Vendors and distributors
Every year, we ask the CRN Fast50 entrants to rate their vendors. But how should we quantify vendors? A ranking by revenue might seem appropriate, but that’s an inexact science, because specialist providers skew the results.
RXP Services (No.31) was the only one to select Tableau or ServiceNow, but those two vendors represent more than $30 million of revenue. MSC Mobility (No.29) was the only entrant to choose AirWatch or MobileIron, but it still adds up to over $10 million of sales. So, we broke down the data by both revenue, and by popularity – the vendors with the greatest numbers of partners among the CRN Fast50.
Once again, there were a select few vendors driving the lion’s share of revenue. Microsoft was again on top as both the most popular vendor as well as the biggest revenue driver. Fast50 companies told us that the software giant was responsible for well over $100 million of total sales, and the vendor has more than 20 partners in the group.
Types of Microsoft work were broad, from major cloud and software migrations from Kloud (No.25), which has deployed 1.5 million seats of Office 365 since being established in 2010, to Insync Technology (No.17), whose claims to fame in the past year included a 6,000-seat Skype for Business rollout for the University of Tasmania, to Mexia (No.12), which is carving out a foothold as an internet-of-things provider to watch.
HP was in second place, with almost $50 million of reported revenue via 14 partners, followed by Cisco, which made up at least $30 million of revenue among the CRN Fast50. Other popular vendors include Dell and Lenovo.
Dicker Data, Ingram Micro and Synnex were selected as the three most important distributors. This year’s CRN Fast50 Leader award winner, Empired, told us that Dicker Data was its main distributor for major vendors Microsoft and Cisco, representing more than $50m of work.
Services are the most significant wedge of CRN Fast50 revenue. Every year the other two categories – hardware and software – become a smaller slice of business. Services represented more than 70 percent of this year’s total turnover, or $465.8 million. Hardware was worth $119.5 million (18 percent) and software generated $79.7 million (12 percent).
The change may partly reflect a shift in how companies are doing business, away from transactional reselling and towards a managed services approach. But project services were the dominant form. More than a quarter of the revenue in this year’s CRN Fast50 came from ‘consulting and/or professional services’, a massive $173.1 million. Second place was managed services, at 13.64 percent ($90.7 million). Combined, they represent 39.67 percent of the gross revenue. (Coincidentally, in 2014, the combination of professional and managed services made up 40.6 percent of the total turnover – barely one point different.)
Across the rest of the product and services categories, software development took out third position, a huge rise from previous years. It helped that this year’s group included major software houses such as Ignia (No.22), Outware Mobile (No.20), Myriad IT (No.47), Empired (No.13) and RXP Services (No.31).
The biggest trend was actually a flattening of products and services, with most categories making up around 5 percent of the total turnover. It shows the diverse offerings available from CRN Fast50 companies, where traditional channel offerings such as compute, networking and storage are complemented by the likes of application integration and infrastructure-as-a-service.
An odd one out was information security, which, at $18 million, barely nudged the dial for Fast50 revenues. It’s a surprise, given that breaches filled the headlines all year, and major vendors ratcheted up their security focus. Perhaps that’s an oversight by the resellers, given that the four companies with the greatest focus on security are all in the top 10: Sliced Tech (No.1), Cirrus Networks (No.3), Cloud Plus (No.6) and Enosys Solutions (No.7).
Other niche areas included application integration – the rarest skillset, with only five IT providers – along with software development and printing.
The vast majority of sales among the CRN Fast50 went into midmarket (33.47 percent) and enterprise (35.05 percent) customers.
CRN FAST50 SPECIAL AWARDS
All Star Blue Apache - sponsored by Fujitsu
As the only company to have appeared in the CRN Fast50 every year, Melbourne’s Blue Apache rightly deserved special recognition this year. When it won its first Fast50 berth in 2009, the reseller was turning over $3 million; this year it turned over almost $13 million.
Icon Award Data#3 - sponsored by Synnex
We asked every company who entered the CRN Fast50 to select one company they most admire, choosing from a shortlist of 10. Brisbane powerhouse Data#3 is a rightful winner of this year’s CRN Fast50 Icon Award. It is only the second winner of this prestigious category, which was first launched last year. (Brennan IT won in 2014, and hence was not eligible this year.)
The other nine nominees were: ASI Solutions, BigAir Group, Empired, Ethan Group, Harbour IT, Somerville Group, Southern Cross Computer Systems, and Thomas Duryea.
Leader Award Empired - sponsored by Distribution Central
It’s no secret that growth gets harder as a company gets bigger. That’s why we created the CRN Fast50 Leader Award, to recognise the company that combines scale and speed. The Perth-headquartered business made a huge splash over the course of 2015, bringing together three acquisitions – OBS, eSavvy and Intergen Australia – under the Empired banner.
Editor’s Award VMtech - sponsored by Huawei
With a string of successes, including global and local awards from NetApp, VMtech hit the headlines for all the right reasons. It signed new vendors, chalked up big client wins and expanded in Melbourne. VMtech generated an impressive $400,000 per head and soared past $20 million annual turnover. The converged systems expert has a cloud business but CTO Richard Clark says data centre sales are growing even faster. There’s plenty of life left in the infrastructure channel.
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