Axians UK MD: 'We are having an absolute stormer year for business opportunity'
Russell Crampin discusses the group’s development of its services and why providing value is key to remaining relevant
The managing director of Axians UK is focused on long-term profitable growth over unsustainable targets for 2023.
Russell Crampin updates CRN on what the Basingstoke-based group has been up to so far, and what its goals are for the end of the year.
"We were affected by the silicone shortage in 2022. But we are having an absolute stormer in terms of orders, delivery, service engagement and business opportunity in 2023 across all of our business lines," Crampin says.
"It looks like it's going to be a bumper year for us.
"In terms of highlights, it's the development of the services business that we've been working on for a long time. And it really seems to have gelled this year."
Opening up on what he wants to achieve by the end of 2023, Crampin explains the wellbeing of his team is top of mind as Axians continues to reach new heights of growth.
"When we are as busy rolling out projects, as we are now my major concern is the health of my team.
"So if we can get to the end of the year profitably fantastic, but not to the detriment of how my team are feeling in their input to that success."
The overall Axians Group, part of VINCI Energies, posted full-year 2022 revenues of €3.3bn.
Providing a little more insight into how Axians UK plans to continue this growth trajectory, Crampin tells CRN what he views as most critical.
"We obviously are focused on growth but what's important to us is long term profitable growth. We don't fight for increases that aren't sustainable over a longer period," he says.
"And that switched many years ago from a focus on product to a focus on services which makes that growth more sustainable in the long term.
"What's important to me is that we maintain our specialism. We're not generalists in the market. We specialise in our customer types. We specialise in what we do for them. And we're getting asked to do more and more and we want to make sure we don't dilute our message. We want to remain steady and targeted."
Keep reading to hear Crampin's thoughts on managed services and how traditional resellers can remain relevant...
Axians UK MD: 'We are having an absolute stormer year for business opportunity'
Russell Crampin discusses the group’s development of its services and why providing value is key to remaining relevant
Axians growing in managed services
Relying more on managed services for sustained growth, as Crampin mentions, is a move garnering more and more traction lately.
CRN has spoken with a number of vendors who have revealed they are actively encouraging their traditional resellers to start looking at becoming a fully fledged MSP.
Offering more on why Axians is upping its managed services game, Crampin says: "It's a trajectory we've been on for a number of years strategically, ever since the original business was acquired by VINCI.
"It's the only way that we see being able to remain relevant to your customers and to provide them with real value and business impact.
"We've seen the impact of the hardware delays. The desire to increase revenues means that you are lowering your margins. And what we pride ourselves on talent and the service creation that we've been able to do and that's how we can differentiate ourselves rather than purely rely on value added resale."
Crampin bills Axians UK as a technology services partner that builds services on top of its focus on technology.
He believes companies that are late to the managed services party are going to struggle finding their feet.
"My view is if you weren't shifting five years ago, it's going to be really really hard.
"It takes a long time to shift from a pure reseller into a managed services partner.
"It's a challenging road. You need to change your talent, you need to change your marketing approach, you need to change your customer engagement, you need to change your sales team.
"All that takes time and money, and we've been on that journey for years."