Russell Horton chats to Comms Dealer about his plans for FluidOne following our investment in February.
Speaking about why he joined the business, Russell says that he realised that there was a great platform in FluidOne for a buy-and-build strategy in a fast growth marketplace driven by digital transformation, supplier fragmentation and convergence. He recognised that FluidOne had a strong network aggregator product set and an equally strong customer base with diverse routes to market, but that it was under represented in the channel, representing a fantastic opportunity to build on the connectivity platform.
“These gaps presented a fantastic opportunity and underpinned my strategy to build on the connectivity platform and acquire quality businesses with specialisms in OTT connectivity related services including UC, IT cloud managed services, security and the IoT”
In developing the strategy and going to market for investment, Russell met with a number of private equity firms and recognised Livingbridge’s expertise in the comms sector, as well as the readiness for open and frank conversations.
“Livingbridge’s team supports investments to exceed growth plans, both organically and via acquisitions. We have already begun engagement on an improved strategy for digital marketing, increased support for finding acquisition targets, and have greater funding fire power to acquire larger businesses than I had originally planned.”
Russell goes on to talk about the biggest opportunities for FluidOne going forwards, in the immediate future and over the next five years. The business is already looking for quality reseller businesses with reputations for high client service who would benefit from leveraging FluidOne’s network aggregation platform, with FluidOne now having the ambition and firepower to more than double the size of the business in the first two years through M&A.
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