Colli outlines Leading Solutions’ future

Yesterday Victoria-based Leading Solutions and Perth-based ComputerCORP Limited merged to create a 430-strong reseller outfit with first year revenues expected to crack the $300 million mark.

Leading Solutions’ Frank Colli will lead the new entity and claimed the merger made sense on a number of levels.

“Our competitors will be the same as before, but our new size ensures they will seeing more of us,” Colli told CRN. “The companies out there include the likes of Commander and Data #3. It will be interesting to see how our competitors step up to the mark as the need for national partners grows.”

Colli said the formation of one company, under one branding will create more of a market presence.

“As the organisation has grown we have tried not to be too focused on one segment and our previous acquisitions have addressed the areas we didn’t play in. Our business is split across the education market, the SMB space, corporate enterprise, government and utilities, and with the merger we will be expanding further into mining and utilities. Different types of companies spend at different times during the year and you need a good spread [of areas to focus on] as it gives you a more balanced business.”

Colli said it will take six to 12 months to organise the integration of the firms’ back offices, with the firms looking at their systems and taking the best aspects from each moving forward.

“When you have good people you don’t want to lose them. We have no intent of losing staff, it is a case of looking at how we can better utilise those people,” he said. “The ComputerCORP name will be phased out and we will look at how customers would like to see it phased out. ComputerCORP is a respected name, but we need to be one organisation.”

Colli added all of the firms’ major vendors have said the merger is a fantastic result and vendors can now put their resources to one company rather than splitting them between two organisations.