2013 Fast50: Who they sold to

Vertical champions

Get big or get niche, say the business advisers. This principle applies to some of the members of the 2013 CRN Fast50, some of which carved out a dominant role within a small section of vertical market sectors.

Fast50 companies generated a quarter of a billion dollars last financial year, quite a tidy little marketplace in its own right. Within the Fast50 universe, a handful of companies emerged as vertical champions capturing significant and sometimes majority market share of a sector. These are the companies that have grabbed hold of a niche and made it their own.

The standout vertical champion for 2013 was PCS Australia (14th), which held Fast50 market leadership in five verticals. The company was the clear leader in healthcare, retail & online retail, small office, entertainment & media and education. In this final category, PCSA took the lion’s share of the treasure at 55 percent Fast50 market share.

Only one company dominated its Fast50 rivals to a greater degree in any vertical. CTO Group (5th) captured 76 percent of the Fast50 defence market. However, defence is a much smaller market than any of the verticals where PCSA leads and also much less contested. Only two other Fast50 companies, SecureWare (6th) and Touchpoint (17th), also sold into defence, which was also the smallest vertical by revenue for Fast50 companies.

Both InfoReady (11th) – which focused on engineering, insurance and real estate – and Dataweave  (12th) – which aimed at legal, government and professional services – each claimed Fast50 market share leadership in three verticals and in all cases that share exceeded 20 percent.

Other Fast50 companies to dominate their niches included Bulletproof Networks (16th) which led in mining, Advent One (44th), which has leadership positions in transport and manufacturing, Katana1 (2nd), which came first in telecom and financial services, Kiandra (28th) which led the HR/business category and Sable Systems (19th), which held the top share in the construction market.