Managed IT services and cloud hosting provider SysGroup says the move to digital transformation has been accelerated by the crisis and remote working. It also sees further consolidation in the managed services sector.
The UK company has posted record revenues of £19.5m and profits (adjusted EBITDA) of £2.8m in its annual results. In the year to March 31, 2020, the Liverpool headquartered group increased its revenues by 53% and almost doubled its profits, which were up by 99% on the previous financial year. 77% of the company’s income came from recurring revenues from long term service agreements.
SysGroup CEO Adam Binks says “While there is still some uncertainty around the impact of COVID-19, we believe it has presented us with significant opportunities. We have seen an accelerated shift towards remote working solutions for our customers, alongside a decentralisation of their core IT infrastructure towards more flexible and more resilient configurations. Investment in the appropriate cloud technology is becoming ever more mission-critical for businesses to survive and thrive.”
SysGroup has also had growth through strategic acquisition, buying managed connectivity company Hub Network Services (HNS) in June 2019, following the previous year’s purchase of managed IT service provider, Certus Technology Group.
Commenting on the results Binks said: “We delivered increased revenues and EBITDA, whilst integrating our largest acquisition to date, which rounds out our capability to help our customers transform their businesses; a capability that was pressure-tested by lockdown at the end of the financial year. He sees its two recent acquisitions as pivotal to the company’s growth in terms of expansion of services, economies of scale and geographic coverage, with locations now across the country in London, Liverpool, Newport, Telford and Bristol.
Work to integrate the capabilities and process of HNS and Certus into a single platform under a unified offering is largely complete as SysGroup ramps up its marketing communications to promote its enhanced capabilities, value and solutions for customers in the post COVID-19 world. The company continues to evaluate further acquisitions and will look to take advantage of increased opportunity in anticipation of further market consolidation.
In 2019 the company launched its ‘customer engagement strategy’ and reported a customer satisfaction rate for the year that was consistently above 97%. To underpin and drive these strategic enhancements SysGroup expanded its Executive Leadership team with the three new appointments in the course of the financial year. Nick Guite joined as Chief Sales Officer, Andrew Vize was appointed Chief Marketing Officer and Paul Brown is the group’s new Chief Technology Officer.
Adam Binks added, “The past year has been dramatic in more ways than one. We enjoyed rapid growth and another successful acquisition, then ended the year with lockdown. We reacted quickly to the changing conditions. By reorganising the entire operation to remote working, while ensuring continuity of service we have demonstrated what is achievable with the right mix of agile technology services and skills.”
Binks believes the company is well positioned for the post lockdown world where, not only will organisations need to enable more flexible working patterns but will also need to review their core IT infrastructure in the light of the crisis. According to Binks, companies will need to accelerate the shift from on-premise IT infrastructure that is expensive and cumbersome to scale up and maintain, to a cloud-based environment that can respond and scale on-demand to changes in the business needs.
