational’ vendors, including the likes of Cisco, Arista, Fortinet, Pure Storage and NetApp.

151. Castleton TechnologyRevenue: £26.4m (+13%)Net profit: 15.5% Staff: 177David Payne, non-executive chairman of this AIM-listed supplier of software and managed services to the public and not-for-profit sectors admitted in November that the first half of the outfit’s fiscal 2020 had been “challenging”, with lower one-off sales and an unexpectedly disruptive reorganisation pushing it into the red. Its last full-year accounts, however, are a picture of buoyancy, with net profits roughly flat at £4.1m on revenues that ramped up 13 per cent to £26.3m.

32 33

OGL Computer Services

58% 57%

D4t4 Solutions 57% 57%

Pinnacle Computing (Support)

57% 57%

Adept4 56% 60%

Excalibur Communications Group

56% 60%

Capital Document Solutions

56% 56%

Pennine Telecom (now Avoira)

56% 56%

Connect Managed Services

55% 59%

Nolan Business Solutions

55% 53%

Prolinx 54% 50%

CSI 54% 47%

Solid Solutions Management

54% 53%

JT (Global) Limited 54% 44%

Microtech Group 54% 65%

Six Degrees 53% 57%

I.P. Integration 53% 51%

Optimity 53% 46%

Datcom LLP 53% 50%

K3 53% 52%

Ethos Group Holdings

52% 41%

1Spatial 52% 53%

Charterhouse Voice & Data

52% 54%

Modality Systems 52% 51%

Bistech Group 52% 52%

Claranet 52% 54%

Principal 52% 48%

ITC Global Security 51% 57%

ECSC 51% 41%

Daisy 50% 51%

Ocean Intelligent Communications

50% 49%

Adept Technology Group

49% 49%

Pythagoras Communications

49% 46%

Content & Code 49% 54%

Timico 49% 48%

Tryzens 49% 50%

Pinnacle 49% 46%

NTT Security 49% 34%

Communicate Technology plc

49% 66%

Babble Cloud 49% 48%

SecureData 48% 50%

CCE 48% 47%

Vision Group 48% 44%

Scotia 47% 41%

United Carlton 47% 47%

SICL 47% 47%

ASL 47% 43%

Excell Group 45% 47%

Involve Visual Collaboration

45% 45%

Cloud Direct 45% 57%

Northdoor 44% 45%

Arrow Business Communications

44% 44%

Olive Communications

44% 41%

DMW Group 44% 42%

SAGlobal Europe 44% 69%

Smarter Business Ltd

44% 42%

Anchor Computer Systems

44% 47%

GCI 43% 46%

Intercity Technology

43% 41%

Altodigital 43% 67%

AVMI 42% 44%

G3 Comms 42% 42%

IT Lab 42% 43%

Atlas Business Group of Companies

42% 45%

Sabio 42% 38%

ONI plc 42% 40%

Wavenet 42% 47%

Incremental Group 42% 42%

Blusource Information

42% 41%

RM 41% 39%

Proact 41% 39%

Elite Group 41% 45%

Avanade 41% 34%

Arena Group 41% 37%

NCC Group 41% 41%

ANS 40% 36%

Covenco 40% 40%

Universal Group Holdings

40% 39%

Minttulip 39% 19%

Insight Systems 39% 39%

QUANTIQ 39% 34%

South West Communications Group

38% 37%

Media Powerhouse 38% 37%

Connecting London

38% 59%

New Signature UK 37% 39%

TSG 37% 38%

Workspace Technology

37% 36%

Frontline Consultancy

37% 35%

European Office Products

37% 38%

Fluent2 37% 48%

Aspire Technology 36% 35%

Vodat Communications Group

36% 39%

Inoapps 36% 29%

Absoft 36% 36%

Natilik 36% 35%

4NET Technologies 35% 41%

Annodata 35% 38%

Adarma 35% 33%

zenoffice 35% 30%

VAR 350 VAR 350

Transparity Solutions

35% 36%

Wanstor 35% 29%

Certus Solutions Consulting Services

35% 26%

Explorer UK 35% 36%

ProAV 34% 36%

The Saville Group 34% 37%

EACS 34% 37%

Hardware UK 34% 31%

DMC Canotec 34% 27%

eBECS 34% 33%

Focus Group 34% 29%

Axians 34% 31%

Taylor Made 33% 33%

Khipu Networks 33% 35%

Xeretec 33% 27%

Pacific Computers 33% 33%

Capita Workplace Technology

32% 39%

Chess 32% 33%

Utilize plc 32% 32%

Stanford Marsh 32% 34%

Caretower 32% 31%

Lima Networks 32% 25%

Diversified 32% 27%

Eurotech Computer Services

32% 28%

Ensono 31% 38%

Highspeed Office (HSO)

31% 29%

Cisilion 31% 28%

Version 1 31% 29%

Microlink PC 30% 30%

Peach Telecom 30% 26%

Bamboo Technology

30% 26%

Cristie Data 30% 26%

Commercial Limited

30% 29%

Codestone Group 30% 28%

Kinly 30% 32%

Boston Networks 30% 26%

Comtec Enterprises 29% 32%

Edenhouse Solutions

29% 34%

Shearwater Group 29% 58%

Arcus Global 29% 16%

Recarta IT 29% 26%

Roche Audio Visual 29% 28%

Maintel 29% 29%

Lynx Networks 29% 29%

Excitech 29% 32%

Jade Solutions 28% 29%

gv multimedia 28% 29%

Risual 28% 23%

9 Group Ltd 28% 28%

Business Connexion

28% 30%

Transputec 28% 25%

Satisnet 28% 21%

Block Solutions 27% 34%

Cadline 27% 27%

Papergraphics 27% 26%

Phoenix Datacom 27% 27%

Dacoll 27% 32%

Tectrade 27% 26%

ACS Business Supplies

27% 31%

Krome Technologies

27% 25%

CommsWorld 26% 22%

Fordway Solutions 26% 16%

365 ITMS Limited 26% 47%

Switchshop 26% 23%

Pure Technology Group

26% 26%

Capito 26% 25%

MCSA 26% 21%

Logicalis 26% 18%

ExcelRedstone 25% 19%

Novosco 25% 30%

CAE 25% 22%

Sol-Tec 25% 28%

AVI-SPL 25% 28%

NS Optimum 25% 25%

OneCom 25% 22%

Prodec Networks 25% 26%

Plan-net 25% 23%

Concept Group (xerox)

25% 24%

Vysiion 25% 19%

Vetasi 25% 29%

Axial Systems 25% 29%

York Telecom 25% 24%

Securelink 24% 24%

PTS Consulting 24% 24%

Highlander Business Solutions

23% 23%

Symec Technologies

23% 22%

Man and Machine 23% 22%

Circle IT 23% 28%

Q Associates 23% 22%

Meridian IT Limited 23% 21%

M2 Digital 23% 33%

Apogee 23% 31%

Cancom UK 23% 24%

Banner Group 23% 21%

Cloud Technology Solutions

22% 26%

Bytes Security Partnerships

22% 25%

Cloudreach 22% 9%

Roc Technologies 22% 23%

Rail Asset Management Solutions

22% 13%

Pinacl Solutions 22% 11%

Xantaro 22% 21%

Advanced 365 22% 16%

High Point Solutions

22% 26%

Pentesec 22% 21%

LA Micro Group (UK)

22% 21%

Printerland 21% 21%

Acuma Solutions 21% 24%

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IT Professional Services

21% 22%

SCC AVS 20% 22%

Form IT Solutions 20% 23%

Exception Ltd 20% 17%

NSC Global 20% 16%

Majenta Solutions 20% 20%

Perfect Colours 20% 18%

Midshire Business Systems

20% 28%

PCS Business Systems

20% 20%

AVEX International 20% 58%

MBA Information Technology

19% 17%

Esteem 19% 20%

Tangible Benefit 19% 20%

ECS Europe 19% 18%

Dimension Data 19% 20%

WTL plc 19% 19%

Comcen Computer Supplies 19% 17%

Evaris Solutions 18% 17%

Ampito Group 18% 18%

Buy IT Direct 18% 19%

KRCS 18% 15%

Vohkus 18% 19%

ITM Communications

18% 19%

Itelligence 18% 16%

Teneo 18% 24%

Jarvis Tech 18% 18%

Complete IT Systems

18% 18%

CDW 18% 18%

Telent Technology Services

18% 21%

Spectrum Computer Supplies

18% 18%

NG Bailey IT Services

18% 15%

MTI 18% 18%

Akhter Group 18% 25%

Probrand 18% 19%

Western Computer 17% 18%

EOS IT Solutions 17% 15%

IDN Supplies 17% 17%

Reflex Limited 17% 18%

a2c services (circular computing)

17% 15%

Trustco plc 17% 17%

Albion Computers 17% 14%

Escape Technology 16% 12%

Stone Computers 16% 15%

IDE Group 16% 30%

Storm Technologies

16% 15%

Blue Cube 16% 20%

OCF 15% 16%

Centerprise 15% 18%

Novatech 15% 16%

Clarity Copiers 15% 13%

Jigsaw24 15% 11%

Electrosonic 15% 12%

Softcat 15% 16%

Ultima Business Solutions

15% 16%

CCS Media 15% 15%

PC Specialist 15% 15%

Graitec 15% 15%

PCM 15% 15%

Port-P 14% 13%

SCC 14% 16%

IC Technology 14% 13%

Servium 14% 15%

Bechtle 14% 14%

Amicus ITS 14% 16%

Mobius Business Technologies

14% 20%

Bell Integration 14% 9%

Insight 14% 14%

Trams 14% 14%

BSI Cybersecurity and Information Resilience

14% 19%

Total Computers 13% 13%

TET 13% 12%

Grey Matter 13% 12%

Computacenter 13% 13%

Galtec 13% 12%

Viadex 13% 11%

ACS Systems 12% 11%

Bytes Software Services

12% 13%

Zones 12% 13%

Compu b 12% 7%

Autodata Products 12% 12%

Millgate 12% 11%

Academia 11% 11%

Smartcomm 11% 14%

CCL Computers 11% 11%

Phoenix Software 11% 14%

SoftwareONE 11% 14%

DTP 11% 14%

UK Computer Group

11% 12%

XMA 10% 9%

eBuyer 9% 9%

IGX Global 9% 10%

Getech 9% 10%

Pugh Computers 9% 9%

CSPI 8% 9%

Scan Computers 8% 7%

Stormfront (Professional Reseller Group)

8% 5%

Green Cloud IT 7% 10%

Software Box Limited

7% 6%

Technoworld 7% 8%

Celerity 7% 13%

Comparex 5% 6%

European Electronique

5% 4%

Open Systems Technologies

5% 5%

GBM 3% 2%

AVERAGE 32% 32%

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World Cup winner Sir Clive Woodward joined fledgling managed services provider Aura Technology – which went on to acquire 302nd-ranked Amicus ITS – in a non-executive role.

291st-ranked Incremental Group became the first Microsoft partner to host an event at Microsoft Store in Oxford Circus, following its opening in July.

The Misco brand was relaunched after 172nd-ranked UK Computer Group bought the rights to the name in June.

248th-ranked Lima Networks announced a £12m injection by Mavern Capital partners, which CEO Lisa Thornton (pictured, second from left) said would bolster the Salford-based outfit’s “unrelenting ambition to become the UK’s ‘go-to’ cloud and managed services provider”.

Cliff Fox, COO of 147th-ranked VAR Pure Technology, was among those criticising the government for banning Huawei from the core of the UK’s 5G network. Fox argued there had been a “concerted political barrage” against the Chinese vendor, adding that this had “undoubtedly had an effect on Huawei’s business and its partners”.

ANS CEO Paul Shannon (pictured left) admitted at CRN’s Channel Conference that he and CTO Andy Barrow (right) “massively underestimated” the challenge of reinventing the 73rd-ranked VAR as a public cloud consultancy.

April

October

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July

July

November

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The year in pictures

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150. Albion ComputersRevenue: £26.5m (-18%)Net profit: 0.8% Staff: 104Despite seeing revenues tumble by 18 per cent in calendar 2018, this Apple Premium Reseller (APR) said in its strategic report that it was “geared towards greater performance” in 2019. Net profits inched up from £190,000 to £212,000. Based in the Strand, Albion operated nine APR stores during the year under the iStore brand, and has since opened a tenth. It also targets businesses and education.

149. DatelRevenue: £26.7m (+18%)Net profit: 5.2% Staff: 201Billing itself as Sage’s largest UK Platinum partner, Datel’s website features countless case studies trumpeting its successful Sage X3 projects, including at law firm HGF. The Warrington-based outfit attributed a sharp hike in both revenue and profits in its year to 31 May 2019 to “strong customer retention and satisfaction”. Specialising in Sage 200, X3, 1000 and Line 500, Datel claims to have the UK’s largest team of Sage-accredited experts.

148. GraitecRevenue: £26.9m (+8%)Net profit: 2.2% Staff: 79The UK arm of this global Autodesk Platinum partner enjoyed a solid year to 31 December 2018, with revenues vaulting eight per cent and net profits widening from £538,000 to £594,000. France-headquartered Graitec bills itself as a global leader in building information modelling (BIM), employing 550 staff in 50 offices globally, including 300 BIM engineers. It made four acquisitions in 2019, including that of UK EDM provider OpenTree.

147. Pure Technology GroupRevenue: £27.8m (+23%)Net profit: 3.9% Staff: 88This fast-growing Leeds-based

VAR recently set itself the goal of growing to £50m revenues and 200 staff by 2021. Its last accounts filed on Companies House, covering the year to 31 May 2018, show a net profit of £1.1m on revenues that bounced by nearly a quarter to £27.8m. Informally, the HP, Dell and Huawei partner recently announced a 2019 turnover “verging on” £33m, attributing the record haul to higher cloud, managed services and transactional sales.

146. PapergraphicsRevenue: £28.4m (+0.1%)Net profit: -0.01% Staff: 99The holding company for this large-format print supplier, Pure Genius Holdings, posted a £4,000 net loss on flat revenues of £28.4m in its year to 31 December 2018 as an uptick in UK business was wiped out by lower mainland European sales. In April 2019, Crawley-based Papergraphics installed the UK’s first HP Latex R2000 printer, which boasts production speeds of between 45 and 100m2 per hour.

