Security and cloud driving growth at Exclusive Group

A potent mix of cyber security and cloud transformation vendors and services has helped Exclusive Group hit another revenue milestone breaking through the €1.75bn mark in sales from last year.

The distributor has been growing its geographical footprint and has a roster of vendors that have been gaining market share that has helped deliver some of that growth for Exclusive.

Sales of €1.75bn were up by 38% on the €1.27bn delivered in 2016 and the firm has seen decent double digit organic growth in the UK over the past 12 months, which remains the largest region.

On a worldwide basis the channel player also increased its reseller partner base by 10% last year and has been striking up more relationships with some of the larger SIs and telcos.

Barrie Desmond, COO at Exclusive Group, said that it was tapping into two of the most important market areas with security and cloud but its focus on services was also a big part of its approach.

"We have a good balanced business and have a balanced portfolio and our core vendors outperformed the market," he added "There is also a psychology and a philosophy that is primed for growth."

There is also a continued determination to make sure it can deliver the support that resellers will need to react to changing customer demands.

"Most customers say that they want to go on a [digital transformation] journey with their trusted advisor but that advisor is still dealing with legacy business. I'd hope with education and knowledge we hope to fill that gap," said Desmond.

Keeping the growth going might well involve more geographical expansion as the firm looks at areas it is under represented or not very active, including Eastern Europe for example.

“Over these last few years we have utterly disrupted the fast-growth, value-adding end of distribution by perfecting our approach to market penetration and acceleration,” said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Group.

“Now we seek to evolve our business to expand this success across the market, becoming even more relevant to high-volume transactions that demand optimum scale and fulfilment efficiency," he added.