Scottish MSP Systal eyes global scale with tailored services model

Cisco partner bucks standardisation trend, plans further expansion after strong growth

Glasgow-based MSP Systal has seen extensive organic growth in recent years and is planning to expand even further globally, CEO Neil Nicolson tells CRN.

The Cisco Gold standard partner says it has been sailing under the vendor's leadership and being more susceptible to the UK market gives them a stamp of credibility.

Systal provides managed network and security services.

"First and foremost, our goal is to establish a strong presence in the marketplace, providing services like networking, security, and more," Nicolson explains the company's vision.

"There are a lot of transformation projects we take on, including complex solutions, as the world is shifting towards cloud and hybrid environments. But we will know that the key is to provide credibility.

"Our primary focus is on large, complex organisations in the public and private sectors. If you look at our customer profile, it's typically large multinationals where we deliver our services, often to traditional tier-one organisations.

He says one of the unique things about Systal in the marketplace is its global scale.

"We don't come in with a predefined, standardised offering. For example, one of the large ISPs would come with a mandate that says you need to standardise on their platform and follow their delivery principles and practices.

"Instead, we have a really solid foundation that allows us to customise our approach for each customer, following their strategy for the vendor of choice or technology. But to be able to do that at scale is really the key to our success.

Nicolson adds that the MSP's customers are strategic, long-term relationships, often with five-plus year contracts.

"This allows us to adapt and change, coordinating with them and building trusted relationships.

"We can tailor our services on loans or just about anything they need.

"That's undoubtedly one of our keys to success. We're really focused on this approach, rather than being good at sales and marketing.

"It puts us in a position where we're able to scale in a controlled way through an agile strategy, rather than chasing transactional customer relationships or quick resales."

He also adds that he is seeing a level of maturity in engagements.

Traditionally, vendors were fixated on short-term, quarterly sales performance - almost addicted to that revenue run rate. But now, he says Systal is starting to see a shift towards more long term, strategic engagement with customers.

"It's not about selling a product by quarter-end, it's about highly valuable partnerships."

Follow the demand

In its FY22, Systal grew revenue some 70 per cent and Nicolson explains one of the drivers was taking a step change to expand in the US.

"What we offered was critical to the needs in those regions. Rather than having to ramp up hundreds of engineers, for example, we could provide the operational centres as part of the deal.

"That allowed us the confidence to start scaling our customer relationships and take on new markets, including a significant presence in the US.

"We've also seen really good growth in Australia recently. It's been incredible to work with so many fantastic organisations there.

I"n security, they really struggle to scale to that size while still offering a tailored engagement model.

"What we've managed to do is scale significantly while keeping the quality excellence and being customer-led.

"The vast majority of the time, it's driven by customer needs, as bizarre as that may sound.

"So, for example, in one organisation we manage their network and security, and they asked us to globalise the service for performance reasons - and that's what we did, following their lead rather than opening up a new market ourselves with a $100m investment."

Nicolson said he was confident Systal can maintain this level of growth, delivering quality as part of scaling up.

"Once we have established depth of skills and presence in key markets, the focus will be on expanding our physical footprint.

"We will likely open a US headquarters to better serve that market, especially the ISP community.

"I'm sure they will engage with us, and that will allow us to really focus on delivering our services effectively in that region.

"But if you look at our competitors, a lot of them deliver standardised offshore services.

"The advantage we have is taking the opposite high-value approach with tailored, localised services - which is completely diametrically opposed to their model.

"So you'll see us targeting the top 1000 organisations in the US and other major markets."

Growth has been purely organic at Systal and Nicolson predicts that will still be the case in the foreseeable future.

"We are very much sold on organic growth as we still have huge opportunity. I think an acquisition won't happen immediately, it's likely a few years out.

"There aren't a lot of organisations out there of the size that can deliver the really tailored quality services that we do.

"So although acquisitions may be considered eventually, for the immediate future our pure focus is on supporting and underpinning organic growth."

Sticking to core principles amid rapid expansion

Nicolson highlights one key challenge Systal is constantly facing: "Being true to our core principles.

"Our goal is not just to be a customer's biggest technology vendor, but to be their most trusted partner - the one that's always there, outperforming everyone else.

"This comes with having the best, most motivated people who take accountability and responsibility in truly understanding what the customer needs."

When faced with scaling, information security is also a concern, he explains.

"So, my key focus is ensuring open and transparent communication of our strategy across all teams.

"We want to make it obvious to everyone that we're all intended to be customer centric. And I think we absolutely have that cultural alignment.

"But as we take significant scaling steps, the larger you get, the more you need an emphasis on managing the cultural scale of the organization."

You can see this evolution happening in the industry. But it's that level of maturity - understanding that for an organization like us, having a longtail, strategic view on what's best for the customer is just as important as the short-term numbers. So it's about having that customer-centric, long term mindset from vendors."

The role of AI

On the development of artificial intelligence, Nicolson says Systal will have an AI offering coming soon, but that the context for AI comes from its existing toolsets and is an extension of what the company already offers from an automation perspective.

"The approach is integrating our tools with leading AI-enabled technologies. This applies not just to our service delivery aspects like audits and consulting, but even internally in how we develop and sell solutions.

"For example, in our communications we may utilise AI assistants like ChatGPT, and their responses would complement our own expertise and insights.

"So for us, AI is about enhancing our capabilities through integration with cutting-edge AI technologies, not just creating a standalone AI product offering.

"It enables us to augment our human experts rather than fully automating or replacing them."