POST-COVID CYBER TRENDS
FOCUS FEATURE Air IT is looking to the future
Becoming the UK’s number one managed service provider (MSP) for the SME market is the goal of Air IT – as it aims to follow a year of rapid growth with yet more expansion. The Sandiacre-based company was recognised as the
top firm in the East Midlands and ninth in Britain by the industry league table, 2020 Channel Futures MSP 501, in August. Since then, it has bought four companies – London-
based Netstar UK, Birmingham-based Mictotrading, Oxford- based Riverbank IT Management and Coventry-based Nexus GS. The strategy for both organic and inorganic geographical
growth was kickstarted by major backing from August Equity Partners LLP in February 2020, and since then the headcount has grown from 68 to 175. Each of the companies have enjoyed 20% revenue
growth over the past year and Air IT is also on course for a £20m turnover in the current financial year. CEO John Whitty, who joined a year ago as part of the
investment, says there are plans to expand into more regions in 2021 – with a projected workforce of more than 300 people by the end of the year.
‘What we’re trying to do is make sure there’s a one-stop-shop for SMEs by bringing together the managed IT services, cyber security and business intelligence’
“There will be some functions consolidated in Sandiacre, such as HR, marketing and product development, but our strategy is to grow a regional-local presence,” he says. “So what we do in the East Midlands, where we’re very
present locally in terms of our account management, sales and field service engineers, we plan to replicate into other regions. “In 2021, we’ll be continuing to grow both organically
and inorganically as we want to expand our reach. We’re now present in the East Midlands, West Midlands, London and Thames Valley, so we’re now looking towards the North East, Yorkshire, North West and maybe the South West. “The culture we have in Sandiacre is brilliant so we want to replicate that everywhere. The easiest way to do that is
to buy companies where the culture is very similar, and the four we’ve acquired have the same culture and attitude towards customer experience. “What we’re trying to do is make sure there’s a one-
stop-shop for SMEs by bringing together the managed IT services, cyber security and business intelligence, because it’s a very under-served market. “They don’t have many internal
IT skills so hopefully we can provide them with their outsourced advisory and implementation services to make sure they operate innovatively and securely.” Air IT, which was named
Nottinghamshire Business of the Year at the Chamber’s Business Awards in November, was busier than most companies during the initial Covid-19 lockdown, which resulted in service tickets trebling as customers moved to remote working en masse. It meant some long hours for
the team over a couple of months as it pulled together so clients could remain cyber-safe yet agile. “By working from
home, you’re increasing the attack vector as there’s more opportunities for people to hack into your systems or intercept traffic,” says John. “So we helped
businesses with their cyber security to protect their IT systems as much as we could.”
John Whitty
Air IT's headquarters in Sandiacre
Allied to the risk of personal networks is that of personal smartphones and tablets – an evolving trend within flexible working practices known as bring your own device, or BYOD. While companies can use virtual private networks (VPNs)
to ensure employees only access corporate documents and data via a secure remote server, cyber specialists remain wary. Lee explains: “Even with a VPN, if you connect your own
device from an unknown network, we’re effectively allowing unknown machines on to corporate networks. “Using personal devices isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as
long as the right systems and safeguards are in place, but particularly in the SME space there are systems being used by organisations in ways they weren’t planned for – and therefore haven’t got the right technologies or procedures in place to enable a secure BYOD culture.” To mitigate this, Air IT endorses defences such as mobile
device management, in which software is installed on the personal device to give IT administrators remote control of separate contained work profiles to secure company data, but not personal information. Companies can also offer corporate network access to employees on condition of a set of security measures, such as enforcing passcodes, two-factor authentication and malware protection.
business network February 2021 65
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