145. ExcelRedstoneRevenue: £28.4m (+24%)Net profit: 9.3% Staff: 136This Essex-based datacentre, cloud, workspace and smart buildings specialist was formed in 2018 when its predecessor, Excel IT, acquired two businesses from RedstoneConnect for £21.6m. In December 2018 it expanded further by acquiring Irish MSP Kedington. It branded its results for its year to 31 March 2018 – which do not convey its enlarged scale – as “excellent”, as net profits rose from £1.9m to £2.6m and revenue ballooned by nearly a quarter to £28.4m.

144. Tangible BenefitRevenue: £28.7m (+29%)Net profit: 6.2% Staff: 48The directors of this Angel, London-based reseller characterised its fiscal 2019 ending

31 March as “another successful year”, as revenues bounced 29 per cent to £28.7m and net profits swelled from £1.5m to £1.8m. The HP Gold partner claims its central London, co-located warehouse allows it to achieve “unprecedented delivery times”.

143. Olive CommunicationsRevenue: £28.9m (-8%)Net profit: -1.7% Staff: 124This BGF-backed comms VAR took its long-standing partnership with Vodafone to the “next level” in November 2019 by inking a five-year, £125m deal to broaden its portfolio of Vodafone products. Contracting mobile sales fuelled an eight per cent revenue dip in Olive’s year to 31 January 2019, although cloud and contact centre revenues leapt 20 per cent to hit £14m – nearly half the total. Net losses narrowed from £1.3m to £496,000.

142. CadlineRevenue: £29m (+2%)Net profit: 1.2% Staff: 88Autodesk’s recent switch to a subscription model doesn’t appear to have had a adverse impact on the performance of its largest UK Platinum partner, Cadline. For its year to 31 January 2019, the Middlesex-based outfit saw revenue climb two per cent to £29m, with net profits down only slightly to £346,000. Cadline claimed in its commentary that Autodesk’s about-turn would benefit its business in the long term.

141. GV MultimediaRevenue: £29.2m (+4%)Net profit: 6.2% Staff: 89This London-based audio visual integrator leapt into Scotland in January 2019 by acquiring the integration business of Dundee-based Vision Sound and Light. Its last accounts filed on Companies House, covering the year to 31 March 2018, show a net profit of £1.8m on revenues that rose four per cent to £29.2m. The

VAR 350VAR 350

universities specialist said at the time that it was on track for an “exceptional growth year” in its fiscal 2019.

140. InoappsRevenue: £29.3m (+33%)Net profit: 5.5% Staff: 204An international expansion drive in the previous year bore fruit for this Oracle Platinum partner in its year to 30 April 2018 as it returned to the black and added over £7m to its top line. Overseas revenues boomed from £6.8m to £11.2m. Backed by BGF, Aberdeen-based Inoapps claims Big Red has been “in its DNA” since it was founded in 2006. It was the first UK firm to implement Oracle Cloud in its back office.

139. Cooper Parry IT SolutionsRevenue: £29.6m (+7%)Net profit: 2.8% Staff: 341The IT solutions arm of this accountancy firm specialises in moving SMBs off Sage, Quick Books and Xero and onto Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, for which it recently won global partner of the year. The wider Cooper Parry business, which has offices in London, Bristol, Farnborough, Birmingham and Nottingham, saw revenues rise seven per cent to £29.6m in its year to 30 April 2018. Net profits fell from £1.4m to £822,000.

138. LA Micro GroupRevenue: £29.8m (+22%)Net profit: 2.6% Staff: 48This Windsor-based hardware supplier claims its principal arm, LA Micro UK, is one of Europe’s largest stockholders of Dell systems, spare parts and options. The group, which encompasses LA Support, LA lifecycle and LA Connect, saw revenue pogo by over a fifth in its year to 30 April 2018. Despite “continued margin pressure”, gross margins held up at 22 per cent but net profits dipped from £946,000 to £764,000.

137. Connect Managed ServicesRevenue: £29.9m (+43%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: 161London-based Connect was one of two unified comms VARs gobbled up by new private equity house Apiary Capital last year (the other being 187th-ranked G3 Comms). Connect boss Alex Tupman was named CEO of the enlarged firm, which boasts a £55m revenue run rate. Connect’s revenues for its year ending 31 December 2018 rocketed 43 per cent to £29.9m as recent acquisition Cool Harbour turbo-charged its top line.

136. Q AssociatesRevenue: £30.2m (+0.2%)Net profit: 0.6% Staff: 60This Newbury-based infrastructure and storage VAR said efforts to transition towards IT services helped it push up revenues and gross margins in its elongated, 13-month financial period to 30 April 2019. Net profits fell from £263,000 to £180,000, however, as higher administration costs weighed on its bottom line. Billing itself as a digital transformation specialist, Q Associates is NetApp’s reigning EMEA HCI Partner of the Year.

135. EOS IT SolutionsRevenue: £30.8m (+85%)Net profit: 10.9% Staff: 99A specialist in video comms, this Cisco Gold partner is headquartered in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, and boasts operational offices in the US, Ireland, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. UK arm EOS IT Management Solutions (UK) posted an impressive £3.3m net profit on revenues that nearly doubled to £30.8m in its year to 30 June 2018. EOS’ clients include Google, BT, Vodafone and Apple.

134. TectradeRevenue: £31.2m (-20%)Net profit: 3.3% Staff: 58

Tectrade’s sizeable US arm and data protection prowess convinced fellow IBM partner CSI to buy the Godalming-based outfit in November 2019. Its revenues fell by a fifth in its year to 31 March 2019, with UK sales slipping from £14.7m to £13.8m on the back of a 32 per cent dip in product sales and related services. Tectrade CEO Alex Fagioli will now head up CSI’s US expansion efforts.

133. HardwareRevenue: £32m (-23%)Net profit: -4.3% Staff: 117Juniper’s reigning EMEA Commercial Partner of the Year saw group revenues tumble by nearly a quarter in its year to 31 March 2018 following its decision to scale back its loss-making American operation. UK revenue also went south, falling from £22.5m to £16.7m. Based in Cirencester and with offices in the Nordics and South Africa, Hardware underwent a rebrand in 2019 to reflect the expansion of its cloud solutions provision.

132. NovatechRevenue: £32.1m (+9%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 114Supplying powerful workstations to support the University of Portsmouth’s motion capture studio is the most recent project highlighted on the website of this Hampshire-based PC builder, which sells to consumers, business, schools and the public sector. A lack of fresh accounts means we’ve had to recycle old numbers covering Novatech’s year to 30 April 2018, which show a £334,000 net profit on revenues of £32.1m.

131. TechnoworldRevenue: £32.6m (+18%)Net profit: 3.9% Staff: 13This online laptop and PC reseller defied “market uncertainties associated with a possible Brexit” to post an 18 per cent revenue bounce in its year to 30 September 2018. Net profits were flat at

38 39

£1.3m. A Microsoft Authorised Education Reseller, Technoworld buys stock in bulk before flogging it via its telesales team and on its website. It holds Platinum, Gold and Preferred status with Lenovo, HP and Dell, respectively.

130. AdarmaRevenue: £32.6m (+24%)Net profit: 10% Staff: 171Private equity house Livingbridge is aiming to build a cybersecurity business “of real scale” after backing an MBO at this Edinburgh-based managed security services provider – previously known as ECS Security – in June 2019. The Splunk, ServiceNow and Tenable partner, which has its own security operations centre, racked up net profits of £3.3m on revenues that surged 24 per cent to £32.6m in its year to 31 December 2018.

129. Lombard Technology ServicesRevenue: £32.9m (+13%)Net profit: 25.4% Staff: 30A subsidiary of RBS, this technology-leasing specialist saw revenues bulge by 13 per cent in its year to 31 December 2018. Net profits were roughly flat at £8.4m. The Dell EMC partner’s product offering spans PCs, servers, comms, printers, telephony, AV, datacentre and software. It also offers procurement, deployment and IT disposal services.

128. Intercity TechnologyRevenue: £33.2m (-21%)Net profit: -3.8% Staff: 185Having sold its £7m-revenue Dutch business in April 2018, this Birmingham-based MSP’s revenues tanked by over a fifth in its year to 31 December 2018. Revenue from continuing operations fell eight per cent to £31.6m as lower IT product and mobility sales were partially offset by organic growth in its IT managed services business. This shift in revenue mix resulted in

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Profit analysis: 101-200The firms sitting in the second tier of this report were the only group to register a fall in average net profit margins year on year.

Across those ranked 101 to 200, median net profit margins hit 2.25 per cent, compared with 2.43 per cent a year earlier. Relatively speaking, that makes them more profitable than the top 100, but less profitable than smaller counterparts ranked from 201 to 350 (see p8 and p52 for more).

Slightly more than half of them – 53 – saw net profit margins grow year on year, however. Some 80 of this century made a net profit, with 20 making a net loss (compared with a ratio of 78 to 22 the previous year).

Stand-out performers include leasing specialist Lombard – whose net profit margins top 25 per cent – SAP houses Edenhouse and Invenio, and newly minted security VAR Adarma (see table below).

With revenues ranging from £19.5m to £41.6m, those ranked from 101 to 200 boast a collective top line of £2.83bn in their latest years on record, up 8.8 per cent on the £2.6bn revenues they generated the previous year. Some 71 grew, and only 29 shrank.

Company Net profit margin

Lombard Technology Services 25.4%D4t4 Solutions 23.1%Invenio Business Solutions 21.7%Aspire Technology 18.0%Edenhouse Solutions 16.0%Castleton Technology 15.5%EOS IT Solutions 10.9%Adarma (formerly ECS Security) 10.0%Columbus 9.5%ExcelRedstone 9.3%

Most profitable resellers

101-200: Total revenue

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.03.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0Most recent year Previous year

£2.60bn£2.83bn

£bn

gross margins rising from 37.8 to 41.7 per cent. During the year it invested in a new tier 3 datacentre.

127. ElectrosonicRevenue: £33.3m (-17%)Net profit: -1.5% Staff: 267Founded in 1964, this London-based audio visual integrator recently helped deliver the largest museum project in the world in the shape of the Sheikh Abdullah al Salem Cultural Centre in Kuwait. Electronic lighting control, multi-image slide projection and videowalls are among its fortes. Electrosonic’s top and bottom line both headed south in its year to 31 December 2018, with a £7m revenue descent dumping it out of the top 100.

126. CCL ComputersRevenue: £33.5m (+13%)Net profit: 2.1% Staff: 60This Bradford-based PC builder said customer fears over further currency-induced price hikes ensured brisk business in its year to 31 August 2018, with revenues vaulting 13 per cent. As well as assembling bespoke, own-brand machines for gaming, education and pro users, CCL doubles up as a wholesaler and retailer of components. It recently won an accolade for its international growth, with overseas generating £2.5m of the £33.5m total last year.

125. Data IntensityRevenue: £33.7m (-22%)Net profit: -21% Staff: 503Having gobbled up Essex-based Oracle partner Red Stack Tech in 2016, this global MSP saw its UK arm stumble to a £7m net loss in its year to 31 December 2018 as it absorbed a £5.5m impairment charge. Revenues fell by over a fifth due to lower resale activities. It is currently in the process of liquidating its Polish entity after plans for it failed to develop as hoped. The US parent employs 800 staff.

124. 9 GroupRevenue: £33.8m (-23%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 157Selling both direct and through partners, this Gloucestershire-based business telecoms provider claims it has processed 1.5 billion minutes since it was founded in 2001. Its cloud-based comms platform, ‘eve’, is based on Mitel technology. Recent changes to its company structure and reporting dates mean the most recent figures we could locate for 9 cover an 18-month period to 31 December 2017, when net profits hit £516,000 on revenues of £50.7m.

123. Advanced 365Revenue: £33.9m (-7%)Net profit: -15.2% Staff: 386A division of Advanced Computer Software, this managed services provider flagged up its success in boosting recurring revenues from 68 to 78 per cent of its total intake in its year to 29 February 2019. Total revenues tumbled seven per cent, however, as the Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat and IBM partner’s product sales halved to under £2m. Net losses widened to £5.1m as administrative costs rocketed from £7.6m to £13.7m.

122. NG Bailey IT ServicesRevenue: £33.9m (-44%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 299This networking and cabling specialist has plunged 61 places in the rankings after “highly competitive” market conditions prompted it to rein in which contracts it bid for and accepted. Revenue consequently sank from £60.7m to £33.9m, but a net loss of £421,000 the previous year was reversed to a £515,000 profit. Parent NG Bailey turns over £500m and bills itself as the UK’s “leading independent engineering and services business”.

121. TSGRevenue: £34.5m (+3%)Net profit: 0.3% Staff: 349

Owned by Sage founder Graham Wylie, this Sage, Microsoft, Sophos and Datto partner returned to the black in its year to 31 March 2019. Although building its own applications “remains a strong focus”, “challenges” relating to its Tribe membership management solution prompted TSG to eat a £341,000 impairment charge during the year. A failure to grow recurring revenues, which were flat at £22.4m, was also red-flagged by management.

120. GetechRevenue: £34.6m (+5.4%)Net profit: 0.4% Staff: 75This Ipswich-based reseller and distributor reversed a three-year period of decline in calendar 2018 as “significant” wins and renewals in its higher-education team helped it pack on an additional £1.8m in revenue. It now claims to be Lenovo’s largest partner on the NDNA framework. Also a thin-client distributor, Getech said its decision to invest in its high-performing sectors caused net profits to halve to £172,000 during the year.

119. Esteem SystemsRevenue: £35.3m (-2%)Net profit: -0.1% Staff: 238This Wetherby-based MSP is currently branded as ‘Esteem – part of Roc Technologies Group’, following its acquisition by the 104th-ranked firm in October 2018. As it did not contribute to Roc’s most recently filed accounts, we’ve opted to split out its numbers one last time. The Citrix and Oracle partner, whose favoured verticals include local government, retail and universities, posted a £21,000 net loss on revenues of £35.2m in its year to 30 June 2018.

118. PCMRevenue: £35.6m (+312%)Net profit: -2.6% Staff: 116PCM’s first full year of UK trading also looks to be its last, after the

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US-based reseller was grabbed by rival Insight for $580m in August 2019. UK MD Donavan Hutchinson exited in October, having launched the UK office in May 2017. Accounts for PCM Technology Solutions Ltd show a £35.6m turnover for calendar 2018, although a £13.4m UK figure for Q1 2019 disclosed by the US parent points to a much higher run rate.

117. Sapphire SystemsRevenue: £36.7m (+3%)Net profit: 4.6% Staff: 262Based in London’s Shard, this SAP and Infor partner saw net profits almost halve to £1.7m in calendar 2018 as it invested heavily in the second generation of its Sapphire Anywhere managed hosting infrastructure (which 130 of its 900 customers are now on). Revenues hit £36.7m, a three per cent rise pro rata. Founded in 1993, Sapphire employs 250 staff in the UK, US, India, Mexico, the Philippines and Argentina.

