Since connecting at Ingram Micro’s Managed Service Provider University bootcamp last year, Austen Clark and Mark Davies have been working towards a partnership based on improving end users’ experience and speeding their adoption of cloud technologies while developing new solutions for rugged sectors requiring specialist advice.
Aberdeenshire based Clark IT has expertise in providing IT services with a localised focus to businesses in both the upstream and downstream oil and gas sector, with large workforces dispersed across Europe. However, as managing director Austen Clark comments, finding the ideal solution to suit this industry has been a challenge: “I was struggling to supply a cloud-based communications solution that would satisfy my customers’ requirements for scalability, controllability and health and safety compliance in industries that are under increasing pressure from legislation.
“Cobweb, and particularly Mark Davies, has been great to work with. Their expertise, together with the support of Ingram Micro and my fellow VTN partners has helped my organization develop its managed service proposition and recommend an integrated portfolio of cloud solutions.”
In response, Mark Davies, director of Cobweb Solutions which is based in Hampshire, said: “Working with Austen has provided a great opportunity for our business to think more clearly about vertical markets instead of providing services that target a much broader market.
“Leveraging Austen’s knowledge of demanding sectors which rely heavily on products that meet stringent health and safety requirements and also expect specific, locally delivered IT services has helped us develop a clearer, more focused value-based message between us. Together, I’m certain we can raise the value of locally provided managed IT services that take the fear of the cloud away from the end user and help them adopt new working practices with confidence, allowing them to focus their energy and efforts on growing their businesses.”
Brent McCarty, managing director and vice president of Ingram Micro UK&I, is delighted by the progress Austen and Mark have made with their partnership: “It’s wonderful to see ‘the VTN effect’ in action. The enthusiasm, passion and hunger for business growth through collaboration that Cobweb and Clark possess is great validation for the existence of VTN in the UK.
“The business development support VTN gives members really differentiates Ingram Micro as a distribution partner. At the most recent chapter meeting we were delighted to provide one-to-one sessions and benchmarking workshops for members with global service leadership guru, Paul Dippell who flew in from the US to spend time with our UK resellers and help them identify growth opportunities in their businesses. I’m confident that, in the hands of its members, our vendor partners and industry supporters the UK chapter of VTN has a bright future,” McCarty concluded.