Like many comms entrepreneurs ANS Group Chairman Scott Fletcher started trading out of a back bedroom, but not so common among his peers was his decision to pursue a livelihood in IT rather than develop an already successful TV career.
As a child actor Fletcher appeared in TV programmes such as Jossy's Giants and Casualty and the experience proved to be 'character building' in more ways than one. "I enjoyed being an actor because it got me out of the education system and helped me to see the world and all the opportunities it offers at an early age," noted Fletcher. "But I had to make a decision between acting or work and I chose IT."
Fletcher joined a Youth Training Scheme, now more commonly known as an apprenticeship, and in 1996 at the age of 22 he found himself, briefly, at a loose end when the company he worked for went out of business. "I saw this as an opportunity rather than a setback and started ANS Group from my back bedroom," he explained. "I had been working in the industry for five years at that point and the hard work I'd put in meant I was able to leverage my experience and relationships with customers. At that time, there were 20 or 30 customers with solutions that only I knew how to support, so it was a perfect opportunity. That sense of innovation and being able to identify opportunities and go after them is still a huge part of ANS today."
ANS currently employs close to 200 staff between two office locations in Manchester and London. The company has witnessed impressive year-on-year growth and boasts an annual turnover of £47 million. Year-end results for 2012 showed a 60 per cent increase in turnover and a 61 per cent hike in gross profit, with a cash increase of 128 per cent while total contracted revenues were up 138 per cent. "Our goal is to hit our target of £15 million profit by 2014/2015," added Fletcher. "When you consider what we've accomplished there's no reason why this can't be achieved. When I look back at the first step that started ANS and think about everything that has happened since, it makes me proud to see the team I have around me and what we have created."
ANS Group works with customers of all sizes in various sectors and its circa 600 client base come from areas such as education, local government and healthcare, with a number of clients in the private sector. The overall retention rate sits at 98 per cent. "Our current objective is to build up our managed services and cloud offerings so that those deals account for the majority of our business," commented Fletcher. "And we're already seeing success in doing this. We have doubled the size of our contracted revenue in the last 12 months and we plan to double it again over the next year. We'll meet this objective because we listen to our customers and respond accordingly."
ANS Group's partners include Cisco, NetApp and VMware, and over the years the company has developed strong relationships with them, forging staunch bonds by frequently attending industry events and summits and adopting partner initiatives. "The word 'partner' isn't just a label for the vendors, it really describes the nature of the relationship that we have," Fletcher said. "As we grow the business, our relationships with partners just get stronger. It's a win-win situation."
Four years ago Fletcher made the decision to back Cisco UCS and the FlexPod solution. This also proved to be a winning formula and a major turning point for the business. "The Cisco platform is now in second place in the Intel data centre space from zero market share just four years ago, and it continues to take market share from the likes of IBM and HP," he said. "Adding our fully managed offering to this platform and building our cloud services on the same technology gives us a real focus and has built trust with our vendors."
Doing particularly well, noted Fletcher, is the FlexPod i3 solution. He says ANS has delivered the largest number of FlexPod projects in EMEA, and while that's humming along nicely he's focusing sharply on the managed services opportunity. "We're confident that our managed services offering will continue to see a high degree of adoption," he stated. "It's necessary to keep an eye on long-term opportunities but the industry is so fluid. As long as you have the right team who can evolve and stay innovative, that's what matters."
Fletcher is constantly on the look out for top talent to build on all areas of the business and foster the adaptability he relies on to move the business forward in a fast changing operational environment. "We have some incredibly skilled staff on board and we're a fast-paced, high performing company with high expectations, but we also know how to let our hair down. I think this type of environment is really the best of both worlds.
"It's easy to keep standards high when you hire the best. We do recruit for a lot of highly skilled roles, but we also 'recruit for attitude, train for skill', which means that our company is made up of the type of people who naturally have the drive to be high performing and motivated. The industry moves far too quickly nowadays and you need to be prepared to evolve according to what customers want. We will continue to grow the top and bottom lines of the business at least 30 per cent as I know we'll be able to adapt to whatever changes happen over the next five years."
The company's culture is based on a policy of 'work hard, play hard' and Fletcher is a big fan of staff away days and team building opportunities. "Since our staff numbers have grown considerably we hold quarterly all-staff meetings," Fletcher added. "These provide a chance for everyone to get together and hear about developments in the business. In keeping with our culture we go out as a team to socialise afterwards. It's also about the little things like emailing staff when one of the team gets recognised by a customer for exemplary service, doing charity work together and getting everyone involved in our CSR programme."
Regular staff meetings also provide an opportunity for new starters to be properly welcomed, such as the two or three apprentices Fletcher takes on every month. "Because of my own experience and the path it started me on, I'm passionate about apprenticeships. It's something that all businesses should offer. Young people bring a real energy to a business. Of course, as an employer we want to offer training opportunities and help the apprentices learn skills, but some people forget that they teach you new skills as well, such as social media and Internet technologies. It's important for me to give back to the community and I can't think of a better way than being able to play a part in helping young kids get started in their careers."•