116. Cisilion Revenue: £37.1m (-9%)Net profit: 3.1% Staff: 97A focus on higher-margin services business helped this Cisco, Microsoft and Riverbed partner boost net profits from £674,000 to £1.2m in its year to 31 May 2018. This was despite a second consecutive annual revenue fall, which it blamed on the ending of a large project. On top of offices in central London and Surrey, Cisilion supports key customers from outposts in Hong Kong and New York.

115. ExcitechRevenue: £37.1m (+35%)Net profit: 0.1% Staff: 133Autodesk’s largest UK Platinum reseller returned to blistering growth in its year to 31 January 2019 after successfully adjusting to the CAD vendor’s recent switch from a perpetual to a subscription-based licensing

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model. The Enfield-based outfit did, however, call out Autodesk for “reducing margin available to its reseller channel” as it sought to explain a sharp drop in net profits. During the year it acquired fellow Autodesk partner Micro Concepts.

114. Excel GroupRevenue: £37.2m (+12%)Net profit: 6.2% Staff: 212Having carved out a niche providing unified comms to businesses in serviced offices, this Avaya, Mitel and O2 partner saw revenues vault a further 12 per cent to £37.2m in its year to 30 April 2018. The Cambridge firm claims to compete with larger outfits such as Colt thanks to its own Ofcom-regulated core network. Recent acquisitions, including that of Macseven Consultants, bolstered its numbers during the period.

113. Bytes Security PartnershipsRevenue: £37.5m (+37%)Net profit: 5.2% Staff: 64Surging demand for security solutions among corporate customers helped this Check Point partner record a 37 per cent revenue boom in its year to 28 February 2019. Net profits widened from £1.7m to £1.9m. In September 2019, the Leatherhead-based outfit – whose sister companies Bytes Software Services and Phoenix are ranked 12th and 25th in this report – announced it had been named Check Point’s first fully accredited Infinity Partner globally.

112. NovoscoRevenue: £37.6m (+24%)Net profit: 6% Staff: 176Having acquired Novosco for £70m in October 2019, German reseller Cancom claimed that the Northern Irish MSP is gunning for £55m revenue in its current year. Accounts for Novosco Group Ltd’s year to 31 December 2018 show a £2.2m net profit on

revenues of £37.6m. Cancom, which is ranked 61st in this report in its own right, has already invested in a dedicated SOC in Belfast since purchasing the 170-employee Microsoft partner.

111. Arrow Business CommunicationsRevenue: £37.9m (+34%)Net profit: -17.1% Staff: 189This Godalming-based unified comms outfit claims it is now selling more utilities than telecoms and IT combined following two quick-fire acquisitions in the energy space. Revenues for its year to 31 December 2018 vaulted by more than a third as four acquisitions – including European Utility Management – fed into its top line. Net losses widened from £3.5m to £6.5m as it ate over £10m of amortisation and loan interest charges.

110. Edenhouse SolutionsRevenue: £38.2m (-3%)Net profit: 16% Staff: 258A lack of fresh accounts for this Birmingham-based SAP consultancy means that we have had to recycle the numbers for its year to 31 March 2018, which show net profits of £6.1m on revenues that dipped three per cent to £38.2m. Edenhouse launched an office in Toronto in October 2019 as part of an international expansion drive. Its clients include baking duo Hovis and Warburtons.

109. ECS EuropeRevenue: £38.4m (+4%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: 155Glasgow-based AWS, Azure and Google Cloud partner ECS bills itself as a “trailblazer” for Amazon Connect deployments in the financial services industry, and recently recruited a former RBS executive to spearhead its offering in this area. Revenues at its largest trading arm, ECS Europe, rose four per cent to £38.4m in the year to 31 December 2019. ECS claims

Deals of the year

127th-ranked Electrosonic won accolades for delivering all the audio visual design and integration work for the Sheikh Abdullah al Salem Cultural Centre in Kuwait – the largest museum project in the world.

In October, 170th-ranked Shearwater announced that its VAR arm, Brookcourt Solutions, had bagged a three-year, £8.5m deal with a “leading FTSE 100 global telecommunications company”.

In July, SBL won a £190m, three-year deal to provide Microsoft Office 365 and other Microsoft software to the Ministry of Defence.

In April, ninth-ranked Telent was awarded a six-year, £100m contract to provide IT and comms solutions to Hinkley Point C (HPC), the first nuclear power plant to be built in the UK in 25 years. “We had to shake-test the equipment to ensure it could stand an earthquake,” Telent MD Peter Moir told CRN.

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Starting off life in 1983 as a subsidiary of an internal construction company, London-based PTS Consulting saw revenues rise two per cent in its year to 31 March 2019, with consulting sales down seven per cent to £28.9m and managed services sales hiking 33 per cent to £13.6m. Net losses halved to £491,000. Boasting a physical presence in nine countries, including the US, Hong Kong and Singapore, its clients include Bloomberg, NASDAQ and Nike.

98. Capita Workplace TechnologyRevenue: £42.6m (+30%)Net profit: 17.4% Staff: 141Capita’s managed print arm, formerly Right Document Solutions, bursts into the top 100 on the back of 30 per cent growth in its year to 31 December 2017. In a Q&A on its website, chief sales officer Alan Moore said the London-based outfit is reshaping its offering to reflect efforts by customers to digitise workstreams, reduce print volumes and add automation. Kitting out Sony Music with Canon MDF devices is among the case studies trumpeted on its homepage. 97. Saville GroupRevenue: £43.6m (+25%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 241This York-based audiovisual integrator, a new entrant to Top VARs, claimed its recent rebrand has been “very well received” by customers. Revenues for its year to 31 December 2018 rose by a quarter to £43.6m thanks in part to a “dramatic increase” in sales at Visavvi, the new name for its sales, installation and maintenance arm. Its other newly christened unit, Sparq – which specialises in live events – has a £2m investment in equipment hire.

96. SecureDataRevenue: £43.6m (+23%)

Net profit: -3.6% Staff: 205The UK’s self-styled “leading independent cybersecurity services and solutions provider” was snapped up by French giant Orange for an undisclosed sum on 1 February 2019. Maidstone-based Palo Alto and F5 partner SecureData claimed that demand for its services “remain high” in its results for its year to 31 July 2018, which showed revenues rising by over a fifth and adjusted EBITDA hiking from £2.6m to £4.1m (although net losses hit £1.6m).

95. TETRevenue: £43.7m (-4%)Net profit: 1.1% Staff: 47Following “extraordinary” growth in 2017, this IT VAR characterised its fiscal year to 31 December 2018 as one of “consolidation” after moving to a new central London HQ. Revenues fell four per cent to £43.7m as its small US arm suffered a “downturn”. Moving its own infrastructure to the cloud has put its technical team in a better position to deliver similar projects for clients, the privately held Microsoft, HP and VMware partner claimed.

94. MTIRevenue: £44m (+11%)Net profit: 0.7% Staff: 107This Dell EMC partner recently bagged one of the largest deals in its history in the shape of a £15m, five-year datacentre modernisation contract with Southern Water. The Godalming-based MSP credited an investment in people for an 11 per cent hike in UK revenues to £44m in its year to 31 March 2018, although restructuring costs of £395,000 resulted in net profits more than halving to £284,000. MTI also operates in France and Germany, turning over £94.5m as a group. 93. TimicoRevenue: £44m (-13%)Net profit: -8.9% Staff: 291This mid-market MSP claimed investment in robotic process automation during its year to 31 December 2018 boosted its efficiency, despite posting a £3.9m net loss on revenues that fell 13 per cent on a pro-rated basis to £44m. Horizon Capital-backed Timico’s new management team are chasing an EBITDA margin of 15 to 20 per cent, up from 8.2 per cent last year.

to work with four of the top five UK retail banks.

108. NTT SecurityRevenue: £38.5m (-41%)Net profit: -4.5% Staff: 252The firm formerly known as Integralis UK attributed a 41 per cent revenue dip in its year to 31 March 2018 to a group restructure completed the previous year, which saw its sales team move to other NTT group companies – namely NTT Data and Dimension Data. Technology revenue dropped from £20m to £3m year on year as it focused on managed services. In March 2019, NTT Security acquired application security specialist WhiteHat Security.

107. DMC CanotechRevenue: £38.7m (-1%)Net profit: -9% Staff: 151This managed print specialist is gunning for growth under new private equity backer Horizon Capital, which snared a “significant stake” in the Croydon-based firm in July 2018. The Canon partner claims it enjoyed an “exceptional” year to 31 March 2018, as net profits more than doubled to £3.5m on flat revenues of £38.7m. Since year end it has divested its distribution business and acquired United Carlton, ranked 215th in this report.

106. AVI-SPLRevenue: £39.2m (+67%)Net profit: -1.1% Staff: 186The UK arm of the world’s largest AV and video comms integrator attributed a 67 per cent revenue boom in its year to 31 December 2018 to investments made in previous years. Launched in 2013, the UK subsidiary also serves Germany and Switzerland, with overseas generating nearly half of its £39.2m top line last year. Globally, the US-based Polycom partner claims to have completed over 70,000 integrations since 2018.

105. MCSA GroupRevenue: £39.4m (-20%)Net profit: 1.6% Staff: 137This Buckinghamshire-based third-party maintenance provider has dropped out of the top 100 after a “strategic plan” to withdraw from low-margin business lines caused revenues for its year to 31 March 2018 to tumble by a fifth. MCSA has already begun rebranding itself as ‘Park Place Technologies’ after its US rival (ranked 222nd in VAR 350) snapped it up in April. Park Place claimed the move made it the largest TPM in Europe.

104. Roc TechnologiesRevenue: £40.3m (+64%)Net profit: -7.3% Staff: 89With this acquisitive IT services player’s 2019 numbers impending as we went to press, we have had to drop back on its results for the six months to 31 March 2018, which show a net loss of £1.5m on revenues of £20.2m (numbers we have annualised for this profile). Run by a gaggle of former 2e2 executives and backed by the BGF, Roc claims it is an £80m-revenue business following its October 2018 acquisition of 119th-ranked Esteem Systems.

103. IDE GroupRevenue: £41.1m (-23%)Net profit: -72% Staff: 389This AIM-listed MSP is in a “period of stabilisation” following a year of upheaval, chief executive Andy Parker said in September. Net losses for its year to 31 December 2018 hit an eye-watering £29.5m on revenues that fell 23 per cent to £41.1m. During the year, IDE offloaded 365 ITMS, one of three quick-fire purchases previous management made in a botched M&A spree that nearly sent the Cisco partner under.

102. Block SolutionsRevenue: £41.5m (+69%)Net profit: 4.1% Staff: 93

The holding company for this Cisco Gold partner saw revenues boom by more than two thirds in its year to 30 June 2018 as recent healthcare-focused purchase, Innov8, bolstered its numbers. Net profits skyrocketed from £295,000 to £1.7m. Now branding itself as an “IT innovation business”, London-based Block recently won a contract to upgrade North Bristol NHS Trust’s wired and wireless networks to a single, unified solution.

101. Grey MatterRevenue: £41.6m (+9%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 107Devon now has two representatives in Top VARs after a nine per cent annual revenue bulge at this software licensing specialist thrust it into the top 100. Based in picturesque Ashburton, Grey Matter saw net profits dip from £905,000 to £749,000 in its year to 30 June 2018 as it bedded down a new back-office system. A Microsoft Direct and Indirect Cloud Solution Provider, Grey Matter claims to work with over 300 software publishers.

100. Version 1Revenue: £42.4m (+27%)Net profit: 5.7% Staff: 277Having only entered the UK in 2013, this acquisitive, Dublin-based Oracle, Microsoft and AWS partner now employs over 500 UK staff in London, Edinburgh, Redditch, Belfast, Kent and Cheshire. UK accounts for the year to 31 December 2018 show net profit rising from £1.5m to £2.4m on revenues that swelled by over a quarter to £42.4m. In March, Version 1 doubled its offshore delivery capability by acquiring the business assets of Bangalore-based consultancy TE4B.

99. PTS ConsultingRevenue: £42.5m (+2%)Net profit: -1.2% Staff: 314

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Revenue breakdown of VAR 350

£500m+

120

100

80

60

40

20

0£100m-

£500m£50m-

£100m£20m-£50m

£1m-£5m£5m-£10m

£10m-£20m

2534

93

117

3932

9

44

VAR 350 VAR 350

GREATER LONDONAcademiaAlbion ComputersAutodata ProductsAvanadeAVI-SPLBabble CloudBlock SolutionsBluesource InformationCACICancomCapitaCapita Workplace TechnologyCaretowerCDW

CharterhouseClaranetCloudreachConnect Managed ServicesConnecting LondonContent & CodeCorona Corporate ServicesCSIDiversified (Digitavia)DMC CanotecDMW GroupEnsonoEscape TechnologyEthos GroupExcelRedstone

ExcitechFitzrovia ITFluent2G3 CommsGV MultimediaHighspeed OfficeIDE GroupIGX GlobalInoappsITC Global SecurityItelligenceKinlyLA Micro Group (UK)Lombard Technology ServicesMaintelMinttulip

NatilikNew Signature UKNorthdoorNSC GlobalOcean Intelligent CommunicationsOpen Systems TechnologyOptimityPark PlacePerfect ColoursPinnaclePlan-netPTS ConsultingQUANTIQRail Asset Management Solutions

Roche AVSabioSapphire SystemsSecurelinkShearwater GroupSix DegreesTangible BenefitTechnoworldTETThe IT LabTramsTransputecTryzensVersion OneWanstorWWTXantaro

100

27

20

6 22

18

29

5

29

14

3

SOUTH-EAST365 ITMS Ltd (Berks)A2C Holdings (Hampshire)Acora (W Sussex)Adept Technology Group (Kent)Advanced365 (Berks)Ampito (W Sussex)Apogee (Kent)Arrow Business Communications (Surrey)AVMI (Middlesex)Axial Systems (Berks)Axians (Hampshire)Bell Integration (Hampshire)Blue Cube (W Sussex)Britannic Technologies (Surrey)BSI Cybersecurity (Hampshire)Bytes (Surrey)Bytes Security Partnerships (Berks)Cadline (Middlesex)CCE (Middlesex)Centerprise (Hampshire)Certus Solutions (Surrey)Cinos (Surrey)Cisilion (Surrey)

