Noventiq eyes APAC IT services market

London-listed IT services provider Noventiq has been growing its footprint in Asia-Pacific (APAC), most recently through its acquisition of India’s G7 CR Technologies, a cloud managed services provider.

The terms of the acquisition – the company’s fourth deal in India – were not disclosed, but the latest move underscores the growing importance of the region to the company, which has more than 5,000 employees globally.

Noventiq CEO Sergey Chernovolenko said about half of the company’s employees are based in India, with revenues in the subcontinent expected to cross the $1bn mark shortly.

“We invest in India for India and we’re extremely proud of that,” said Chernovolenko. “We’ve acquired professional companies to build up our skills locally, and at the same time provide support to other countries through India.”

Besides G7 CR Technologies, a Microsoft partner that specialises in Azure cloud services, Noventiq has acquired three other Indian firms – Value Point Systems, Umbrella Infocare and Embee – over the past two years to deliver a suite of multi-cloud, software, cyber security and infrastructure offerings.

In particular, Chernovolenko singled out Umbrella Infocare, which has built up expertise in Citrix and Amazon Web Services that Noventiq can take to other regions such as Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

The APAC market, however, is dotted with global systems integrators, IT service providers and regional players that are all also looking to expand their footprint in a fast-growing market.

Chernovolenko acknowledged that while other players tout a similar portfolio, Noventiq’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to understand industry requirements, such as those of the financial services sector.

“And because we have global expertise and know how banks work in the UK, Malaysia, Argentina and Germany, for example, we can apply this knowledge to help the finance industry in Vietnam,” he added.

Another key differentiator is Noventiq’s talent and entrepreneurial spirit focused on delivering customer outcomes, said Chernovolenko, adding that this has enabled the company to achieve gross profit growth of about 70% during the first half of 2022.

Noventiq has also responded promptly to the geopolitical landscape in recent years, having undertaken a demerger of its Russian and non-Russian operations, which became Noventiq, to optimise value for all of its stakeholders. “All that illustrates our competitive advantage – we respond to geopolitical conditions, we protect shareholder value and we deliver results,” he said. “Not a lot of companies can do that.”

Business execution is just as critical. Having acquired companies to augment its capabilities and fuel its growth in key markets such as India, Noventiq has put in place a merger and acquisition team to maximise the potential of its acquired companies and eliminate any barriers that could hamper their growth.

Noventiq’s overall business in APAC is growing, with markets such as Malaysia and Vietnam expected to grow at 5.7% or higher in 2023. However, as its market share in some APAC markets remains small, Chernovolenko said the company is looking to carve out a bigger slice of the pie.

“The overall APAC economy is growing, and we see a good flow of investments into this region,” he said. “A lot of Western vendors have started to shift production to the region, such as to Vietnam, where IT’s share of overall GDP is relatively low.”

On IT segments and trends that are expected to drive Noventiq’s growth in APAC, Chernovolenko cited cyber security, as well as rising multicloud adoption as organisations seek best-of-breed cloud offerings from different hyperscalers.

“We help customers assess the technologies and cloud providers they need, then we’ll help them to migrate their applications to the cloud and monitor their cloud spend in an efficient way,” he said.

According to IDC, the market for IT and business services in APAC is forecast to grow at around 5.5% each year, even amid uncertain economic conditions. The Indian market is set to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 8.2%, along with faster recoveries in vibrant emerging ASEAN economies such as Indonesia and Vietnam.