SOUTHERN TECH 100
TM number 21: Vohkus Cloud busting the Vohkus way
Sometimes we should all just sit back and watch the clouds go by. For some, it’s more than mere sky gazing. It can get you a very nice partnership with Vodafone. Alison Tilley found out how
“Cloud has been an interesting journey for the past 30 years,” says Loay Lawrence, commercial and communications director at Hampshire- based IT solutions firm Vohkus. “It started off as email, with lots of different iterations since but I’d say the buzz came in about five years ago when everything was going cloud and everybody jumped on the bandwagon.”
Vohkus, though, resisted the jump. It chose to pause.
“We stood back and observed. Solutions came out and solutions came out ... and it took us 18 months to come to market with the right proposition, looking at everything out there. We now have a whole host of cloud services.”
That 18 months of thinking time led to the new partnership between Vodafone and Vohkus’s spirited workforce across five UK sales offices.
Lawrence prizes team spirit highly, along with the correct level of delegation. His pet hate is corporate systems which obstruct communication.
“There are huge organisations where you’re delving through a quagmire of molasses and syrup. It’s why our relationship is so important with suppliers – to keep our customers away from that.”
He sees it as an issue of fine-tuned training, trust and delegation; one he takes seriously enough to bet his leisure time on.
“If my deputy can’t make a decision in my absence because I haven’t empowered him, that’s my problem – therefore I expect to be interrupted on holiday. But if I empower that person to make a decision, I won’t be interrupted on holiday.”
That said, Lawrence also has a thing for disruption. He thinks it’s vital.
“If you’re depending on doing what you did two or three years ago it’s not going to wash; you’ve got to develop; you’ve got to reinvent yourself, you’ve got to move with the times.”
And disruptive technology is, he believes, the engine.
“Mobiles phones were disrupted by smart phones, Uber disrupted the taxi business and Air B&B is disrupting the hotel business.”
Closer to home, at Vohkus’s Segensworth HQ, Lawrence can call up one of its business partners as a striking example.
“Years ago, when HP were disrupting the print and the photocopier market by offering a management service which was an annuity stream revenue – where you actually put print in on a cost-by-copy – we were one of the first people to join that scheme. We helped develop that market in the UK.
“We adopted that and went to market and we’re now one of the key partners for HP in the management services market.”
Having an eye for the disruptive has helped Vohkus grow, across 15 years, to a staff of 150 and a turnover of £60 million. Its client list also includes HP Enterprise, Cisco and Microsoft. The Vohkus model of sophisticated consultative sales, problem solving, supply and support, is carefully instilled in all new recruits with a month or more of training
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businessmag.co.uk THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH COAST – NOVEMBER 2016
at the Segensworth office. This is where the business was born and its core values are rooted in the area.
The company is ambitious, though, and geography irrelevant to much of its growth.
“We’ve got a lot of aspirations,” says Lawrence. “We want to be a half billion pound company. We’ve got plans. We’ve just launched an EMI (Enterprise Management Incentives) scheme – it builds up the family ethos.”
Family is more than Vohkus’s 150 staff. Lawrence sees it all very much as a community – and that community’s success is his biggest satisfaction.
“I’m dealing with the larger vendors and when we close deals in conjunction with our suppliers, because we’ve got a great relationship with them they help us; we help them and we’ve opened up new opportunities – I find that very exciting.”
Southampton headquaters
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