Comparex (Middlesex)Complete IT (Bucks)Compu b (Bucks)Comtech Enterprises (Surrey)Covenco (Berks)Crayon (Bucks)CSPI (Berks)D4t4 (Middlesex)Dimension Data (Hampshire)Electrosonic (Kent)European Electronique (Oxfordshire)European Office Products (West Sussex)Eurotech (Surrey)Focus Group (W Sussex)Fordway Solutions (Surrey)Graitec (Hampshire)High Point Solutions (Middlesex)Invenio (Berks)IP Integration (Berks)ITM Communications (Bucks)Jarvis Tech (E Sussex)Khipu Networks (Hampshire)Krome Technologies (Surrey)Logicalis (Berks)

Lynx Networks (Bucks)Man and Machine (Oxfordshire)MBA (W Sussex)MCSA (Bucks)Microlink (Hampshire)Mirus IT (Bucks)Mobius Business Technologies (Berks)MTI (Surrey)Navisite Europe (Surrey)Nolan Business Solutions (Hampshire)Novatech (Hampshire)NTT Security (Berks)Olive Communications (Bucks)OneCom (Hampshire)Pacific Computers (Hampshire)Peach Telecom (Hampshire)Phoenix Datacom (Bucks)Principal (W Sussex)ProAV (Surrey)Prodec Networks (Berks)Prolinx (Oxfordshire)Papergraphics (W Sussex)Pythagoras (Berks)Q Associates (Berks)

Recarta (Surrey)Reflex (Berks)RM (Oxfordshire)Roc Technologies (Berks)SCC AVS (Surrey)SecureCloud+ (Berks)SecureData (Kent)Servium (Surrey)SHI (Bucks)Silverbug (Bucks)Smartcomm (Bucks)Smarter Business (W Sussex)Softcat (Bucks)SoftwareONE (Surrey)Sol-Tec (Berks)Solutions Inc (E Sussex)Taylor Made (Hampshire)Tectrade (Surrey)Teneo (Berks)Trustco plc (E Sussex)Ultima Business Solutions (Berks)Viadex (Surrey)Vohkus (Hampshire)Xeretec (Berks)York Telecom (Hampshire)

YORKSHIRE & THE HUMBERACS Business Supplies (W Yorkshire)Arena Group (W Yorkshire)Banner (S Yorkshire)Buy IT Direct (W Yorkshire)CCL Computers (W Yorkshire)Complete IT Systems (W Yorkshire)Deans Computer Services (W Yorkshire)DTP (W Yorkshire)eBuyer (Lincolnshire)ECSC (W Yorkshire)Egton Medical Information Systems (W Yorkshire)Esteem (W Yorkshire)

Explorer UK (W Yorkshire)Galtec (W Yorkshire)GCI (Lincolnshire)Highlander (S Yorkshire)Insight (S Yorkshire)Kcom (East Riding of Yorkshire)Millgate IT (S Yorkshire)NG Bailey IT Services (W Yorkshire)OCF (S Yorkshire)PC Specialist (W Yorkshire)Phoenix Software (N Yorkshire)Pure Technology Group (W Yorkshire)Redcentric (N Yorkshire)Saville Group (N Yorkshire)SICL (W Yorkshire)Software Box (N Yorkshire)Spectrum Computer Supplies (W Yorks)

SOUTH-WEST4Com (Dorset)Bamboo (Gloucestershire)Bechtle (Wiltshire)Bistech (Dorset)Clarity Copiers (Devon)Cloud Direct (Somerset)Codestone Group (Dorset)Commercial (Gloucestershire)Cristie Data (Gloucestershire)Excalibur (Wiltshire)Grey Matter (Devon)

Nine Telecom (Gloucestershire)Somerford Associates (Gloucestershire)South West Communications (Devon)Stormfront (Devon)Symec Technologies (Bristol)Transparity Solutions (Dorset)Vetasi (Bristol)Vysiion (Wiltshire)Western Computer (Bristol)

NORTHERN IRELANDEOS IT Solutions (County Down)Novosco (County Antrim)Pinnacle Computing (Belfast)

SCOTLANDAbsoft (Aberdeenshire)Adarma (Midlothian)Boston Networks (Lanarkshire)Capital Document Solutions (Midlothian)Capito (West Lothian)CommsWorld (Midlothian)

Concept Group (W Lothian)Dacoll (Midlothian)ECS Europe (Lanarkshire)Exception Limited (Midlothian)Incremental Group (Lanarkshire)Kick ICT Group (Lanarkshire)Microtech (E Ayrshire)Scotia (Midlothian)

NORTH-WEST4NET Technologies (Greater Manchester)Acuma Solutions (Cheshire)Adept4 (Cheshire)ANS (Manchester)Atlas Business Group of Companies (Cheshire)BT Business Direct (Lancashire)Celerity (Lancashire)Chess (Cheshire)Cloud Technology Solutions (Manchester)Daisy (Lancashire)Datel (Cheshire)Elite Telecom (Lancashire)Frontline (Cheshire)GBM (Manchester)

Green Cloud IT (Manchester)IDNS (Lancashire)Inolve Visual Communciations (Cheshire)Jade Solutions (Merseyside)K3 (Manchester)Lima Networks (Cheshire)m-hance (Greater Manchester)NCC Group (Manchester)Pennine Telecom (Lancashire)Printerland (Cheshire)Scan Computers (Lancashire)SCC MPDS (Greater Manchester)SysGroup (Merseyside)Vodat (Cheshire)Zenoffice (Greater Manchester)

WALESGaia Technologies (Gwynedd)Pinacl Solutions (Denbighshire)Comcen (Glamorgan)Pugh Computers (Cardiganshire)Circle IT (Glamorgan)SAGlobal Europe (Glamorgan)

NORTH-EASTAspire Technology (Tyne & Wear)Communicate Technology (Tees Valley)IT Professional Services (Tyne & Wear)TSG (Tyne & Wear)United Carlton (Tyne & Wear)

EAST OF ENGLAND1Spatial (Cambridgeshire)Akhter Group (Essex)Annodata (Hertfordshire)Arcus Global (Cambridgeshire)ASL (Cambridgeshire)Blue Chip Customer Engineering (Bedfordshire)Business Connexion (Hertfordshire)CAE (Hertfordshire)Computacenter (Hertfordshire)Data Intensity (Essex)EACS (Cambridgeshire)Evaris Solutions (Hertfordshire)Excell Group (Cambridgeshire)

Form IT Solutions (Bedfordshire)Getech (Suffolk)Majenta Solutions (Essex)Media Powerhouse (Hertfordshire)Modality Systems (Hertfordshire)ONI (Bedfordshire)Pentesec (Cambridgeshire)Satisnet (Bedfordshire)Snelling Business Systems (Norfolk)Storm Technologies (Hertfordshire)Switchshop (Hertfordshire)TIG (Hertfordshire)Utilize plc (Essex)Vision Group (Hertfordshire)

EAST MIDLANDSACS Systems (Northamptonshire)CCS Media (Derbyshire)Centiq (Nottinghamshire)Columbus (Nottinghamshire)Cooper Parry (Derbyshire)Datcom LLP (Lincolnshire)eBECS (Derbyshire)Jigsaw24 (Nottinghamshire)KRCS (Nottinghamshire)Node4 (Derbyshire)PCM (Northamptonshire)PCS Business Systems (Derbyshire)Proact (Chesterfield)Retail Assist (Nottinghamshire)Timico (Nottinghamshire)Total Computers (Northamptonshire)UK Computer Group (Northamptonshire)XMA (Nottinghamshire)

W MidlandsAltodigital (W Midlands)Castleton Technology (W Midlands)Edenhouse (W Midlands)IC Technology (Shropshire)Intercity (Birmingham)Meridian IT (W Midlands)Midshire (W Midlands)Nettitude (Warwickshire)Network Telecom (UK) Ltd (Shropshire)NS Optimum (Warwickshire)

OGL Computers (Worcestershire)Port-P (W Midlands)Risual (Staffordshire)Probrand (Birmingham)SCC (Birmingham)Solid Solutions (Warwickshire)Stanford Marsh (Worcestershire)Stone (Staffordshire)Telent (Warwickshire)Wavenet (W Midlands)Workspace Technology (W Midlands)WTL plc (W Midlands)

Reseller rendezvousWhere all 350 VARs have their headquarters (or UK headquarters in the case of international firms)

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92. Blue Chip Customer EngineeringRevenue: £44.5m (-6%)Net profit: 6.4% Staff: 231Having been synonymous with IBM maintenance since its inception in 1987, Bedford-based Blue Chip recently took multi-vendor maintenance in-house, extending its repertoire to include HPE, Dell EMC and Cisco. Costs associated with its investment in a software-defined datacentre caused net profits for its year to 30 September 2018 to tumble from £4m to £2.8m. Revenues slipped by six per cent to £44.5m. 91. eBECSRevenue: £44.5m (+28%)Net profit: 2.3% Staff: 358This Microsoft Dynamics specialist is now known as eBECS – a DXC Technology Company, following its acquisition by the IT services giant in April 2018. Revenues rose by over a quarter in its year to 31 March 2018. The Chesterfield-based outfit claims it has achieved “direct alignment” with Microsoft’s tech strategy after boosting the size of its ERP, CRM, data analytics and cloud services practices and launching a financial services arm. 90. CSIRevenue: £44.8m (+4%)Net profit: 4.7% Staff: 198This IBM and Microsoft Azure partner had a busy fiscal year to 31 December 2018, integrating acquisition Niu Solutions and relocating its HQ and security operations centre from London to Birmingham. With annuity revenue streams now generating more than 80 per cent of its margins, CSI said it is on course to hit £15m EBITDA within two years, up from £10m last year. Last month it acquired £31m-revenue IBM partner Tectrade.

89. ProbrandRevenue: £44.9m (+6%)Net profit: 0.1% Staff: 123

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This Birmingham-based reseller chalked up a six per cent annual revenue hike to investment in its B2B tech marketplace, claiming the number of customers who buy solely online doubled in its year to 31 December 2018. Net profits hit £28,000, compared with a £157,000 loss a year earlier. Probrand claims to have 3,500 public sector and SME clients and in June 2019 bagged a place on three Lots of the new £550m Education Technology Framework. 88. Ampito GroupRevenue: £45.1m (+11%)Net profit: 10% Staff: 29Founded in 2006, this Crawley-based IT and telecoms reseller group operates through 15 brands including networking and security integrator Vanix, networking arm Mavoda and managed SD-WAN service Red Swan. Vendor partners include Cisco, Silver Peak and Citrix. Having boomed 60 per cent in 2017, Ampito’s revenues topped £45m its fiscal year to 31 December 2018 on the back of a further 11 per cent jump. Net profits widened from £4.5m to £4.6m. 87. PrinterlandRevenue: £45.2m (+2%)Net profit: 7.8% Staff: N/ABilling itself as the UK’s largest printer and consumables reseller, Printerland saw growth slow in its fiscal year to 31 March 2019 as revenues inched up two per cent to £45.2m, according to fresh numbers it shared with us. At £3.5m, net profits were flat. In business since 1993, the Cheshire-based Xerox, Lexmark, HP and Epson partner renewed its partnership with Sale Sharks Rugby Club in May this year. 86. Node4Revenue: £45.5m (+16%)Net profit: 12.7% Staff: 232Boasting a total co-location and cloud capacity of circa 1,500 racks, this Derby-based datacentre ace last month won a contract to

replace Stagecoach’s legacy WAN infrastructure with a new SD-WAN architecture. In its year to 31 March 2019, Node4 racked up net profits of £5.8m on revenues of £45.5m. It recently made the fifth and largest acquisition in its history in the shape of virtual private cloud provider Secura.

85. DTPRevenue: £47m (+31%)Net profit: 0.9% Staff: 96One of the few resellers to dedicate itself to one vendor (or strictly speaking, two), HP and HPE partner DTP has re-entered the top 100 ranks after a year’s absence thanks to a 31 per cent revenue spike its year to 30 June 2018. The Leeds-based outfit was recently invited to become one of a select number of global partners to pilot HP Workpath, a new platform designed for running business apps directly from a customer’s multi-function printer. 84. TramsRevenue: £47.5m (+17%)Net profit: 2.2% Staff: 45London-based Trams said that its Apple cloud management services and storage solutions for video content are enjoying “significant growth”, as it unveiled a 17 per cent revenue hike for its year to 31 December 2018. The Apple, Jamf, Quantum, HP, Lenovo and Dell EMC partner said that pushing into new specialised areas such as machine learning and AI have helped it maintain margins, as net profits topped £1m, up from £695,000 a year earlier.

83. IGX Global UKRevenue: £48.6m (+90%)Net profit: 0.4% Staff: 20One of only 39 UK Cisco Gold partners, IGX Global UK focuses on cloud computing, virtualisation, managed hosting, software development, mobile, systems, IP networking and billing solutions. Revenues for its year to 31 March 2018 almost doubled as it reversed

a net loss of £242,000 the previous year to a net profit of £182,000. NASDAQ-listed parent ePlus Inc, which acquired IGX Global in 2015, has 1,500 staff and revenues of $1.37bn.

82. SCC MPDS (formerly M2 Digital)Revenue: £49m (+33%)Net profit: -0.2% Staff: 248Having gobbled up M2 Digital in 2014, fifth-ranked Top VAR SCC fully merged this managed print provider on the final day of the duo’s fiscal year 31 March 2019, rebranding it as SCC Managed Print & Document Services. M2’s fiscal 2019 results show a £119,000 net loss on revenues that rose by a third to £49m, with SCC channels accounting for 44 per cent of the total. 81. ViadexRevenue: £49.9m (+1%)Net profit: 0.9% Staff: 66Viadex said it invested £1.16m to underpin its evolution from VAR to MSP during the 12 months to 30 June 2018, a five-year journey it is now more than halfway through. Focused on geographically dispersed UK mid-market organisations, the Surbiton-based firm drew 37 per cent of its revenues from overseas last year, as its overall top line inched up one cent to £49.9m. Net profits virtually halved to £466,000. Its first ever project was for Coca-Cola in 2001. 80. European ElectroniqueRevenue: £50.8m (+1%)Net profit: 0.6% Staff: 132This HPE Aruba and Fortinet partner complained of “declining budgets and less demand for complex technology solutions” in its schools stronghold in its year to 31 March 2019. Nevertheless, revenues rose by one per cent thanks to its headway in the higher education, local government, health and SMB sectors. Having grown security revenues by almost

VAR 350 VAR 350

50 per cent in fiscal 2019, the Oxfordshire-based firm now plans to build a SOC.

