Technology Reseller - v31

01732 759725 16 NEWS : RESELLERS Steve Thompson Husband and wife entrepreneurs Gary Parlett and Kate Parlett MBE have turned down an eight-figure offer from venture capitalists for their digital transformation and IT consultancy in favour of an employee ownership model. The Parletts founded Answer Digital (originally called the Ultimate People Company) 21 years ago. Since then, it has grown to become a successful company with projected revenues of £9 million this year and offices in Leeds and London. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will be funded by the business and gives all 85 members of staff a stake in Answer Digital through an employee ownership trust that has a direct say in how the business is run. The Parletts will continue in their roles, with senior members of the team, Richard Pugmire, Nigel Garner and Richard Ellis, joining the board of the trust. Technology advisor Finbarr Joy, who worked at Answer Digital 20 years ago before taking up senior technology roles at BT, William Hill and other blue-chip companies, has re-joined the business as a non-executive director. Gary Parlett, Managing Director of Answer Digital, believes that an employee- ownership model gives staff the freedom to do great work. He said: “Typically, employee-owned businesses have higher productivity, greater levels of innovation and are more resilient to economic headwinds. The people that work in them are often more engaged, happier in their jobs and less stressed. We are passionate that this is the best route for our business to continue to grow and deliver award-winning solutions.” Digital entrepreneurs embrace employee ownership LAN3 founder launches new venture LAN3 founder Steve Thompson is promising a more human approach to IT with his new venture, the intelligent cloud solutions and services provider XTECH. Thompson, who in his 12 years at LAN3 helped generate more than £50 million in sales, has established XTECH to bring a new wave of intelligent cloud solutions and services to mid-market organisations, backed by a total commitment to customer service. He said: “I loved the journey at LAN3 and am extremely proud of what I achieved working alongside some great people, but I felt it was time to move on to a new challenge. The technology world was changing; the way organisations were consuming IT was changing; and the way that technology buyers wanted to be sold to was changing. That’s why I founded XTECH, a new generation of IT reseller for the intelligent cloud era.” XTECH’s vendor portfolio includes next gen cybersecurity; unified communications as-a-service (UCaaS); cloud driven networking; cloud managed wireless and software defined networking; and emerging and disruptive technologies in storage, data management, disaster recovery, cloud optimisation, insider threat detection & response and an AI-driven safeguarding solution. XTECH is supporting its solutions and services with an ‘X-Alliance’ of accredited and validated experts providing engineer- as-a-service support. https://xtech-it.co.uk/ Self-healing for ERP systems SAP consultancy Absoft is improving the way it monitors clients’ ERP systems, with the launch of a next generation SAP Managed Service focused on automated monitoring, incident self-healing and self-service features. The enhanced service follows Absoft’s investment in Landscape Automation Platform software from Swiss software developer Avantra, which provides customised dashboards for real-time visibility of critical business processes, root-cause analysis of technical issues, fast resolution and less operational interruptions. Robert MacDonald, Absoft Innovation & Technology Manager, said: “Automated monitoring and self-healing of any technical incident means that a system failure will never be repeated. Automated repair of previous technical problems allows Absoft to offer fixed client costs, without the caveat of additional costs and time required for repeated issue resolution.” www.absoft.co.uk n Digital marketing agency Search Laboratory has become one of a handful of agencies in the UK to achieve Google International Growth Partner status less than a year after it was awarded official Sales Partner status across the full Google Marketing platform. The accreditation gives the agency exclusive access to advanced training, tools and resources. Search Laboratory has offices in Leeds, London and New York. www.searchlaboratory.com n B2B IT solutions provider Jigsaw24 has achieved Microsoft Gold Cloud Productivity Competency after meeting various performance thresholds and demonstrating an ability to build, integrate and deploy cloud solutions like Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. www.Jigsaw24.com n Private equity manager Maven Capital Partners has invested an undisclosed amount in Zing Dev Limited, an implementation partner for cloud communication platform Twilio. Zing, which was sprung out of CRM provider Prospect earlier this year, offers consultancy and managed services for Twilio’s cloud-based contact centre. The funding from Maven will enable it to capitalise on growth opportunities in the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market, which is forecaset to be worth $17.2 billion globally by 2023. n Newcastle-based MSP Atlas Cloud has been included on The Northern Tech Awards Top 100 League Table for the second year in a row, rising seven places to 19th, from 26th in 2019. The ranking by technology advisory and investment firm GP Bullhound lists the fastest growing tech companies in the North based on revenue growth between 2017 and 2019. www.atlascloud.co.uk n Jersey-based managed data services provider Calligo has made its second Irish acquisition in 2020 – and its seventh acquisition in three years – with the purchase of Itomic Voice & Data Ltd., a Cork and Dublin-based MSP specialising in delivering IT solutions and managed Microsoft 365 and Azure services. In January, it bought Dublin-based DC Networks. www.calligo.io n Jabra partner FITTS has been crowned Rookie of the Year at this year’s virtual Ingram Micro Cloud Summit: The Digital Sessions . The Rookie of the Year award recognises a new partner that has achieved outstanding growth in its customer base and revenue from cloud services offered via the Ingram Micro Cloud marketplace.The award comes as FITTS unveils new Voice Translation Software hard-wired to work with certified Jabra devices. http://fitts.io IN BRIEF Gary and Kate Parlett and the senior team of Answer Digital