Computacenter CEO: 'We're not as big as we'd like to be in the US'
“I don't want to wear Union Jack underpants - but our IT industry needs any help it can get," Mike Norris tells CRN as he opens up on Computacenter's international expansion plans
Computacenter's CEO has hinted at further US expansion, telling CRN that "we are not as big as we would like to be" in the world's largest economy.
Computacenter's 2018 acquisition of US peer FusionStorm helped it generate a record 69 per cent of its £5.053bn group revenue from outside its home market in its fiscal 2019.
But Mike Norris told CRN that the LSE-listed reseller and infrastructure services giant is not done on its international expansion drive.
"I imagine the UK element of our business will continue to reduce as a percentage, because the world is a bigger place outside of the UK than inside it," he said.
"We will go into more countries and we'll expand in certain geographies, probably through acquisition, as well as organically. In the next few years, I think we're more likely to buy outside of the UK than inside of the UK."
Computacenter's overseas sales boomed from £2.74bn to £3.47bn last year, with the addition of FusionStorm helping to swell US revenues from £273m to £773m.
"I want to be able to leverage my skills, my intellectual property, my tools that I've developed, across the widest possible customer base. It's, coverage and scale," Norris explained.
"It's clear we are not as big as we would like to be in the US," Norris added, when questioned about specific territories ripe for further expansion.
"We are bigger than we were, but we're not as big as we'd like to be. And that coverage could be better."
He added: "There's a difference between capability to deliver, and capability to sell. If you look into Asia, I would like more capability to deliver. I'm not worried about capability to sell. What I mean by that is I want to be able to have more capability to support my European and US customers in Asia. I am not bothered at this moment in time and for the foreseeable future about sourcing Asian clients."
Norris was talking to CRN for our upcoming report looking at the international sales opportunities for UK-based tech solution providers.
Norris said the recent UK expansion push of US and Japanese tech providers - including CDW, WWT, SHI and NTT - should not obscure the globetrotting exploits of UK-based providers.
"I don't want to wear Union Jack underpants and be all kind of ‘Britain's best', but our IT industry needs any help it can get," he said.
"I don't think we support UK tech - not necessarily resellers per sae - but pure tech. [Techmarketview founder] Richard Holway was talking the other day about how ARM is one of the best companies produced - it's probably the best UK company in the last 50 years - and they sold it to the Japanese and now the Japanese are going to sell it to some Americans [Holway was responding to rumours that ARM could be acquired by NVIDIA].
"I'm not for government intervention on many things. But when you've got a company that potentially is the biggest chip manufacturer in the world - it could be better than Intel. And you let foreign buyers have it. And it's exactly the kind of high-end jobs that we should be looking after. I just think any support for British tech for a positive thing."