79. Adept TechnologyRevenue: £51.3m (+11%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: 231This acquisitive comms provider continued its push into IT by acquiring Doncaster-based education specialist Advanced Computer Systems for up to £7.5m this April. Results for its year to 31 March 2019 show revenue vaulting 11 per cent to £51.3m, as 2018 acquisitions Shift F7 and ETS Communications fed into its top line. The AIM-listed firm now draws 75 per cent of revenues from managed services, up from 70 per cent a year earlier. 78. Axians Networks LtdRevenue: £51.4m (-14%)Net profit: 3.8% Staff: 83This Basingstoke-based Juniper Networks partner is the UK arm of Axians, the €2.3bn-revenue ICT brand of French giant Vinci Energies. A lack of fresh accounts means we’ve used old numbers covering the period to 31 December 2017, which show revenue falling 14 per cent to £51.4m. In March, Vinci Energies moved to bolster Axians UK’s offering by acquiring £7m-revenue MSP Nouveau Solutions.

77. Solid Solutions ManagementRevenue: £51.6m (+25%)Net profit: 13.1% Staff: 204With 23 regional offices in the UK and Ireland, this Leamington Spa-based outfit bills itself as CAD vendor Solidworks’ largest UK reseller. Following two big acquisitions in 2016 and 2017, Solid Solutions characterised 2018 as a year of consolidation and integration. Despite this, revenue rocketed by a quarter, with net profits swelling from £4.1m to £6.7m. During the period it invested in a newly incorporated 3D print reseller, Solid Print3D.

76 IT LabRevenue: £51.7m (+28%)Net profit: -27% Staff: 499This London-based MSP is a £75m-revenue business following its takeover this August of rival Mirus IT, CEO Peter Sweetbaum told us. Accounts for Microsoft partner IT Lab’s year to 31 March 2019 show revenue swelling by over a quarter to £51.7m but with Mirus and 2018 acquisition Content and Code folded in, the pro-forma total was £69m. Although net losses widened to £14m, adjusted pro-forma EBITDA was “circa £8.8m”, Sweetbaum told us. 75. NatilikRevenue: £52.6m (+31%)Net profit: 5% Staff: 162This Cisco Gold partner attributed a 31 per cent revenue hike in its year to 31 March 2019 to its decision to reshape its business around three-client-facing business units focusing on ‘Commercial’, ‘London Enterprise’ and ‘National Enterprise’. Some £31.8m of its £52.6m top line was from services. Counting Dyson and the London Stock Exchange among its clients, London-based Natilik has grown for 11 straight years. Net profits in its latest year pole-vaulted from £2.2m to £2.7m. 74. Proact UKRevenue: £53.1m (+6%)Net profit: 6.3% Staff: 231Despite admitting its hardware business “continues to be challenged by new consumption models”, the UK arm of this pan-European storage integrator saw revenues rise six per cent in its year to 31 December 2018. Net profits almost doubled to £3.4m. Based in Sweden, the wider Proact Group has endured a mixed 2019, selling its Spanish arm and posting profit and revenue declines. 73. ANSRevenue: £53.1m (-15%)Net profit: 13.5% Staff: 273

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Once Europe’s largest Flexpod reseller, this Manchester-based outfit has spent the last two years fleeing hardware and reinventing itself as an AWS and Azure consultancy. Top management spoke honestly at the recent CRN Channel Conference about how the move has hit its top line and cashflow, but insisted the transition will, ultimately, boost profitability. Revenues for its latest financial year on record, ending 31 March 2018, dipped 15 per cent. 72. Elite GroupRevenue: £53.3m (+33%)Net profit: 3.5% Staff: 185Elite Group has a further £20m remaining in its acquisition war chest and is “actively looking for opportunities”, CEO Matt Newing said in June as he announced its purchase of IT support outfit MWL Systems. The Chorley-based unified comms specialist, which secured £30m in fresh funding from Lloyds Bank last year, saw revenue leap by a third in its fiscal year to 31 July 2018, although net profits dipped from £2.1m to £1.9m. It has made 17 acquisitions since 2008. 71. MillgateRevenue: £53.5m (+7%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 108This Sheffield-based IT reseller recently widened its repertoire by unveiling fast-growing Avaya partner Vapour Cloud as its strategic partner for voice, video and network connectivity. Revenues hit £53.5m in its year to 31 July 2018, a seven per cent uplift. Net profits followed suit, widening from £654,000 to £777,000, with average turnover per employee – a key measure for the firm – rising from £741,000 to £850,000. 70. PC SpecialistRevenue: £55.1m (+16%)Net profit: 0.7% Staff: 94This Wakefield-based custom PC builder recently invested in a

49

235.5kWp solar panel installation to help it generate enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of 57 homes. The Intel and Microsoft partner has a section on its website dedicated to business and education clients. Revenues for its year to 31 August 2018 clocked in at £55.1m, with net profits swelling from £315,000 to £382,000. 69. AnnodataRevenue: £55.6m (-4%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 311This print, comms and IT managed services specialist blamed “competitive market conditions” for a four per cent revenue dip in its year to 31 March 2018. Acquired by Kyocera in 2016, Annodata still bills itself as an independent, with Cisco, Datto, Gamma, Ricoh and Kyocera itself among the vendor badges adorning its website. The Hemel Hemstead-based firm claims to service over 50,000 devices at over 3,000 clients.

68. StormfrontRevenue: £57.2m (-0.3%)Net profit: 0.3% Staff: 306Smaller rival Solutions Inc may have recently gone bust, but the UK’s largest Apple Premium Reseller returned to the black in its fiscal year to 30 June 2018 following some belt tightening the previous year. Exeter-based Stormfront operates 23 stores and also targets the B2B and employee benefits markets. In January 2019, seven masked raiders stole over £100,000 of Apple kit from its Exeter outlet, Devon Live reported. 67. Focus GroupRevenue: £59.1m (+9%)Net profit: 7.5% Staff: 244Starting life as a lines and minutes business in 2004, today Focus Group’s portfolio spans telecoms, IT, data and energy. A nine per cent revenue jump in its year to 30 November 2018 was driven by organic growth and the

VAR 350 VAR 350

Insolvency inspection

It is testament to the buoyancy of the channel that just two of last year’s top 300 resellers hit the wall last year amid a worsening trading backdrop.

Generally speaking, UK firms had it tougher in 2019, with business confidence hitting its lowest level for seven years in November, according to business adviser BDO. Underlying corporate insolvencies rose by 1.6 and 0.4 per cent year on year and quarter on quarter, respectively, in Q3, which insolvency trade body R3 labelled “further evidence that the economic and political turbulence of the last 12 months has taken its toll on business”.

Despite these unfavourable conditions, the UK’s top resellers made it through 2019 largely unscathed, with not one of last year’s top 100 hitting the wall.

Outside the top 100, two circa £20m-revenue players did go under, however, in the shape of Welsh education specialist Gaia and Apple Premium Reseller (APR) Solutions Inc.

Hove-based Solutions Inc was the first to call in the administrators in February. Ranked 193rd in last year’s CRN VAR 300, it operated six APR stores across the UK and also sold to education – remarking in its last set of annual accounts that school budgets were “tightening”.

According to a statement of affairs, Solutions Inc went under owing £755,000 to creditors, including £262,000 to distributor Tech Data. FRP Advisory was appointed as voluntary liquidator in June.

Due to “severe cashflow issues”, Gaia went bust in August owing a whopping £5.7m to unsecured creditors, including £2.8m to trade creditors including Tech Data, Cisco and AWS.

Ranked 181st in last year’s VAR 300, Gaia had grown revenue to £19.5m in 2018 primarily through “new [school] build contracts and their subsequent conversion to a managed service agreement”. This was, however, capital intensive for the firm, with profitability “insufficient to service its debt obligations”, administrator FRP Consulting said.

Other notable bankruptcies last year included Scottish Cisco partner Hutchinson Networks and audio visual reseller Feltech, the latter of which was bought in a pre-pack administration by 267th-ranked Media Powerhouse in the summer.

Gaia and Solutions Inc are two among a total of 24 firms featured in last year’s VAR 300 that aren’t present in this year’s VAR 350. Of the remaining 22, some have disappeared after being acquired (eg Niu Solutions, Solar), while others no longer report a revenue figure (eg Freestyle IT, Systems Technology, Ridgewall). Additionally, in a few other cases we left firms out for reasons of eligibility. This means that VAR 350 has 74 – rather than 50 – new entrants.

contribution from August 2018 acquisitions Calibre Networks and Calibre Telecoms. With support from HSBC, Focus has coughed up £12m for three further acquisitions since its year end, and in July moved into a new 25,000 sq ft HQ in Shoreham, West Sussex. 66. AcademiaRevenue: £60.1m (+26%)Net profit: 0.7% Staff: 103A lack of new accounts means we’ve had to recycle last year’s numbers for this London-based education specialist. For Academia’s year to 30 June 2018, revenues boomed by over a quarter to £60.1m as it reversed a net loss of £70,000 to a profit of £399,000. In July 2019, the Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and HP partner was one of 44 suppliers to make the cut for Crown Commercial Service’s new £550m Education Technology framework. 65. BechtleRevenue: £62.6m (+34%)Net profit: 3.8% Staff: 66The UK arm of this German reseller goliath registered an impressive uplift in both its top and bottom lines in its year to 31 December 2018, with revenues ballooning by over a third and net profits pogoing from £1.5m to £2.4m. Operating 70 ‘system houses’ in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and e-commerce subsidiaries in 14 countries, parent Bechtle AG employs nearly 10,000 staff and turned over €4.3bn last year, ranking it among Europe’s largest resellers. 64. CelerityRevenue: £63.2m (+136%)Net profit: 0.3% Staff: 43This IBM and Lenovo Platinum partner more than doubled revenue in its year to 31 December 2018 thanks to an “exceptional” datacentre project at one of its major clients that it admitted is “not seen as repeatable in future years”. The Preston-based outfit,

whose strategy revolves around supporting the move to hybrid cloud, offers three primary services lines under the Custodian, Intuition and Citadel monikers, the latter being a managed security service it launched in 2018. 63. ZonesRevenue: £63.3m (+23%)Net profit: 0.2% Staff: 63Having landed in the UK through its 2011 acquisition of AK IT Solutions, US reseller titan Zones now turns over more than £60m in the UK and Europe, UK accounts for its year to 31 December 2018 show. Zones claimed its efforts to sync its catalogue with those of several local distributors in mainland Europe will help it handle any post-Brexit chaos, adding that it is evaluating the benefits of incorporating a separate business entity within the EU.

62. EnsonoRevenue: £63.3m (+13%)Net profit: 1.9% Staff: 331Quick-fire purchases of AWS partner Attenda and Azure specialist Inframon in 2016 and 2017 have transformed this global MSP into a sizeable UK player. Revenues bounced 13 per cent to £63.3m in its year to 31 December 2018 as additional mainframe sales resulting from its March 2018 acquisition of a unit of Wipro bolstered its top line. Net profits fell sharply to £1.2m, which it blamed on its investment in sales and product development. 61. Cancom UKRevenue: £63.4m (-2%)Net profit: -0.3% Staff: N/AHaving acquired OCSL in August 2018, German reseller giant Cancom recently rebranded the West Sussex-based HPE and Microsoft partner as ‘Cancom UK’, and shifted its HQ to Shoreditch in London. Its accounts for the nine months to 31 December 2018 show revenue of £47.6m,

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compared with £65.1m for the previous year – a two per cent fall pro-rata. Boasting group revenues of €1.4bn, Cancom recently added to its UK presence by acquiring Northern Irish MSP Novosco. 60. AVMIRevenue: £64.2m (+13%)Net profit: -1.7% Staff: 410A lack of available fresh accounts mean that we have had to recycle last year’s numbers for this audiovisual integrator, which logged revenues of £64.2m in the year to 30 June 2018. The Sunbury-on-Thames-based business last year acquired £14m-revenue rival Focus 21. Installing a media wall for Conde Naste’s new international offices is among the case studies touted on its website.

59. CommercialRevenue: £65.5m (+5%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 343This Cheltenham-based office supplies specialist saw revenues jump five per cent in its year to 31 January 2019 as it celebrated winning “a number of major key accounts”. Its managed print and managed IT arms both saw revenues drop slightly, to £5.9m and £10.5m, respectively, however. Commercial employs a zero-waste policy and MD Simone Hindmarch recently said of any tech firm not innovating in sustainability that their “days are numbered”.

58. CrayonRevenue: £70m (+367%)Net profit: N/A Staff: 39Founded in 2002, this Oslo-based Microsoft, IBM, SAP and AWS partner bills itself as the global leader in SAM and cloud and volume licensing, with 1,200 staff. The countries included in its ‘Growth Markets’ division – UK, France, Germany and the Middle East – generated more than a quarter of Crayon’s NOK9bn (£770m) revenues last year. Based

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on market sources, we estimate its UK arm, which is based on the 2013 acquisition of FAST, now turns over roughly £70m.

57. Total ComputersRevenue: £70.5m (+8%)Net profit: 1.4% Staff: 123Opening a new HQ provided Total with the space to expand its managed services offering during its year to 31 December 2018, the Kettering-based reseller said in its annual accounts. One-off costs of £350,000 associated with the move saw net profits roll back from £1.4m to £1m, however, even as revenues hiked eight per cent to £70.5m. During the year, HP selected Total as one of only four partners for its device-as-a-service proposition.

