The Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 winners: What makes these companies special?

by LDeX Blogger | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog

The Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 winners: What makes these companies special?

Last Thursday, tech visionaries from across the UK gathered to celebrate the growing success of their respective organisations, both large and small, in the Montcalm Hotel for the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 awards. It ranks the 50 fastest growing companies in the UK based on their revenue growth rate over the last five years. Having guided companies through the harshest economic recession to date, it was remarkably evident that these leaders could not have succeeded without bold and flexible strategies, talented people that enable growth and having access to suitable sources of finance.

At this year’s awards, the winning company, Switch Concepts achieved a remarkable five year growth rate of 10,477%*, leading the pack in showing businesses how to succeed in a difficult tumultuous financial climate. The average five year growth rate across all the companies reported on the night was 1,695%*.

These numbers emphasise the importance of having a Chief Executive Officer who has a clear vision for the organisation and a team behind him/her which is focused on driving the company to succeed through hard work. Most importantly, having a CEO who has the ability to foresee demand, knows which geographical markets to target and who also has the capacity to build a strong target customer base is key to organisational success as it inspires staff to do likewise and build connections (formal and informal) in the industry.

Bold and flexible business strategy

According to the Deloitte CEO Fast 50 entrants survey, 60%* of respondents claimed that a sound business strategy was the primary factor in determining a company’s success. This includes having the ambition to succeed and the foresight about knowing where to play, how to win and when to tailor strategies when needed. 56%* of CEOs at this year’s Fast 50 had businesses with headquarters in London, which shows that there is a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs, looking to set up a business in the technological hub of Europe. However, there was also substantial growth from regions in the UK such as Scotland (12%)* and the South East (10%)* with businesses such as Switch Concepts and Skyscanner doing particularly well.

Over the next three years, it is expected that the biggest opportunities for growth will be Western Europe (50%)* and North America (69%). In the UK, this growth is not exclusive to any one sector, with 52% of growth expected in Software, 30%* expected in Internet, 8%* in Telecoms, 4%* in electronics, 4%* Media and Entertainment and 2%* in Green Tech.

How LDeX Group has succeeded

Having sold off a successful Manchester based datacentre to Telecity Group PLC in 2011, the founders of LDeX Group had a clear vision that they would like to replicate the success of the company and become a national datacentre operator based in London with an acute focus on customer service and operational excellence. The company has since gone from strength to strength as a colocation and network connectivity operator, having acquired managed communication services provider, Ping Networks, in 2013.

In recent years, the company has grown at an exponential rate of 897% and are a leading name in their sector. Rob Garbutt (CEO), Paddy Doyle (COO) and Simon Chamberlain (CTO) attribute growth to having a clear vision as to how to succeed in the market and develop the business going forward. It is also highly focused on taking care of customers and employing high calibre staff, which possess a mixture of both technical and commercial expertise, who have a keen desire to learn and be part of the company’s success. At this year’s awards, the company was ranked 31^st fastest growing company overall and 12^th in the UK Internet sector.*

Talented people

In today’s fast paced technological environment, it’s not only about finding the technical talent who are able to perform the day to day technical tasks, it is about sourcing people who can be developed and have the skillset to translate the worlds of business and technology to stakeholder groups. People want to be able to feel that they are making a difference in their role and add value to the organisation, giving them ample opportunity for career progression.

Inspiring success and knowing what makes people tick

The key to being a successful leader is showing others in the organisation how to succeed in their role and how to get to where they want to be in their career. It was clear to see at the Deloitte UK Fast 50 awards that there were many inspirational leaders in the room, with a clear focus on attracting the right staff and in turn have promoted them through the ranks to career success.

Each of the CEOs started off their businesses with a certain amount of capital, staff and resources. Through determination, hard work and strong leadership skills, these companies have grown at an exponential rate over the past five years. This has been as a result of recruiting key staff that have grown with the business and built relationships with stakeholders and customers. It is these people who have created exciting new solutions and markets for businesses.

Fostering innovation

Employees want to be able to feel that the organisation fosters a culture of innovation enabling staff to carry out their jobs and report back with progress updates. These Fast 50 leaders understand people’s motivations and help them get to where they want to be in their career through additional training (external or internal) and/or giving them challenging and rewarding tasks where they can prove their success in the organisation.

Traditionally in the technology SME sector, there has been a shortfall in skills with CEOs identifying a lack of new talent with relevant skills as the greatest threat to growth over the short and longer term (19% in the next 12 months, 24% in five to ten years’ time)*. However, with programmes such as STEM amongst others in place, this should hopefully be addressed in the future and help organisations in finding the right people with the right skills through adequate awareness of how these jobs can make a difference to the economy.

