Infinity and beyond? Infinity Group CEO talks growth strategy following first foray into M&A

Rob Young catches up with CRN on his ambitions for the next 12 months

Microsoft MSP Infinity Group will be laser focused on the integration of the company’s first two acquisitions for the next 12 months.

After snapping up Redkite CRM in October 2023 and Bam Boom Cloud in May this year, the group now has a headcount of 200 staff.

Speaking with CRN about its next steps, CEO Rob Young revealed he had no immediate plans for more M&A, and instead is prioritising the new teams.

“The next stage for us is around consolidation, integrating the teams and customers into one platform where we can manage that cross sell and the upsell opportunity that the acquisitions have presented.”

This isn’t his only focus, however, as Young adds he has more on his to-do list for Infinity after investing heavily in professinalising its delivery function.

“We're doing the same with our managed services function and sales function,” he says.

“We're platforming ourselves onto Dynamics. So, we’ll be fully platformed on Microsoft by early next year.

“That’s a key goal of ours. We want to show customers that we drink our own champagne.

“We use these platforms to grow our business, so we can show them how they can grow their business.

“We achieved Microsoft Inner Circle Partner status this year. I think there’s 70 Inner Circle partners globally. We’re in a niche club.

“There are many exciting things. But the key thing is consolidation as far as what we're doing internally, so our systems, our processes, our teams, but also what the product stack looks like.”

Three-pronged strategy

Infinity plays in the SMB/mid-market sector, with the social housing sector as a key vertical.

After acquiring Redkite last year, now rebranded as Brick Housing, Infinity entered the social housing space.

“Redkite was our first play into a very niche market in social housing, where we have specific IP built on Microsoft platforms to solve those housing problems.

“Every Housing Association has the same challenges. If you can solve these challenges quickly and cost effectively, you will soon get a reputation. And that’s what we had with Redkite.

“That's something we've worked on by attending events where we've showcased our customers, and they've talked about some of those challenges that we've solved using the power platform.”

Speaking with CRN shortly after this deal, the company’s first ever acquisition, Young revealed Infinity’s three-point strategy: social housing, utilities & energy and professional services (now financial services).

In an update on its spotlight markets, Young reveals Infinity has not wavered from its three-pronged approach.

“Social housing is the area where we've got the deepest IP.

“Utilities & energy, financial services are three areas that we've got some strong pedigree in.

“They're also quite strong areas around the technology that we sell. Whether that's Dynamics 365 Field Service or Dynamics 365 Project Operations or Business Central, they're all prominent in those sectors.

“It complements our modern work and security practice as well. These sectors want to get into the cloud, start using AI and Copilot, and these technologies and our know-how in their industries really help accelerate that.”

Fastest growing tech

Young highlights Microsoft’s cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for small and medium-sized businesses as the part of the business that is seeing the most rapid growth.

“Business Central is the fastest growing product for us, and Microsoft.

“Dynamics is a very vibrant space to move into.

“It’s growing rapidly and opens up conversations with customers that previously they didn’t have before.

“What I mean by that is, as an MSP you’re typically dealing with an IT manager.

“When you start talking about Dynamics you’re opening up that conversation and speaking to people in the c-suite about how you can improve their business.

“That changes the dial as far as the kind of conversations you can have with your customers, and really does turn you into a trusted advisor.”

Another tech area seeing a meteoric rise in interest is, of course, artificial intelligence, which Youngs says is impacting Infinity's conversations with customers.

“What we’re seeing a lot of is customers are more inquisitive about AI. They’re coming to us and asking how they can start using it.”

There's a few elements to this journey every customer needs to consider, Young adds.

“Firstly, they need to be able to get their data into the cloud or their applications into the cloud. There’s still a lot of work to do to get on-prem solutions moved into a cloud environment in the right way.

“Once the data is in the cloud, it then needs to be tagged and managed in a way that the Copilot is not not going to unearth any gotchas.

“We then have to secure everything. Endpoint solution, mobile device protection, threat protection, all of that needs to be secured.”