56. AltodigitalRevenue: £71.2m (-0.3%)Net profit: -0.9% Staff: 449The UK’s “largest independent office and technology provider” is aiming to grow by a quarter over the next three years, a goal it claims is more achievable thanks to its acquisition of Lexmark partner Platinum this July. Revenues for its year to 30 September 2018 were flat at £71.2m, however, while net losses hit £664,000. The Ricoh, HP, Sharp, Kyocera, Lexmark and Canon partner recently moved its corporate HQ from Leighton Buzzard to Kingswinford in the West Midlands. 55. SabioRevenue: £71.8m (+45%)Net profit: 4.4% Staff: 324This London-based Avaya and Verint partner claims to support around 10 per cent of all UK-based contact centre agents and four per cent of the total European market. Backed by Horizon Capital, Sabio is on an acquisition frenzy, but claimed organic growth generated 17 per cent of its 45 per cent revenue growth for its year to 30 September 2018. Despite boasting

a presence in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Malaysia and Singapore, the UK still generates over half of its top line. 54. NSC GlobalRevenue: £71.9m (-10%)Net profit: 3.1% Staff: 206This London-based Cisco and Silver Peak partner bills itself as a provider of communication infrastructures and managed services to corporate clients, working with just 30 global organisations. Although it claims to turn over $240m globally, its UK arm saw revenues roll back 10 per cent to £71.9m in its year to 31 October 2018. Staffing up a large telco’s two European network operations centres is among the case studies displayed on its website. 53. ProAVRevenue: £72m (+19%)Net profit: -1.2% Staff: 363Egham-based ProAV has its sights set on US expansion after growing revenues by almost a fifth to £72m in its fiscal year ended 31 March 2019. The Microsoft and Polycom partner claims it marks itself out from other AV integrators through continued investment in its network operations centre. It recently won a five-year AV project with City, University of London. During the year, net losses narrowed from £1.1m to £876,000. 52. XeretecRevenue: £72.7m (+19%)Net profit: 3.8% Staff: 262This London-based managed print specialist claims to be Xerox’s largest European Premier partner and, thanks to its 2017 acquisition of Landscape Group, also holds Platinum print status with HP. Xeretec saw revenue in its year to 31 August 2018 tick up 19 per cent, while net profits fell slightly from £3.2m to £2.8m. It recently installed a Xerox High Fusion 2400 Inkjet Solution for global print

provider DG3 – the largest single inkjet sale in its history.

51. ItelligenceRevenue: £73.4m (+12%)Net profit: 8.6% Staff: 267This Germany-based SAP partner bolstered its UK presence in April 2019 by acquiring a majority stake in Bury-based CRM and e-commerce specialist Weavability. Itelligence UK’s accounts for the year to 31 December 2018 show revenue vaulting 12 per cent to £73.4m, and net profits widening from £4.2m to £6.3m. Part of NTT Data, globally Itelligence turns over €927m, employs nearly 8,000 staff and has competed more than 200 S/4HANA and C/4HANA implementations. 50. GBM DigitalRevenue: £76.9m (-58%)Net profit: 0.6% Staff: 55This Apple education specialist’s revenues have yoyoed in recent years, falling to £76.9m in its year to 31 December 2018 from a high of £250m in 2016. GBM Digital’s website features perhaps the most impressively high-spec video case studies of any firm in the top 100. Last year it launched a retail store in its home city of Manchester under the Sync banner. 49. CenterpriseRevenue: £79.6m (+9%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 186Founded by Rafi Razzak in 1983, Centerprise’s brands span an array of fields including system building, reselling, managed services and disaster recovery. Efforts to win new customers in its year to 31 August 2018 yielded a nine per cent revenue hike, but also caused net profits to more than halve to £796,000, a trend the Basingstoke-based firm predicted “will reverse as we continue to build our services revenues”.

48. Stone ComputersRevenue: £81.7m (+11%)Net profit: 1.8% Staff: 208

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This Staffordshire-based PC builder and reseller claimed that it entered 2019 “with momentum and confidence” after revenues rose 11 per cent and net profits more than doubled in calendar 2018 to £1.4m. In a move partly to support university customers with courses focused on gaming, public sector specialist Stone acquired gaming rig and custom PC supplier DinoPC this August. DinoPC founder Vladimir Kuzenetsov now heads up Stone’s gaming arm.

47. CloudreachRevenue: £81.7m (+24%)Net profit: -27.3% Staff: 469This London-based AWS, Azure and Google partner claims “unprecedented” demand for cloud adoption is fuelling “hyper-growth” in its top line. Its new holding company, Cloudreach Acquisitions, recorded revenues of £81.7m in the year to 31 July 2018, up nearly a quarter year on year. Net losses widened from £7.2m to £22.3m as soaring administrative costs – stoked by internal investment and an international acquisition drive – pummelled its bottom line.

46. K3 Business TechnologyRevenue: £83.3m (-0.2%)Net profit: -0.6% Staff: 687Following a dismal 2017, this AIM-listed Microsoft and Sage partner topped expectations for its year to 30 November 2018 as it returned to operating profitability. Revenues hit £83.3m, flat on a pro-rated comparison. Over a fifth of that total was generated by its own intellectual property, which the retail specialist sees as a “cornerstone” of its business. 2019 hasn’t been so kind, however, with a profit warning this October knocking 25 per cent off K3’s market value.

45. GCIRevenue: £86.7m (+67%)Net profit: -3.4% Staff: 398

This unified comms specialist cracked open a £60m war chest handed to it last year by private equity backer Mayfair when it acquired £13m-revenue Microsoft partner Modality Systems this June. A lack of new accounts means we’ve had to recycle old numbers covering its year to 31 December 2017, which show a £2.9m net loss on revenues of £86.7m. As well as holding eight Microsoft Gold accreditations, GCI also partners with Enghouse, Cisco and Fortinet. 44. OneComRevenue: £87.1m (+23%)Net profit: 7.9% Staff: 372This business telecoms provider is aiming to grow threefold over the next three to five years after snaring £100m in funding from LDC in June. Counting Mitel, Gamma and Vodafone among its vendor partners, the Hampshire-based firm recently announced plans to recruit 125 more staff. In its year to 31 December 2018, OneCom saw revenues bulge by over a fifth as recent acquisition Evolve bolstered the top line. Net profits followed suit, widening from £4.6m to £6.9m. 43. Kcom EnterpriseRevenue: £89.3m (+2%)Net profit: N/A Staff: 95Kcom admitted in July that trading within its Enterprise business – which supplies cloud and collaboration solutions to large enterprise and public sector organisations – remains “challenging” following a “disappointing” fiscal 2019. A Cisco Gold, Microsoft and AWS partner, its customers include O2 and National Rail. At a group level, London-listed Kcom posted total revenue of £281.6m during the year. 42. RedcentricRevenue: £93.3m (-7%)Net profit: -2.1% Staff: 479AIM-listed Redcentric is

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“progressing through historical issues the business has faced”, new CEO Pete Brotherton said as it announced a third consecutive annual sales dip and £2m net loss for its fiscal year ended 31 March 2019. Striving to be the “managed solutions partner of choice for the UK mid-market”, it operates five datacentres with an estate of over 1,200 racks, as well as its own fibre metropolitan area network.

41. Egton Medical Information SystemsRevenue: £102.9m (+2%)Net profit: 18.6% Staff: 990Trading as EMIS Health, this Toshiba Platinum partner claims to supply software and services to over 5,000 healthcare organisations. Part of £170m-revenue EMIS Group, the Leeds-based firm posted net profits of £19.2m on revenues that rose two per cent to £102.9m in its year to 31 December 2018. At the end of this October it was awarded a place on the £450m NHS GP IT Futures framework to supply IT systems and services to the GP market. 40. CAERevenue: £103.9m (+9%)Net profit: 1.9% Staff: 242This Cisco Gold partner performed an MBO last November after shattering the £100m revenue barrier in its year to 30 June 2018. Net profits fell slightly – from £2.1m to £1.9m – as its investment in two new offices in Daresbury and Scotland, as well as new service desk and HR systems, pushed up administrative costs. Average staff numbers rose by a fifth to 242 year on year. 39. VohkusRevenue: £105.2m (+25%)Pre-tax profit: 0.8% Staff: 142This Southampton-based reseller’s revenues leapt by a quarter in its year to 31 May 2019, a surge it attributes partly to its shift to a more outcome-based

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sales approach. Pre-tax profits (after share-based payments), hit £800,000, according to fresh numbers the HP and Vodafone partner shared with us. Last year, Vohkus opened two subsidiaries in Romania and Singapore. 38. Six DegreesRevenue: £105.8m (+6%)Net profit: -50.2% Staff: 465This M&A-hungry mid-market MSP stressed in its 2019 accounts that it will continue to seek “strategically advantageous acquisitions”. Its latest deal was in August 2018 in the shape of cybersecurity specialist CNS Group. The Charlesbank-backed firm, whose vendor partners include Avaya, VMware and Microsoft, saw net losses more than double to £53.2m on revenues of £105.8m in its year to 31 March 2019. Its favoured profit measure of EBITDA hiked nine per cent to £25m.

37. LogicalisRevenue: £107.9m (-7%)Net profit: -2.1% Staff: 387After admitting its UK business is “not as agile as it should be”, this global Cisco Gold partner appointed Alex Louth as its new UK MD in May to oversee a local restructuring drive. Logicalis UK stumbled to a third consecutive annual net loss in its year to 28 February 2018, with revenues dipping a further seven per cent to £107.9m – down from a high of £204m in 2014. Part of South African group Datatec, Logicalis turned over $1.7bn globally in its fiscal 2019. 36. Storm TechnologiesRevenue: £108.6m (+17%)Net profit: 2.5% Staff: 151This Watford-based reseller branded its 12 months ending 31 December 2018 a “very successful year”, as revenues hiked 17 per cent and net profits beefed up from £2m to £2.7m. Billing itself as “one of the UK’s fastest-growing

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Profit analysis: 1-100Despite outgrowing their smaller brethren in their latest financial years, the 100 largest firms in this report command lower margins than those ranked from 101 to 200 or 201 to 350.

Looking at the 93 top-100 firms qualifying for the profit analysis*, median net profit margins grew from 1.70 to 1.86 per cent year on year but compare unfavourably to the 2.25 and 3.39 per cent averages recorded by those ranked 101 to 200 and 201 to 350, respectively. Some 75 of the 93 made a net profit, with 18 falling into the red (compared with a 73:20 ratio the previous year).

Standout performers include healthcare specialist Egton, Microsoft consultancy Avanade and Solid Solutions, the largest UK partner of CAD vendor SolidWorks.

Boasting revenues of between £42m and £1.6bn, the top 100 saw collective revenues spike by 13.2 per cent to £17.39bn in their latest financial years, with 80 growing and just 20 shrinking. This makes them the fastest-growing of the three size groupings, and means they contributed a whopping 80 per cent of the top 350’s total £21.8bn top line.*The seven firms excluded were BT, WWT, Kcom Enterprise, Capita, SHI, Vohkus and Crayon

CompanyNet profit margin

Egton Medical Information Systems 18.6%Capita Workspace Technology 17.4%Avanade 16.1%ANS 13.4%Solid Solutions Management 13.1%Node4 12.7%NCC Group 10.2%Ampito Group 10.0%CACI 8.9%Itelligence 8.6%

Most profitable resellers

1-100: Total revenue

0

5

10

15

2020

15

10

5

0Most recent year Previous year

£15.37bn£17.39bn

£bn

VARs”, Storm holds accreditations with over 40 vendors, including Platinum status with Dell EMC and Lenovo. It is currently in the midst of a redevelopment project to expand its offices and warehouse capacity. 35. Ultima Business SolutionsRevenue: £110m (+13%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 391Ultima took on the first outside investment in its near 30-year history this August, selling a majority stake to Apse Capital in a move CEO Scott Dodds told CRN will spark internal investment and potential acquisitions. The Reading-based Microsoft, Citrix, Dell EMC, HPE, VMware and Thoughtonomy partner saw net profit rise from £1.1m to £1.6m in its year to 31 March 2018, with revenues topping £100m for the first time. 34. CACI LimitedRevenue: £110.7m (+11%)Net profit: 8.9% Staff: 785Part of $5bn-revenue US tech monster CACI International, CACI Limited bills itself as a marketing, technology and data specialist and claims it was BI vendor Qlik’s largest UK partner in 2017. An 11 per cent revenue hike in its year to 30 June 2018 was driven primarily by three recent UK acquisitions, Kognitio, Mapmechanics and Spargonet Cosulting, the latter of which specialises in app development, mobile technology and BI. 33. ChessRevenue: £111.5m (+1%)Net profit: 3.1% Staff: 562Chess ploughed on with its transformation from a legacy telecoms business to a “high-tech” unified communications provider in its year to 30 April 2018, the Alderley Edge-based firm claimed as it reported a one per cent annual revenue hike. CEO and majority owner David Pollock

appointed Rothschild to oversee a competitive auction process for the highly acquisitive firm earlier this year, according to a report in The Telegraph in June. 32. Compu bRevenue: £111.7m (-29%)Net profit: 1% Staff: 148This Apple Premium Reseller grumbled that the retail environment “remains challenging” as it unveiled revenues of £139.7m for the 15 months to 31 March 2019, a 29 per cent plunge pro-rata. Operating six stores in Ireland and one in Selfridges on Oxford Street, the Limerick-based outfit also targets businesses with its IoS and Mac OS device management offerings. The UK generates just over two thirds of revenues, with Ireland supplying the balance. 31. ClaranetRevenue: £113.8m (+12%)Net profit: 8.2% Staff: 499Organic growth and the contribution of recent acquisitions, including Union Solutions, helped this pan-European MSP’s UK arm chalk up a £9.3m net profit on revenues that pogoed 12 per cent in its year to 30 June 2018. Client renewals or extensions during the year included William Hill and River Island. Globally, London-based Claranet employs 1,800 staff, operates 43 datacentres and has a revenue run rate of £375m. Vendor partners include AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft and HPE. 30. Jigsaw24Revenue: £119.3m (-5%)Net profit: 2.6% Staff: 229This Nottingham-based Apple partner said the growth and “all-round development” of its business in its fiscal 2018 ending 31 May made it an “excellent year”. Revenue would have grown but for a one-off, low-margin deal the previous year, while net profits leapt from £2.3m to

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£2.7m. Targeting the corporate, education and creative markets, Jigsaw24 was taken over by its founder Roger Whittle in March 2018 in an Alcuin Capital-backed management buyout. 29. Scan ComputersRevenue: £131m (+16%)Net profit: 2.2% Staff: 228This custom PC builder and components specialist attributed robust top and bottom-line growth in its year to 30 June 2018 to demand for crypto-currencies, as well as the growth of several high-profile business accounts. Founded in 1987, Bolton-based Scan targets both consumers and businesses through its website and call centre. This August it launched a new scheme pledging to replace faulty hardware within 48 hours.

28. MaintelRevenue: £136.5m (+8%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 605Former Avaya UK boss Ioan McRae heaped praise on Maintel’s ICON cloud and managed services suite as he was announced as outgoing CEO Eddie Buxton’s replacement this October. Maintel saw a “significant increase in all its key financial metrics” in its year to 31 December 2018, as revenue rose eight per cent and net profits widened from £1.5m to £2m. Cloud-related revenues generated £20.7m of its £136.5m top line, with managed services chipping in £44m. 27. SBLRevenue: £139.3m (-10%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 132SBL is now a £220m-revenue business thanks to a recent gargantuan MoD win, new chief executive Phil Doye told CRN after buying the York-based Microsoft partner in August. Its most recently filed accounts show revenue dipping 10 per cent to £139.3m with net profits roughly flat at £2.1m. In an interview with CRN, Doye admitted that SBL was

“crying out for some investment and leadership”.

