Print.IT Reseller - issue 86

PRINTITRESELLER.UK 39 DEALER PROFILE SOS Systems has completed a management buy-out led by Sales Director Chris Sills, a move that sees Managing Director Alun Evans step back from the day to day and adopt a high-level strategic role in driving the business forward SOS Systems undergoes MBO independently run business with a passion to grow. And, importantly, we’re not about to split the business or drive all the costs out of the business to increase our EBIT for a sale.” SOS Systems is a Canon Platinum Partner and is also one of the OEM’s leading European dealerships. “We have an incredibly strong relationship with Canon, we’ve maintained our single-line status for many years and we are looking to strengthen that partnership further as we move forward,” Sills continued. “Our position as a mono brand reseller is quite unique, in a market that’s seen private equity firms move in, pressure to cut costs has seen a lot of businesses diversify and start selling another cheaper brand to bring service costs in. In our experience, the private equity investment usually dilutes the offering, we’re committed to maintaining our single-line status and that’s part of why we believe this MBO is good news, especially in terms of us achieving the growth plans we have put in place.” New board The MBO has seen the formation of a new board comprising Business Development Director James Overton, Commercial Director Graeme Savage, and Solutions Director Gary Tomlinson, who will work side by side with Sills and Evans, to deliver on the business’ growth strategy. The company has a solid business plan and a marketing strategy that is aligned to support its goal to increase turnover to significantly above 2019 (pre-COVID) figures by 2023. The strategy is focused on expanding both its print hardware and solutions business, but also on growing its digital services portfolio where it partners with brands including DocuSign and MFiles. “The solutions side of the business has been growing at a significant rate and we see that as being very important to our overall growth plans. We’ve seen huge success with MFiles and DocuSign as well, particularly over the pandemic, and we’re about to launch our own brand accounts payable piece of software that we’re quite excited about,” Sills said. Bucking the trend Each of the board members are responsible for performance in each of their respective areas. The MBO was completed in March 2021 and since then the team has been working on defining a clear strategy, and putting a plan in place When we speak, Sills is buoyant about the MBO of the business he joined in 1989 and rose through the ranks to become Sales Director and shareholder. “Alun set up the company in 1985 and we’d got to the point when it was time to consider an exit strategy, one which would enable him to spend less time on the operational side of the business, but still continue to remain heavily involved strategically to support our passion for ongoing growth.” Sills pointed out that the print industry is no stranger to M&A activity, with completed deals making the headlines on a regular basis. “We often ask ourselves the question – what’s our differentiator?” he said, adding: “While we can say it’s that we are all good salespeople in front of clients or that we deliver a great service, the truth is that the industry has been decimated by PE- backed acquisitions and the marketplace has actually evolved to give us a true differentiator. We are a privately owned, continued... Graeme Savage Chris Sills Alun Evans