'We're doubling every three years' - DataSolutions MD tells CRN what drove latest results

The VAD boss told CRN its growth has been organic, but will not rule out M&A as it eyes up the UK market

Irish VAD DataSolutions has upped revenues by 29 per cent compared to 2022 (£86m), hitting £109m for the year ending March 2023.

Cybersecurity revenues grew by 36 per cent, which it says was driven by solutions in high growth areas such as zero trust cloud security, secure hybrid working and MSSP solutions.

For the UK specifically, cyber revenues increased by 64 per cent.

Across its cloud division, revenues were up 26 per cent, driven in large part by Citrix, one of DataSolutions marquee vendors, and the demand for Citrix solutions amongst UK businesses.

Speaking with CRN, DataSolutions group managing director Michael O'Hara gave more insight into what is driving the business.

"This is continual growth, and we're pretty much doubling every three years," he said.

"And in fact, we have more than tripled in size in the last five years.

"It's all organic, not bolt on acquisitions, and it's down to a number of factors."

He explained: "The big one is focusing on having a really good, focused and motivated team and it is definitely our success factor here.

"We have a small team of 33 people but they are very focused and very customer-centric."

Despite inflationary pressures leading to other channel players raising prices, O'Hara maintained that DataSolutions isn't budging on its price point.

"From our point of view, we operate in a competitive market. And the first thing we do is we take price out of the equation," he said.

"When you take price off the table it is down to the service, and we really do give an excellent service.

"People buy from people at the end of the day, and what we find is that partners are busy.

"They're looking after their customers, they've got several things on the go at one time, and what they want is suppliers or partners to them, that will provide them with good service."

O'Hara added that the second key growth factor centres around the group's focus on a select number of vendors.

"We represent all the 14 vendors in the market. So it's about focus on the customer focus on our vendors."

How will DataSolutions achieve €200m by 2025?

DataSolutions announced last year its ambition to achieve €200m revenues by 2025.

O'Hara told CRN he remains self-assured his company will reach its goal.

"We continue to grow organically. I'm very confident that we can do this organically but I would not rule out an acquisition," he revealed.

"We are looking at the market. The UK is such a huge market. We're a very specialised portfolio. Our core audience is made up of 100 enterprise resellers.

"I would look at an acquisition in the UK which would bring us an additional portfolio of tech vendors, a database of resellers, and also a talent of staff employees."

What are the group's high growth areas for investment?

Revenues for cybersecurity and the cloud grew 36 per cent and 26 per cent respectively for DataSolutions, areas O'Hara said the group will continue to focus on.

"Cybersecurity has been smashing it.

"Tech is becoming more and more relevant and important for a lot of businesses. It is their business.

"If RyanAir.com goes down they're out of business for that period. So it's becoming more and more relevant and as a result it's more important to make sure that you protect it.

"And the threats are only getting bigger and more complicated.

"So the investment in cybersecurity is just going to continue to grow and we have really excellent technologies in that space.

"The other area is our cloud division.

"Cloud and hybrid cloud will and is continuing to grow. The growth is in the enterprise space for us. We see enterprises will continue to invest in IT to reduce their costs and become more efficient."

Challenges

O'Hara opened up about the two biggest challenges facing the DataSolutions business at the moment - the economy and the tech talent war.

"The economy is a challenge but I'm confident about the enterprise space we play in," he said.

"Talent is a challenge. Finding good talent, even with all the headcount reductions is still a challenge."

He added:

"We generally hold out that we're going to get the right person. So that can take quite a while, but it's better in the long-run."