26. Bell IntegrationRevenue: £144.1m (+11%)Net profit: -1.8% Staff: 317This IBM and Oracle partner’s revenues beefed up 11 per cent to £144.1m in its year to 31 March 2018, results for which captured a first full year of trading from recent acquisitions Portal and Hamilton Rentals. Net losses hit £2.5m, however, nearly half of which was attributable to unfavourable movements in sterling. Bell recently opened a new office in Singapore, adding to its Portsmouth HQ and additional locations in London, Wokingham, Stevenage and Hyderabad. 25. Phoenix SoftwareRevenue: £152.4m (+17%)Net profit: 2.7% Staff: 182This York-based public sector licensing specialist said it made investments in specialist staff to bolster its ability to deliver and win cloud-based opportunities in its year to 28 February 2019. Revenues hit £152.4m, compared with £160m for the previous 15-month period – an 11 per cent jump on a pro-rated basis. Phoenix sold up to rival Bytes Technology Group last year, but will continue to operate separately according to group CEO Neil Murphy.

24. SoftwareONERevenue: £174.8m (+27%)Net profit: 2% Staff: 136This software licensing behemoth became Europe’s second-most valuable reseller behind only Bechtle this August upon its £2.2bn debut on the Swiss stock exchange. The Microsoft and Adobe partner’s UK arm saw revenues rocket 27 per cent to £174.8m in its year to 31 December 2018, which it attributed partly to having a “stronger and more senior salesforce”, while net profits bulked up from £2.3m to £3.4m. Recent

acquisition Comparex outgrew it in the UK last year, however.

23. AvanadeRevenue: £179.1m (+23%)Net profit: 16% Staff: 464With Microsoft still on fire under Satya Nadella, it’s no surprise that this dedicated Microsoft enterprise technology partner’s UK arm enjoyed a blazing year to 31 August 2018. Its revenues rocketed by nearly a quarter, while net profits virtually doubled to £28.8m. An 80-20 joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft which turns over $2.5bn globally, Seattle-based Avanade appointed a new CEO in June in the form of Pamela Maynard. 22. Buy IT DirectRevenue: £188.2m (+28%)Net profit: 0.9% Staff: 396Posting revenues of £188.2m in its year to 31 March 2018, this e-tailer houses six brands including Servers Direct, Drones Direct and Laptops Direct, the latter of which claims to be the UK’s largest online laptop specialist. The Huddersfield-based e-tailer had had a busy 2019, purchasing Better Bathrooms from administration and acquiring more warehouse space at its HQ. 21. Banner GroupRevenue: £191.9m (+25%)Net profit: 0.2% Staff: 556The technology arm of this business supplies hulk boasts Platinum and Gold partnerships with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, Acer and Xerox. Artificially boosted by a group restructure, Banner saw revenues balloon 25 per cent in its year to 31 December 2018. The Sheffield-based firm made three trade and asset acquisitions during the period, including that of £11m-revenue consumables specialist Spectrum. 20. ComparexRevenue: £192.7m (+34%)Net profit: 0.7% Staff: 56

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Comparex’s acquisition by arch rival SofwareONE has not affected staff morale at its offices in Harrow and York, its UK directors claimed as they unveiled a 34 per cent revenue hike for the year to 31 March 2019. Globally, Germany-based Comparex turned over €2.1bn last year, employing 2,450 staff. Having acquired Comparex in October 2018, SoftwareONE commenced integration of the two businesses in the UK on 1 April 2019.

19. eBuyerRevenue: £212.2m (+5%)Net profit: 0.5% Staff: 233This East Yorkshire-based e-tailer defied “competitive pressures” to record a five per cent revenue rise in its year to 31 December 2018, with net profits holding steady at just below £1m. It claims the accuracy with which its system picks and ships the correct order remains above 99.9 per cent. The business section of its website is currently pushing HPE ProLiant servers, as well as HP large-format printers and Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium.

18. RMRevenue: £221m (+19%)Net profit: 7.7% Staff: 1,882Despite its roots as a schools PC supplier, RM drew less than a third of revenues from its technology division in its year to 30 November 2018. Supplying over 8,000 schools and employing 800 staff, ‘RM Education’ saw revenues slide four per cent to £67.6m due primarily to the planned contract completion of several long-term contracts. The wider group’s 19 per cent revenue uplift was thanks primarily to its recent purchase of Australian assessment software provider SoNET.

17. CCS MediaRevenue: £228.7m (+27%)Net profit: 2.1% Staff: 479This Chesterfield-based reseller smashed through the £200m

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revenue barrier in its year to 31 December 2018 as net profits widened from £4.6m to £4.7m. Although its server, storage and network unit clocked up 80 per cent growth, workplace remained its largest product group on the back of a 40 per cent uplift. During the year the firm, which has 16 UK offices, opened its third apprentice academy in Romford, Essex.

16. ApogeeRevenue: £239m (+28%)Net profit: -7.8% Staff: 1,097Having switched its year end in order to align with that of its new parent HP Inc, this Maidstone-based managed print hulk posted revenues of £199.2m in the 10 months ending 31 October 2018, compared with £250m for the previous 16-month period. Net losses hit £18.7m. Tuan Tran, who leads the HP business unit that is managing Apogee, told CRN in March that the company’s plan is to keep Apogee at “arm’s length” while it ploughs on with acquisitive growth.

15. NCC GroupRevenue: £250.7m (+8%)Net profit: 10.2% Staff: 1,723This London-listed cybersecurity provider almost quadrupled net profits to £25.5m on revenues that rose seven per cent to £250.7m in its year to 31 May 2019. UK assurance revenue declined 1.1 per cent to £88.9m, which NCC attributed to a managed decline in low-margin reselling and high staff turnover. In 2015, staff appeared as cyber experts on TV show Hunted.

14. Dimension DataRevenue: £272.3m (+6%)Net profit: 1.2% Staff: 598This global Cisco Gold partner was rolled into an $11bn-revenue business known as NTT Ltd on 1 July 2019. Having acquired Dimension Data in 2010, Japanese parent NTT has now united the networking specialist with NTT

Security, NTT Communications and 25 of its other businesses. The new firm is based in London. Dimension Data’s UK business posted revenues of £408.4m in its most recent accounts covering an elongated 18-month period, equating to a six per cent rise pro rata.

13. SHI InternationalRevenue: £320m (+12%)Net profit: N/A Staff: 160One of a trio of three-lettered US reseller giants featured in this report, New Jersey-based Microsoft, Dell, HP and Cisco partner SHI continues to grow at a rate of knots, with global revenue breaking the $10bn mark in its fiscal 2018.

Based on market sources, we estimate its UK business, which acts as a hub for Europe , now turns over £320m – a 12 per cent rise year on year. Based in Milton Keynes and employing 160 staff, SHI UK is currently investing in scaling its integration capabilities.

12. Bytes Software ServicesRevenue: £345.9m (+33%)Net profit: 2.9% Staff: 286Thanks partly to a bumper £150m Microsoft Windows NHS win, this Leatherhead-based software licensing specialist saw revenue power up by a third to £345.9m in its year to 28 February 2019. Net profits bulged from £6.3m to £10m. Bolstered by its recent acquisition of Phoenix Software, Bytes Technology Group – owned by Johannesburg-listed IT group Altron – is now a £535m-revenue monster.

11. Capita IT & NetworksRevenue: £404m (-3%)Net profit: N/A Staff: 3,400Capita admitted that 2018 was a year of “fixing the basics” across the division that houses its reseller activities.

‘Capita IT & Networks’ saw revenue fall three per cent to £404m in the year to 31 December

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2018, which the LSE-listed outsourcing giant blamed on a combination of contract losses and lower volumes of managed IT and enterprise services.

Adjusted operating profits for the division, which employs 3,400 staff in the UK, India and Poland, fell sharply, from £62m to £45.3m. Under its ‘One ITS’ programme, Capita said it is aiming to trim costs in this part of its business by introducing shared services centres and increased use of outsourcing. 10. XMARevenue: £414.4m (+5%)Net profit: 1.5% Staff: 482This Nottingham-based, public sector-focused reseller opened a new office in Surrey to house its expanding corporate sales team during its year to 31 December 2018. A five per cent annual revenue jump was more than matched at the bottom line, as net profits plumped up from £4.9m to £6.3m. Part of the £2.5bn Westcoast Group, XMA claims that it is the only UK reseller to reach HP triple Platinum status. It shipped 650,000 orders last year.

9. Telent Technology ServicesRevenue: £542m (+38%)Net profit: 3.6% Staff: 1,865This technology and network services giant bagged a monster £100m deal in March to provide the IT and comms infrastructure to Hinkley Point C, the first nuclear power plant to be built in the UK in 25 years.

Warwick-based Telent’s total revenue rocketed 38 per cent to £542m in its year to 31 March 2019 as its move to assume full control of a joint venture with fallen outsourcer Carillion bolstered its top line. Its Network Services arm reported rising demand for on-premise and cloud-based networking, compute and storage projects.

VAR 350 VAR 350

You’re the UK boss of the largest player in our industry, looking after more than 4,000 staff. Looking at how you spend the bulk of your time, is there anything that might surprise people?The thing I love most is spending time with our own people and our customers.

Having a relatively small number of large customers – we have around 100 in the UK – helps us really understand the market and enables us to be flexible and agile and move with our customers and co-create – so that’s probably where I get most of my energy from.

I include vendor partners in that, but I enjoy working with customers with vendor partners, rather than just having vendors in the room. Co-creating with customers can be the most exciting place to be and we do a lot of that.

I listen to other people you report on and maybe they talk about future technologies three or four years out, and what’s going to come down the line. I’m not qualified to do that. We’re very customer-led. We understand the market we operate in and we try to understand what’s coming next, but we can’t go two, three, four years out.

Computacenter, Softcat, CDW, Insight and SCC grew UK product revenues by over £800m in their latest year. What’s driving this rebound in product sales, and is it sustainable?Customers are not only looking to deal with the challenge of Windows 7 end of life, they’re also looking at it as an opportunity to drive a new digital workplace with the right collaboration techniques, the right ways to enable their business further and get more from the data and the information they have within the boundaries of their building.

Coming to buildings, we’re seeing building rationalisation, which is another driver for that modern workplace: it gives them an opportunity to step back, and in doing that we’ve seen more diverse ecosystems, with significant growth in non-Windows platforms, especially around Apple.

I don’t know whether that will continue. But it feels like a good time to be running the largest UK reseller.

How is Computacenter’s competitive landscape changing, and is the threat from direct-selling vendors growing or shrinking?We’ve seen the deal size reduce through more disaggregation of service contracts. And while we’ve had, I think, our strongest year for some time in renewals – with renewal rates over 99 per cent – I think we’ve seen more tier-one service integrators come into our space, because deal sizes have become a little bit smaller.

Vendors are sometimes competitors, and sometimes good, strong partners.

I looked at your statistics in Top VARs and you said 12 or 13 per cent growth across the channel. I don’t think that vendors have been seeing that type of growth. And I think that’s because we’ve been seeing a bit more direct to indirect. We have lots of vendors wanting to deal directly with those large enterprise customers, but we’re starting to make a difference there and there are some vendors who recognise the value we bring in those large enterprise relationships.

Q&A: Neil Hall, Computacenter

Top-ranked Computacenter’s UK MD reflects on an eventful 2019

8. Insight DirectRevenue: £558.3m (+11%)Net profit: 2.1% Staff: 798Double-digit growth in hardware, software and services sales fuelled a 17 per cent revenue hike at the UK arm of this global reseller in its year to 31 December 2018. Net profits swelled from £8.1m to £11.4m as gross profits grew at a faster rate than administrative expenses. Since year end, Insight Direct’s NASDAQ-listed parent has acquired arch rival PCM in a blockbuster $580m deal. Having only opened shop in 2017, PCM’s UK business turned over £35.6m last year, employing 120 staff, compared with Insight Direct’s 800. Globally, Insight turned over $6.7bn last year. 7. WWTRevenue: £560m (+10%)Net profit: N/A Staff: N/AWith 5,000 staff and revenues topping $11bn, WWT is the world’s second-largest tech solutions provider behind CDW. A lack of local accounts means we’re in the dark as to the size of its Canary Wharf-headquartered UK business, but based on market sources and WWT’s overall growth rate we would estimate a £560m run rate.

Globally, WWT has eight ‘strategic’ vendor partners in the form of Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE, NetApp, VMware, F5 Networks, Intel and Microsoft. 6. DaisyRevenue: £675.7m (-1%)Net profit: -21.1% Staff: 3,744With founder Matthew Riley back pulling the strings, this telecoms, IT and cloud juggernaut has ditched its previous ‘One Daisy’ mantra and instead moved to hand its constituent divisions more operational independence.

Accounts for the year to 31 March 2019 show flat revenue of £676m as the Lancashire-based firm hit pause on its M&A blitz.

Daisy’s mid-market-focused

Corporate Services unit, based partly on its 2017 Alternative Networks purchase, saw revenue drop from £277m to £252m. Its other direct-selling division, ‘SMB’, contributed £136m to the top line, with its indirect Allvotec and Digital Wholesale Solutions arms generating £94m and £188m, respectively.

Daisy’s preferred profit measure of EBITA was also flat, at £127.1m, although net losses widened from £97.3m to £142.8m as it ate an £88m amortisation charge and finance costs of £141m. Daisy secured £1bn in fresh financing from US investment firm Ares on 31 January 2019. 5. SCCRevenue: £680.5m (+15%)Net profit: 2% Staff: 1,646Anyone hunting for proof that product reselling is enjoying a renaissance need look no further than the latest UK accounts of this Birmingham-based reseller and services juggernaut.

In contrast to previous years, product sales took centre stage in SCC’s year to 31 March 2019, bulging by a fifth to contribute £495m to the total £680.5m UK top line. UK services revenues inched up just one per cent to £186m.

Having gobbled up audiovisual specialist AVS and managed print player Hobs Onsite last year, the HP and HPE Platinum partner will continue to seek “targeted acquisition opportunities,” CEO James Rigby promised.

Adding in contributions from France and Spain, SCC’s group turnover rose 18 per cent to a new high of £2.2bn, with group operating profits increasing 1.7 per cent to a record £28.2m. The wider Rigby Group turns over £2.77bn. 4. CDWRevenue: £881.1m (+22%)Net profit: 5.5% Staff: 1,250The world’s largest reseller will follow up its 2015 purchase of

58 59

UK outfit Kelway by acquiring a top 10 European reseller, Canalys boss Steve Brazier predicted at October’s Canalys EMEA Channels Forum.