The Deloitte Fast 50 CEO survey reflected this with 41% of CEOs identifying employee talent, having a culture of innovation (41%)* and strong leadership skills (26%)* as the key factors of success. What is fantastic to see is that all of these companies are based in the UK.

Suitable Sources of Finance

The Fast 50 companies had a clear understanding of the financing options which were available to them and how they could ensure cash flow and continued revenue growth over the next 12 months. Similar to LDeX Group and detailed in the Deloitte survey, eight of the top 10 would classify themselves as owner funded. Other companies are expecting to access venture capital or private equity funding in the next 12 months.*

Over the past 17 years, the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 programme has been dedicated to recognising those businesses that have defied the odds and entered a phase of vigorous and sustained growth over the last five years.

Final thoughts

Start-ups in the United Kingdom should look to emulate the success of the Fast 50 companies by looking into their common characteristics as outlined above. Recruiting the right people to take your business forward, sourcing the capital to make it happen, looking after your customers as your business grows and having the right leaders on board will hopefully enable your business to be a Deloitte Fast 50 winner in the coming years.

As a manager at LDeX Group, it was my absolute pleasure to be in the presence of these technology leaders on Thursday and I’m looking forward to seeing these organisations thrive and succeed going forward.

Source: *Deloitte LLP – Defining fast tech growth – Fast 50 community – CEO survey

Factors to consider when choosing a data centre provider

by LDeX Blogger | Nov 19, 2014 | Blog

Simon Chamberlain speaks to the team at LDeX Group about the factors which he considers imperative when looking to choose a data centre provider.

If someone were to recommend a data centre, what would their recommendation be based on?

Most probably on whether the DC is “Tier 3″, well connected, secure, has reliable and sufficient power, and is in a suitable location. All are important considerations, however the most usual reason for choosing a DC comes down to price. As long as the usual boxes are ticked, everything comes down to which provider can provide the most cost effective solution – which is of course is perfectly reasonable.

As someone who has worked extensively with data centres over the past 15 years or so, I have found that the one thing that really differentiates them is service. Some data centres do not match up to expectations once the all important contract is signed. When it comes to getting problems resolved or connectivity provisioned they just don’t want to know or will charge you through the nose.

There are several scenarios where service becomes absolutely critical. Imagine you have a colocated server that suddenly goes offline. In no uncertain terms, this is clearly a panic stricken situation. Customers start calling, and there is severe time pressure to get to the bottom of what is going on. You might have invested in several layers of resilience and probably promised 100% uptime to your customers, but if you get hit by a DDoS attack or hacked by a disgruntled employee, then you’re a dead duck. At these critical times you need help and quickly. This is when the DC service centre really makes a difference. Can your DC really get someone in front of your cab in five minutes with a laptop and a remote login? Do they have a 24/7 NOC that can troubleshoot any connectivity issues at any complexity quickly and efficiently? Or is it going to be quicker for you to drive to the DC and try and figure out things for yourself?

You maybe thinking that critical situations are (thankfully) rare and your business can survive the odd outage. Service isn’t just about critical situations though – it’s about the day to day running of your colocation. It’s about upgrading kit, getting patch leads installed, IP transit installed. Can you send hardware to your data centre that is securely stored and then installed by a trained technician? Is there a technician who is constantly keeping you in the loop at all times? Can you get a cross-connect installed within an hour of requesting it? Does your DC provide connectivity solutions where the NOC will contact you if there is a problem, before you know one exists?

Does such a data centre even exist? Well yes it does, and it’s called LDeX . Of course, as a director of LDeX you would expect me to say that, but I can honestly say that LDeX really does deliver on this front. If you don’t believe me, talk to our customers. Having conducted a recent customer satisfaction survey, it revealed that our average score for service is 9/10, and this is the biggest reason we have such a low churn rate. It’s part of our ethos and why we are successful in a competitive market.

That’s all very well and good I hear you say, but surely most data centres have all that covered. Well unfortunately they don’t. Typically cross connects in our competitor data centres take between five and ten days to deliver. Some DCs don’t even provide remote hands, or if they do, the skill level is often questionable. Some are bogged down in process and red tape. Getting permission to do anything can take days or even weeks to sort out. This is why is it crucial to work with a data centre that provides efficient and impeccable services levels at any time of day. The really great news is LDeX also ticks all the regular boxes and is one of the best priced colo providers on the market supplemented with superior connectivity from top tier connectivity providers backed up by an onsite 24/7 NOC.

There is a really great feeling about having happy customers and that’s why we pride ourselves on our customer service.

To find out more about LDeX see www.ldexgroup.co.uk , or get in touch on +44 (0)207 183 3959.

LDeX Tech 60: 60 second interview with Dominic Campanaro, MD of Switch Communications

by LDeX Blogger | Oct 17, 2014 | Blog

Dominic Campanaro, Managing Director of data services provider Switch Communications, speaks to the team at LDeX about his background in tech, how his company managed to become the success that it is today and his predictions about what forces IT departments will need to address in 2025.

