Axians UK MD: ‘We expect to increase top and bottom line this year’

Russell Crampin tells CRN he’ll do this through increased DevOps capability and building on success in industrial cybersecurity

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Axians UK managing director Russell Crampin reveals his three-pronged strategy to have a revenue rich 2025.

The IT services outfit boss previously told CRN the company’s switch from a focus on product to services was to achieve more sustainable growth in the long term.

In 2023, Crampin said he expected the year to be “a bumper” one for the group, highlighting the development of its services business as a key driver.

The company’s efforts seem to be paying off, logging 15 per cent year-on-year services growth in 2024 driven by three key factors, Crampin tells CRN in an update.

“One was the launch of our industrial cybersecurity business, as well as our natural growth in global managed services on networking.

“The final contributor is our bread and butter, traditional customer engagements that we've done for two decades, which continues to grow.”

Outlining his growth aspirations for 2025, Crampin continues to spotlight “sustainable growth.”

“We seek long-term growth. We don't need to rush and double overnight. That's not our style.

“We like to engage long-term with our customers, and that means we'll do the right thing and make the right decisions for the long-term.

“We are looking at internal and external growth this year. We expect to increase both the top line and the bottom line this year.”

To achieve this, Crampin breaks down the three most lucrative areas of the business.

DevOps demand

Axians UK has seen a rise in demand for DevOps from customers concerned with the performance of their WiFi network.

“We'll be launching increased capability moving forward, and that's stitching some of our solutions into our customers’ systems directly,” Crampin says.

“Customers want to understand what the experience is like to their users. Is it working as they would expect it? Are they happy with the customer experience?

“They want an easy way of looking at a business level dashboard that's combining different parts of the network, different experiences, bringing that all together so they can have a really simple look and feel of how it’s going.

“In the advent of having too much data today, we challenge it and say, ‘So what? How is that useful?’

“So, then we use DevOps to be relevant for the dashboards for our customers’ visibility.”

Industrial cybersecurity

Crampin pointed to industrial cybersecurity as another element of Axians UK’s long-term growth strategy.

He admits that while it “takes time to build”, he believes the business is in a “fantastic position” to capture activity in this area after seeing “significant success” in 2024.

Axians’ sister brand, Actemium has worked with industrial customers in the UK for more than 100 years, Crampin says.

The sector is facing increasing demands around utlising cloud technologies, digital technologies, and data driven ideas to make production lines more efficient.

This is starting to change the way the industry operates.

“The challenge that brings is, historically, they've not had to worry too much about technical cybersecurity. Physical security very much so, but operational networks are always kept separate from their traditional IT networks.

“Those barriers are now being blurred, and we're seeing an increased risk of cybersecurity in customers' industrial networks.”

Crampin continues that, as a response to these barriers, the government has been adding increased legislation demanding that industrial customers report on how they are addressing this ongoing challenge.

“Because of our sister company’s heritage in understanding industrial activity, and our heritage at Axians at understanding cybersecurity, we're bringing these two skill sets and experiences together, and we've created solutions we can take to customers, look at their long-term governance strategy, identify risks within their network, and then close, monitor and maintain.”

New experience hub

Having underscored customer engagement several times already, it should be of no surprise that this is his third focus area for 2025.

“The last piece is an acceleration of engaging with our customers on a personal basis.”

As part of this, Axians UK launched its first Customer Experience Hub designed to foster enhanced collaboration with clients and partners.

“It’s an opportunity for customers to come in and spend time with us and experience what it's like to be working with Axians, and that's for both existing and new customers and partners,” Crampin explains.

Talent shortage

There are several topics that remain almost permanently top of mind for channel leaders owing to their importance, including AI, cybersecurity, and the talent shortage.

According to IT Brief UK, the country is facing a critical shortage of IT skills, which is affecting the country's overall economic growth and impairing the confidence, investments, and productivity of UK businesses.

The most sought-after IT skills include artificial intelligence and machine learning (40 per cent), IT support and troubleshooting (32 per cent), and cybersecurity (30 per cent).

Crampin reveals that, while he believes Axians UK is doing a “good job” around this already, talent remains an ongoing challenge.

“Finding, developing and retaining talent within our business,” he says.

“Solutions change all the time. Our business changes all the time. We don't want our people to change all the time. We want them to develop in line with what we're doing.

“So, making sure that we've got good, happy employees is something that we really strive to achieve.

“We've just launched a new careers website, and that's allowing us to fill roles quite quickly.”

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