A milestone like a 35th birthday is always an opportunity to pause and look back before turning the attention to what comes next.
It is a moment to reflect on the events that have occurred over the decades and take some of the lessons learnt forward into the next stage.
That process is particularly relevant when it comes to charting the founding, development and current business of a distributor that has weathered the various economic storms and changing competition.
For e92plus, the milestone is a chance for its co-founder and chief executive, Mukesh Gupta, to look back and share some highlights from that 35-year journey and his thoughts about where distribution is heading.
Where did it all start?
Selling networking products was where the business started, as Gupta teamed up with a friend to start a business that provided networking and ethernet cards.
“We started the business in 1989. I was straight out of university, and the other person involved had a bit of an idea of starting some things,” he recalls.
“It was early days of networking. We took that opportunity ... we started working in networking and ethernet cards. That suddenly became huge, and we were supplying these NICs [network interface cards] all over the place. And that’s really the catalyst for the business,” he says.
Gupta could have exited the business at that point. He had viewed it as something to do for a short period after leaving university, but his parents played a crucial role in urging him to stay.
“We started the business in 1989. It was early days of networking. We took that opportunity [and] started [selling] networking and ethernet cards. That suddenly became huge ... and that was the catalyst for the business”
Mukesh Gupta, e92plus
“I was convinced by my parents: ‘How can you leave something now you’ve started it and it’s working, and you’ve got your other partner involved, and things are happening?’ I took their advice and carried on.
Decision made, Gupta and his business partner began to think about what to do next. “I think once you’re in, you start thinking, how do we improve the business? How do we expand? How do we do things? What else is there available? What else can we get involved in?”
As the internet emerged, the business took advantage of the growing need for networking products, then began supplying sofware products from the likes of Novell and Banyan, along with the networking cards it had been handling.
This was also the moment when a significant investment was made and the business began reaching out to vendors, including those in the US, to start building a wider product portfolio.
“We took the risk, and we could see we were turning a good revenue and profitability within the first three months. When you see that you can take a capital risk,” he says.
The move into cyber security
Gupta and his colleagues had been quick to identify the opportunity the emerging internet would spark in the networking world, and before too long thoughts turned to the next growth area the firm could move into.
Ten years in, the co-founder left the business, leaving Gupta in a position where he was making decisions about future strategy.
“As the business started growing, [thoughts turned to] how we can grow faster and the direction we should be going in. The first 10 years, we were almost in just networking and IP, so all this connectivity stuff around the 2000s [was a chance to change]. By this point, the person that was with me had left. In a way, that was good, because it gave me the ability to start thinking about where I wanted to take the business. I made a decision to go into cyber security,” he says.
“Around the 2000s, we started focusing on security – and that’s been our direction since,” he adds.
Some of the vendor relationships it formed around that move into security have been with the distributor ever since, including the likes of Trend Micro and Forcepoint.
Other vendors came on board as the company’s reputation for security expertise developed, and e92plus has actively brought emerging players to market.
“We always looked at newer technologies and newer things that are happening, bringing them to the to the forefront and driving them in our in our market space,” adds Gupta. “Because of that, you can see what’s coming through, look at newer technologies and get involved in that.”
How distribution has evolved
Being at the helm for more than three decades has given Gupta a ringside seat during some of the key moments of distribution’s evolution. The introduction of the cloud, marketplaces and hyperscalers have all added to the challenge in recent years.
Gupta is clear that what keeps distribution going is the ability to add value and provide a service to vendors and resellers that cannot be found elsewhere.
“What we do for our suppliers is accelerate them very fast. We’re able to get a given scale, taking away the heavy lifting for them, all these sorts of things that we’re doing for them. So, it’s value that we’re providing,” he says.
“We’re able to take vendors to resellers and span across from GSIs [global systems integrators] to large resellers like Softcat and Computacenter, and on to the boutique type that are really focused, and to the MSP [managed service provider] partners,” he adds.
The firm works with more than 1,200 partners across the UK and Ireland. It produces over £80m in revenue and employs 60-plus people.
Gupta says e92plus is closer to vendors now than it ever has been to ensure it can deliver the value they are looking for, and has evolved the business to keep its position in the cyber security space.
“Distribution for us has developed from the days of selling boxes ... moving on and evolving over time, our specialism being cyber security, but being the best at that,” he says.
“It comes down to this – distribution has to change. It was a warehouse before, was banking and finance and credit, and that still goes on, but we have had to evolve. We have become almost embedded with the vendor. We become their sales arm, we become part of their team, and we’re focused on it,” he adds.
What comes next?
Gupta shows no signs of sitting on his laurels and being content with the current state of the business. As such, the next few years are likely to see expansion for the distributor.
“Going forward, we’re looking at expanding into Europe. We have an office now, just started in September, in Benelux and Netherlands, and we have feet on the ground there. We have feet on the ground in Ireland, and we’re looking at other territories. I think we need to do that to scale our business,” he says.
We’re at the stage where we get people coming to us, vendors coming to us, asking us to get involved. We’ve built that brand over the years
Mukesh Gupta, e92plus
“It’s also come from the vendors that have seen us do it in the UK – they want us to extend that way of working into the other territories [because] sometimes they’re not getting what they need from the existing pan-European distributors,” he adds.
Brickbats are always being thrown at distribution, with claims that the emergence of hyperscalers and marketplaces will undermine their existence. But Gupta is sure there remains a place for players that can add value, scale and personal relationships.
“There’s room for all of us. It’s just about making sure you find the space that you want to be,” he says.
“Starting a distributor today is not an easy task. You’ve got to put a lot of resources behind it, and it will take time before you [become] profitable. But you need a killer product that’s going to set you going as well. Whereas for us, we’re at the stage where we get people coming to us, vendors coming to us, asking us to get involved. We’ve built that brand over the years,” he says.
As Gupta takes breath and pauses to mark 35 years of e92plus, he remembers the moment when his parents urged him to stay and stick with the business. Their wise advice is one of the key elements in the distributor’s story.
“I’m still as excited as I was in the beginning. From that point where my parents said, ‘No, you’ve got to stay’, I made my mind up and got myself driven into it,” he adds. “We’ve still got room to grow. You look back and think, yes, 35 years, but I’m just as excited about the future as I have been over the previous years.”
Giving something back
Gupta also expresses pride at the impact e92plus has had on the wider channel over its first 35 years.
“When I look back and reflect, we’ve bought a number of vendors to the market. So many people have come through us, started, cut their teeth with us. In a lot of LinkedIn connections, they mention they worked at e92plus,” he says.
“People say, ‘I started with e92plus, I did this, and now I’m VP of whatever’. It is good to see, and that almost feels like we’ve given something back to the community. It’s not just about profit. It’s not about take, take, take. We’ve trained and educated, and we’re still doing that today,” he adds.
“Having said that, we’ve got people who have been with us nearly as long as me. A number of sales staff over 20 years, a number of technical people have been with us over 20 years,” he concludes.
