When Annodata's joint Managing Director Andrew Harman announced the appointment of two key hires this summer his intention to create a £100 million turnover business over the coming two years received a strategic boost of significant proportions.
In June Annodata made two key hires as part of its growth strategy to become a £100 million turnover business. Mike Mason was appointed as Managing Director of the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) business while Martin St. Quinton was named as Non Executive Chairman. St. Quinton replaced David Fielden who served in this role for the last 13 years and remains as a Non-Executive Director. In 2000, St. Quinton founded Azzurri Communications which grew to 700 staff and £150 million turnover in six years. According to Harman he will play a key role in the growth of the company as well as assisting in unifying its telecommunications division with the core business functions.
"We are currently achieving revenues of £65 million across the Annodata group and over the next couple of years our objective it is to be a £100 million turnover business," Harman commented.
Annodata has been delivering strategic communications solutions to clients since 1988. From FTSE 100 corporations to SMEs, the firm has earned a reputation for helping a diverse spread of organisations transform the way they choose and use communications systems. "We have over 7,000 client relationships with companies such as J & J, GE, Harrods, New York Stock Exchange, Mitsubishi, Burberry and the IHG Group," added Harman. "Our success in the public sector arena continues to be a key market for us and we have recently been chosen as the only independent supplier on the Central Buying Consortium Framework agreement. We have in excess of 100 engineers, complemented by a large and experienced group of sales consultants and professional services support team."
Mason, a key figure in Harman's growth plans, has held senior leadership roles with France Telecom, BT and Capita. More recently, during his tenure at Intrinsic, he led the transformation of the business from a traditional UC player into a cloud-based computing solutions company. This resulted in a doubling of revenues and an increase in profitability of over 300 per cent. Subsequently, he led and managed the £30 million private equity backed sale of the company. Mason said: "Collaboration and an enhanced customer experience are top priorities for most organisations today. This is an exciting time to be part of the Annodata journey as it understands the importance of unifying different communications solutions and how to unlock the real business benefits for their current and future customers."
Annodata was established in 1988, 25 years ago this October. The company was started by Harman and shortly afterwards he was joined by his brother, joint Managing Director Tim Harman. "Before starting Annodata I was the top sales person for a communications manufacturer but felt that some of the large players didn't really understand the needs of the customer," he said. "I asked myself the question, why should businesses put up with technology and service vendors that are inflexible, outdated and which have the suppliers' rather than the customers best interests at heart? The result was Annodata. Via an open minded and consultative approach we are taking our expanding portfolio to our key and future clients to help improve their business processes so they can concentrate on their core competencies."
Annodata has partner relationships with many top name organisations including Canon, Ricoh, O2, Kyocera, Mitel, Cisco and Avaya. "In particular, our strategic relationships with Canon and 02 have grown and strengthened over the past 20 years," noted Harman. "These prominent industry leaders have endorsed the Annodata brand and incorporated their customer base into the Annodata service division, sanctioning us as an extension of their own business. With the speed at which technology is changing we are always looking to how we can enhance our product portfolio and map this against the need of our customers."
According to Mason, the unified comms marketplace offers one of the largest opportunities for Annodata. "The ability to take our customers on the journey from traditional TDM voice through to digital and IP voice and bringing that together under our UCC portfolio is critical," he said. "Mobility, in particular BYOD, continues to drive growth as does cloud-based control from companies such as Cisco Meraki who boast feature rich offerings and ease of deployment."
The experience that both Mason and St. Quinton bring to Annodata will enable it to execute strategic acquisitions that will complement the current business as well as achieve revenues of in excess of £100 million. "As most business leaders would recognise the key to a successful business is the army of staff that work alongside you," added Harman. "Although we have grown significantly from the early days we still try and foster a family environment. We are keen to incentivise staff with the right commission plans and recognise non sales staff that provide outstanding performances."•