Softcat’s public sector team goes from strength to strength
Over the last 24 months, Softcat has quietly but confidently gone about establishing itself as a credible and trusted IT supplier to the UK public sector. On the back of Softcat’s industry recognition and over 19 years’ experience in supplying a wide range of technologies to corporate clients, the initial signs indicate that public sector clients have been extremely receptive to a relatively ‘new’ supplier with proven credentials.
An ambitious three-year investment and growth plan designed to deliver public sector revenues in excess of £100m pa has helped Softcat’s public sector team grow from just under £25m to more than £50m in 2012. Triple-digit growth in the first half of 2012/13 coupled with a strong forecast for March (public sector year-end) sees the team confident that they will exceed £75m ahead of Softcat’s year-end in July.
This impressive growth has been more than matched by an investment in dedicated public sector resource, seeing the team grow from 10 account managers to more than 50 vertical specialists, managing the requirements of education, healthcare and government clients throughout the UK. Additionally, dedicated public sector server, storage, software, security and software asset management (SAM) resource has been aligned to support the sales teams to promote and deliver key technologies.
Jamie Burke, director of public sector at Softcat commented: “Softcat’s growth and industry recognition across the corporate space is well documented, so it made perfect sense to replicate this within the public sector. Customers really buy into Softcat’s proposition and our ethos, which in its most simple form is to provide sound technical advice, competitive pricing and great customer service delivered by happy and knowledgeable staff. Never did I imagine that in such a short period of time Softcat would be strategically involved with a number of high-profile transformation projects delivering tangible efficiencies to frontline services. We’ve built a great team, and as long as we continue to add value for our clients and outperform the market, we’ll continue to create new roles in a sector looking for fresh ideas and innovation.”
Softcat’s public sector framework manager, Andy Bruen, attributes this stellar performance to inclusion on some of the key procurement frameworks including: GPS CITHS, ITHS and G-Cloud I&II, Value Wales, Pro5 Software, NEPA Print, NEUPC AV and SUPC ITRAP University frameworks and recently NHS Link-IT. He commented, “Softcat may have experienced a degree of good luck in terms of securing framework places in the early days, but there’s been nothing lucky about our qualitative tender responses since. Success here can largely be attributed to our implicit understanding and innovative ‘customer first’ approach – to our public sectors customers, along with the significant inward investment in growing our public sector team and expertise.”
For more information please contact:
Mary Stringer
Resonates SLM Ltd
Tel: 44 (0) 1635 898 390
softcat@resonates.com
www.resonates.com
About Softcat
Softcat (www.softcat.com) is a leading provider of software licensing, hardware, security and related IT services. Softcat, founded in 1993 by chairman and majority shareholder Peter Kelly, remains privately owned and currently employs more than 500 people. It achieved a turnover in excess of £307 million in its last financial year and has been profitable since inception, resulting in a strong balance sheet and very firm financial foundations.
The company sells and supports products and solutions from all the world's leading IT companies. On all its portfolio products and solutions it offers a full range of services, including advice and guidance, technical design, product sourcing, implementation, support and project management. It enjoys a trading relationship with over 5,000 longstanding customers, predominantly from the UK corporate sector but also including large enterprises, small businesses and public sector organisations.
As an organisation Softcat cares passionately about two things – outstanding employee satisfaction and world class customer service. It believes the former drives the latter.
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