Daisy Communications and DSP-Explorer add to consolidation trend

Daisy Communications has added more depth to its managed ICT offering with a move to acquire Communicate Better.

This is the third time in the past year that the firm has expanded its footprint, having previously added XLN Group and Premier Choice Telecom to its fold.

The company’s aim throughout those expansive moves has been to add more depth to the portfolio and bring on board additional skilled staff. Communicate Better will meet those criteria and add more products into the mix.

Dave McGinn, Daisy Communications CEO, said the acquisition – the terms of which were not disclosed – was a good move for the staff and customers of both firms.

“This is a promising partnership to add to our flourishing portfolio, increasing our footprint in telephony products, enhancing our Microsoft relationship and accruing telematic products,” he said. “I am excited to welcome our new colleagues and customers to the Daisy family and to continue our journeys together.”

In response, Wayne Cartwright, Communicate Better CEO, said that after 12 years at the helm, it made sense for the firm to take this next step with fresh ownership.

“Now is the right time for me to step aside and hand the reins over to Daisy Communications in the knowledge that the staff and customers are in trusted and capable hands,” he said. “I’d like to thank everyone involved in the journey and wish all the best continuing success in the future.”

Consolidation is a continuing feature of the channel and earlier this week, DSP-Explorer picked up Oracle applications managed services provider Claremont.

The move will give DSP more data management depth and will support its ambitions to be a major provider of Oracle services.

The Claremont deal also comes on the back of funding in 2018 and 2021 from YFM Equity Partners, with DSP’s revenues increasing from £5m to an expected £30m this year. Claremont, which has been around since 2004, with offices in Guildford and Newcastle, should add to that momentum. 

“DSP and Claremont already have several clients in common, so when the opportunity arose for us to work together as a combined business, I was hugely excited,” said Simon Goodenough, CEO of DSP Group. “We share similar cultural values, especially those of responsiveness and customer success, and both want our businesses to be great places to work for our employees.

“In an industry where both skills and experience are in high demand, this merger allows us to offer a wider variety of complementary services to our customers, whether they are on a journey to the cloud or in the cloud, and whether that have on-premise application workloads or hybrid models.

“While this acquisition hugely broadens our Oracle portfolio and takes our client base to well over 500, it also gives us greater opportunities to increase our share of the other fast-growing markets that we address through our Any Database | Any Cloud proposition, both here in the UK and globally.”

In response, Mark Vivian, CEO of Claremont, who will join the board of the DSP Group, said the company knew who DSP were and the tie-up would put the organisation in a stronger position.

“Combining our applications and technology strengths together with a comprehensive multicloud services portfolio, the breadth of our combined service offering, along with our shared delivery excellence ethos, will enable us to deliver an even more compelling proposition to customers,” he said.