ALSO Group has finalized its 2018 results and says it increased net sales in a slightly growing market (+1.7%) over-proportionally by 3.2% from €8.9bn to € 9.2bn. 90 percent of this growth was organic, primarily in Germany, France, Austria and in the Baltic States, it says. An important growth driver was the promising IT-as-a-Service business with a sales increase of 36%. Adjusted for restructuring costs and currency effects, the ALSO Group achieved an EBITDA of €162.4m, compared to €153.2m in the previous year (+6.0 percent). Excluding this adjustment, reported EBITDA decreased from €157.3m to €152.7m.
The distributor undertook a fundamental structural optimization. This was made possible by investments in the Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), Business Intelligence Tools and Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM), and on the other, by the consistent implementation of projects to improve and optimize business processes, it says.
ALSO plans to continue work on the five steering levers (business model mix, vendor mix, reseller mix, product mix, operational excellence). In the area of operational excellence, the further digitization of the transactional business will be a key success factor. ALSO plans to harmonize the operating systems for the webshop and the ACMP (ALSO Cloud Marketplace) with the aim of using the findings from Business Intelligence to further increase sales and develop tailor-made solutions for customers. In addition, ALSO will continue to focus intensively on expanding its high-margin business models Solutions and "as-a-Service".
"Our MORE strategy, the long-term activities aimed at optimizing our traditional business and the consistent implementation of the other two business models have resulted in sustained profitable growth for ALSO in recent years, a growth which will continue," stresses CEO Gustavo Möller-Hergt (pictured).
ALSO expects revenue growth in 2019 to exceed Gartner's 0.9 percent market growth forecast. This growth will be driven by organic revenue growth through market share gains, the continued expansion of product categories and portfolio, as well as further development of the business models (Supply, Solutions and "as-a-Service"). ALSO will generate additional growth through acquisitions in its existing countries with the aim to further consolidate the market in the traditional distribution business and in companies active in the business models Solutions and "as-a-Service". New countries within Europe will be developed through acquisitions and partnerships, it says. These countries also play an important role in the international rollout of Platform-as-a-Service beyond Europe.