CDW’s UK arm continues to close in on £1bn revenues, with market share gains and a focus on client device refresh helping to propel revenues 22 per cent to £881.1m in its year to 31 December 2018. With global revenues of over $16bn and nearly 10,000 staff , Illinois-based CDW’s market value recently topped $19bn, putting it on a par with that of key vendor partner HPE.

In a recent update, CDW CEO Christine Leahy said the UK recorded mid-single-digit growth in constant currency in its Q3 ended 30 September 2019, adding that its recently established presence in the Netherlands could serve as a “Brexit contingency plan”. 3. BTRevenue: £1.1bn (+10%)Net profit: N/A Staff: N/ABT’s reseller brands, including

BT Business Direct and Engage IT, turned over more than £500m before the telco stopped reporting their individual numbers and rolled them into its wider group.

It’s now an impossible task to quantify the size of BT’s activities, so we have simply added on 10 per cent to last year’s fi nger-in-the-air estimate of £1bn.

Th e wider BT Group saw revenue fall one per cent to £23.4bn in its fi scal 2019.

2. SoftcatGross invoiced income: £1.41bn (+31%)Net profit: 4.8% Staff: 1,330With its purple patch showing no signs of abating, Softcat’s market cap recently breached the £2bn mark – making it nearly as valuable as some of the vendors it carries, including Mimecast and Sophos.

Th e FTSE 250 fi rm’s ultimate top line – which it now terms ‘gross invoiced income’ (GII) rather than revenue – boomed 31 per cent to £1.41bn in its year to 31 July 2019, topping the 30

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Year endsWe have provided run-rate revenue estimates for four big outfits that do not split out a number for their UK reseller arms, namely BT, WWT, SHI and Crayon. All other revenue numbers are based on the latest set of UK annual accounts we could locate for each company (as of November 2019 for the top 100 and December 2019 for those ranked 101 to 300), the year ends for which are displayed below. In instances where these covered a truncated or extended annual period, we have annualised the figures.

28 Feb

31 Mar

30 Apr

31 May

30 Jun

31 Jul

31 Aug

30 Sep

31 Oct

30 Nov

31 Dec

31 Jan

28 Feb

31 Mar

30 Apr

31 May

30 Jun

31 Jul

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rate

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timat

e

2018 2019

30 Nov

31 Dec

31 Jan

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120

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0 31 Aug

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per cent growth it logged in its fi scal 2018.

Growth was “broad based”, CEO Graeme Watt stressed, with software GII ballooning 40 per cent to £788.9m, hardware up 23.5 per cent to £453m and services expanding 14 per cent to £172.2m. All eight of its regional offi ces operating throughout the period showed “positive progression”.

Softcat’s ‘revenues’ – which no longer encompass revenue streams it has been forced under new accounting rules to “net down” – fell tantalising short of the £1bn marker, hitting £991.8m. Net profi ts, meanwhile, leapt from £55m to £68.5m.

In a recent interview with CRN, Watt said his job is to build on Softcat’s heritage of growing domestically while developing its “multinational/international” strategy.

“At some point in the future, it will become tougher to grow market share, and we have other options in the locker. Good companies do things in parallel,” he added.

Speaking at CRN’s recent European Channel Leadership Forum (ECLF), Computacenter CEO Mike Norris asserted that the channel is in the middle of a “super cycle” of growth from which all resellers should be benefiting.Computacenter itself is certainly grabbing its share of the spoils, with a 10 per cent annual spike in its UK top line enough to ensure it retains its status as this country’s largest reseller by a £200m margin.

Th e LSE-listed giant posted domestic revenues of £1.62bn in its year to 31 December 2018, with good old-fashioned product resale – or ‘Technology Sourcing’ as Computacenter refers to it – generating all the growth). Net profi ts followed suit, bulging from £41.2m to £45.1m.

Driven partly by an international M&A push, group revenues soared by 15 per cent to £4.35bn, with Computacenter’s

German, French and international arms contributing a respective €2.12bn, €557m and £381m to the total.

2019 has brought more mixed fortunes for Computacenter’s UK business, with sales here down eight per cent to £794m in its fi scal fi rst half, despite group revenues hiking by 21 per cent to £2.43bn.

However, Norris (pictured), who became the longest-standing CEO of a FTSE 350 fi rm

last year upon the abrupt departure of WPP’s Martin Sorrell, gave a glowing assessment of the health of the industry

at ECLF.“If you put £1,000 into a reseller,

you’d have done a lot better than if you had invested it in Atos, Capgemini and the service companies. Five years ago no-one would have told you to invest it in resellers, not even me,” he said.

“So if you haven’t done well over the last fi ve years then you need to look

at yourself, because you should have done well. Th e channel is in a fantastic position.”

UK revenue (£bn): last five years

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

Managed services £341.3mvs £343m

(-0.5%)

Technology sourcing£1.16bnvs £987.3m

(+17.2%)

Professional services £118.5mvs £142.9m

(-17.1%)

Revenue breakdown

1. ComputacenterRevenue: £1.62bn (+10%)Net profit: 2.8% Staff: 4,126

£bn

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

02018 2017 2016 2015 2014

1.62

1.471.35 1.38 1.35

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CSI £44.8mCSPI £6.8mD4t4 Solutions £25.2mDacoll Group £25.1mDaisy £675.7mData Intensity £33.7mDatcom LLP £1.9mDatel £26.7mDeans Computer Services £3.3mDimension Data £272.3mDiversified Ltd £16.4mDMC Canotech £38.7mDMW Group £19mDTP £47mEACS £20meBECS £44.5meBuyer £212.2mECS Europe £38.4mECSC £5.4mEdenhouse Solutions £38.2mEgton Medical Information Systems £102.9m Electrosonic £33.3mElite Group £53.3mEnsono £63.3mEOS IT Solutions £30.8mEscape Technology £12.2mEsteem Systems £35.3mEthos Group £25.2mEuropean Electronique £50.8mEuropean Office Products £2.8mEurotech Computer Services £3.8mEvaris Solutions £4.6mExcalibur Communications Group £9.2mExcel Group £37.2mExcelRedstone £28.4mException Ltd £19.5mExcitech £37.1mExplorer UK £10.1mFitzrovia IT £5.8mFluent2 £1.7mFocus Group £59.1m

Fordway Solutions £9.7mForm IT Solutions £16.1mFrontline Consultancy £10.5mG3 Comms £21.2mGaltec £16.2mGBM Digital £76.9mGCI £86.7mGetech £34.6mGraitec £26.9mGreen Cloud IT £3.3mGrey Matter £41.6mGV Multimedia £29.2mHardware £32mHighlander Business Solutions £20mHighPoint £26.3mHighSpeed Office £11mIC Technology £2.1mIDE Group £41.1mIDN Supplies £23.4mIGX Global UK £48.6mIncremental Group £9.9m Inoapps £29.3mInsight Direct £558.3mInsight Systems £7.9mIntercity Technology £33.2mInvenio Business Solutions £25.5mInvolve Visual Collaboration £10.7mIP Integration £20.4mIT Lab £51.7mIT Professional Services (ITPS) £19.2mITC Secure £24.1mItelligence £73.4mITM Communications £14.4mJade Solutions £11.3mJarvis Tech £23.9mJigsaw24 £119.3mJT Global £11mK3 Business Technology £83.3mKcom Enterprise £89.3mKhipu Networks £16.9mKick ICT Group £7.1m

Kinly £20.8mKRCS £4.2mKrome Technologies £15.4mLA Micro Group £29.8mLima Networks £12.7mLogicalis £107.9mLombard Technology Services £32.9mLynx Networks £4.5mm-hance £12.8mMaintel £136.5mMajenta Solutions £14.1mMan and Machine £12.7mMBA IT £11mMCSA Group £39.4mMedia Powerhouse £11.4mMeridian IT £20.9mMicrolink PC £10.6mMicrotech Group £5.8mMidshire Business Systems £19.6mMillgate £53.5mMinttulip £2.6mMirus IT £9mMöbius Business Technologies £6.5mModality Systems £12.5mMTI £44mNatilik £52.6mNavisite Europe £25.8mNCC Group £250.7mNettitude £15mNetwork Telecom £11.7mNew Signature UK £10.8mNG Bailey IT Services £33.9mNode4 £45.5mNolan Business Solutions £4.1mNorthdoor £24.4mNovatech £32.1mNovosco £37.6mNS Optimum £6.7mNSC Global £71.9mNTT Security £38.5mOcean Intelligent Communications £13.9m

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1Spatial £17.6m365 ITMS £12.4m4NET Technologies £19.4m9 Group £33.8mAbsoft £4.8mAcademia £60.1mAcora £15.9mACS Business Supplies £23.1mACS Systems £20.6mAcuma Solutions £11.1mAdarma £32.6mAdept Technology £51.3mAdvanced 365 £33.9mAkhter Group £8.3mAlbion Computers £26.5mAltodigital £71.2mAmicus ITS £8.7mAmpito Group £45.1mAnchor Computer Systems £5.1mAnnodata £55.6mANS £53.1mApogee £239mArcus Global £13mArena Group £23.6mArrow Business Communications £37.9mASL £21.4mAspire Technology £20.2mAtlas Business Group of Companies £1.1mAutodata Products £9.9mAvanade £179.1mAVEX International Ltd £714,000AVI-SPL £39.2mAVMI £64.2mAxial Systems £20.5mAxians Networks Ltd £51.4mBabble Cloud £7.8mBamboo Technology £10.9m

Banner Group £191.9mBechtle £62.6mBell Integration £144.1mBistech Group £16.5mBlock Solutions £41.5mBlue Chip Customer Engineering £44.5mBlue Cube Security £13mBluesource Information £22.2mBoston Networks £7.8mBritannic Technologies £13.9mBSI Cybersecurity and Information Resilience Ltd £5.5mBT £1.1bnBusiness Connexion £1.5mBuy IT Direct £188.2mBytes Security Partnerships £37.5mBytes Software Services £345.9mCACI Limited £110.7mCadline £29mCAE £103.9mCancom UK £63.4mCapita IT & Networks £404mCapita Workplace Technology £42.6mCapital Document Solutions £22.7mCapito £4.8mCaretower £24.8mCastleton Technology £26.4mCCE £21.9mCCL Computers £33.5mCCS Media £228.7mCDW £881.1m Celerity £63.2mCenterprise £79.6mCentiq £5.4mCertus Solutions £10.3m

Charterhouse Voice & Data £22.7mChess £111.5mChristie Data £7.5mCinos Ltd £8.8mCircle IT £14.9mCircular Computing £16.8mCisilion £37.1mClaranet £113.8mClarity Copiers £19.5mCloud Direct £13.7mCloud Technology Solutions £26.1mCloudCoCo Group £10.2mCloudreach £81.7mCodestone £12.7mColumbus Global UK £22.9mComcen Computer Supplies £15.1mCommercial £65.5mCommsworld £21.6mCommunicate Technology plc £3.5mComparex £192.7mComplete I.T. £17.5m Complete IT Systems £18.1mCompu b £111.7mComputacenter £1.62bnComtec Enterprises £4.3mConcept Group £21.3mConnect Managed Services £29.9mConnecting London £2.1mContent and Code £11.9mCooper Parry IT Solutions £29.6mCorona Corporate Services £22.5mCovenco £14.4mCrayon £70m

A to Z of VARs

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OCF £16.6mOGL Computer Services £21.6mOlive Communications £28.9mOneCom £87.1mONI £18.5mOpen Systems Technology £8.7mOptimity £6mPacific Computers £9.5mPapergraphics £28.4mPark Place Technologies £15.4mPC Specialist £55.1mPCM £35.6mPCS Business Systems £25.1mPeach Technologies £7.8mPennine Telecom (now Avoira) £9.5mPentesec £9.7mPerfect Colours £17.2mPhoenix Datacom £20.8mPhoenix Software £152.4mPinacl Solutions £21.5mPinnacle £3.7mPinnacle Computing (Support) £14.9mPlan-Net £10.6mPort-P £12.1mPrincipal £15mPrinterland £45.2mProact UK £53.1mProAV £72mProbrand £44.9mProdec Networks £12.5mProlinx £12.5mPTS Consulting £42.5mPugh Computers £12.6mPure Technology Group £27.8mPythagoras Communications £9.1mQ Associates £30.2mQUANTIQ £20mRail Asset Management Solutions £8mRecarta IT £10.4mRedcentric £93.3m

Reflex £14.1mRetail Assist £14mRisual £11.8mRM £221mRoc Technologies £40.3mRoche Audio Visual £12.8mSabio £71.8mSAGlobal Europe £10mSapphire Systems £36.7mSatisnet £11.9mSaville Group £43.6mSBL £139.3mScan Computers £131mSCC £680.5mSCC AVS £9.7mSCC MPDS (formerly M2 Digital) £49mScotia £3mSecureCloud+ £4.4mSecureData £43.6mSecureLink £25.8mServium £23mShearwater Group £23.5mSHI International £320mSICL £10.8mSilverbug £6.1mSix Degrees £105.8mSmartcomm £25.5mSmarter Business £11.9mSnelling Business Systems £10.3mSoftcat £1.41bnSoftwareONE £174.8mSol-Tec £10.1mSolid Solutions Management £51.6mSomerford Associates £16.5mSpectrum Computer Supplies £11.8mStanford Marsh £19.3mStone Computers £81.7mStorm Technologies £108.6mStormfront £57.2mswcomms £18.4mSwitchshop £11.1m

Symec Technologies £12.6mSysGroup £12.8mTangible Benefit £28.7mTaylor Made Computer Solutions £10.1mTechnoworld £32.6mTectrade £31.2mTelent Technology Services £542mTeneo £23.8mTET £43.7mTIG £6.4mTimico £44mTotal Computers £70.5mTrams £47.5mTransparity £4.8mTransputec £13.1mTrustco plc £4mTryzens £12mTSG £34.5mUK Computer Group £23.4mUltima Business Solutions £110mUnited Carlton £16.5mUniversal AV £12.7mUtilize £10.2mVersion 1 £42.4mVetasi £11.2mViadex £49.9mVision Group £21.3mVodat £24.1mVohkus £105.2mVysiion £12.8mWanstor £12.4mWavenet £23mWestern Computer £13.6mWorkspace Technology £6.4mWTL plc £4.7mWWT £560mXantaro £20mXeretec £72.7mXMA £414.4mYork Telecom £13mZenOffice £15mZones £63.3m