Could you give us an insight into your background and how you got into the technology industry?

Having graduated with an honours degree in aeronautical engineering from London’s City University, I quickly realised that a career in engineering was not for me and ended up ‘falling’ into sales. Following a successful career which took me from selling photocopiers to telecoms equipment, I took the bold step of setting up my own business and Switch Communications was subsequently born.

Tell us about the company you work for?

We recognised that technology and the resources required to deliver efficient systems were changing radically and have been pioneers in developing systems and networks to help our customers improve their businesses through the use of technology. Our clients needed a trusted partner to deliver integrated managed services in the most efficient way possible. This resulted in the integration of our voice and data service capabilities and the eventual investment in the creation of a market leading core network with our very own cloud based IP platform.

In 2012, we added a cloud based hosted voice solution which increased our reach in the VoIP market. With the addition of this solution, we expanded our executive team and have gone on to become a leading name in the industry.

Switch Communications was established over two decades ago as the main reseller of Alcatel equipment. Between 1996 and 1997, the company began to expand with two asset purchases of system customer bases from Alcatel. Following this, the company acquired R&R Communications which doubled our revenues and extended Switch’s reach into Wales.

In 2003, we developed Switch IP which enabled us to enhance our offering with the delivery of WAN, VoIP and network connectivity solutions. In 2007, Switch acquired Leycom Communications which strengthened our presence in Wales and enabled us to become one of the market leaders in the region.

Apart from your own company, which other organisation do you admire the most?

I would have to say Exponential-e as it is a company which is quite similar to Switch Communications. With a core vision that IP and Ethernet is the future of networking and telecoms, the company has gone on to be extremely successful through organic growth, which is extremely rare in the industry.

What do you see as the biggest drivers of change in the datacentre market?

Application management and the explosion of end user demand for tailored services, specific to business and end user client need, have driven a massive expansion in the requirement for centralised compute resource. Whether this is private and hosted on a business’s own infrastructure or publicly sourced from a cloud software provider the reliance on distributed information sources is increasingly a major benefit and a risk to business. Interconnection between service providers and the method of delivery to the applications end user has resulted in the need to review the efficiency of the IT infrastructure supporting all the interwoven applications.

Datacentres are at the core of this change and are the most efficient method of delivering services to office sites and remote workers. As the use of applications continues to grow at an exponential rate, security concerns will be heightened making data privacy a primary concern. Datacentres are critical to this growth and the low latency performance, security and cost efficiency which they deliver are critical to the efficient use of IT services.

Where do you see the industry being in 2025?

Up in the clouds?

Seriously – probably more mobility in terms of personalised devices

With the number of devices connected to the internet expected to increase exponentially to 40 billion in 2020, IT departments need to ensure that they will have accurately forecasted the capacity and bandwidth required for hosting the growing number of applications in their datacentres. Employees expect seamless access to necessary software and enterprise resources from a variety of devices, regardless of who owns them.

As it stands, the much talked about Internet of Things has caused a frenzy amongst colocation providers with regards to the security requirements which will need to be in place to cope with the enormous amount of data which will be transferred between devices without human intervention.

More hosted solutions

I predict that more hosted solutions will be available to enterprise customers in 2025, helping them to achieve their business goals. As well as this, the market for VoIP and remote desktop will become more competitive with more vendors looking to increase their market share. Competition and price pressure will create innovation. Anyone who stands still and doesn’t listen to consumer demand will end up delivering a me-too product. We are innovators and are constantly adapting to deliver the services our customers need as their businesses evolve. Many of our deployments are bespoke and we take pleasure in delivering value specific to their needs.

Wi-Fi to be more readily available and increased take-up of cloud use in the SME market

WiFi services will be more widely available and there will be an increase in the take-up of cloud solutions, particularly from smaller vendors in the SME market.

What is the greatest challenge for an IT department today?

Keeping abreast with technological advancements

With new technologies being developed by the day, IT departments will need to ensure that staff are trained in line with these system advancements to keep up with customer expectations and requirements. As it stands, technological advancements are outpacing existing skillsets and expertise in the IT department. This is an ongoing issue which needs to be addressed. Interdependence of applications, many of them cloud based, will create increased security risks for business.

More and more companies will outsource their hosting requirements to cloud and colocation providers, which will enable in-house IT departments to focus on aligning the company’s IT strategy to the corporate vision.

With a growing mobile workforce, the company will need to continue to have processes in place to mitigate against network attacks and data loss.

Increasingly legislation and corporate responsibility for data management will increase pressure on the corporate IT department to outsource technical services to a trusted partner so that they can focus on the efficiency of their core business.