ALEX TUPMAN INTERVIEW
CONTINUED
End-to-end proposition The rationale behind the
acquisitions and rebranding is clear. “We believe the market in the SME space is shifting and businesses are looking increasingly to outsource as much of their digital environment as possible to one supplier, rather than multiple companies,” Alex adds. “In the past, the large enterprise/multinational businesses would commonly
outsource all of their IT, whereas smaller organisations would deal with multiple suppliers, We are now seeing a complete shift: larger organisations are dealing with multiple suppliers as they are breaking up their digital services into towers, whereas smaller organisations want to concentrate on what they do best and if they have one supplier to deal with across LAN, WAN, IT, comms and security it enables them to run their business more efficiently and effectively.” Alex adds that it makes sense, as all these technologies are interconnected. “If your printer isn’t working, is it the printer company’s fault or the IT company because their LAN has gone down and they can’t access the wireless device? If you have one number to call, or one ticket to put on a portal, it is that organisation that will fix it whether it is the LAN, the device, the connectivity or whatever, it is their responsibility to ensure that the lights stay on across the digital workspace.” Rebranding As the businesses were being integrated, it was decided to rebrand under one new name. “We saw the rebrand as an opportunity,” says Alex. “You had the three existing brands each with 20 years and more of being known individually as a document solutions provider, IT player and a comms player, but we are not one of those anymore, we are all of those and we felt the business deserved a new brand.” Alex admits that coming up with a new brand name was quite tricky: “A lot of domain names had gone but we managed to get the .com and co.uk etc for Espria. We chose this name as we wanted the name to be something that couldn’t be confused with something else. There is nothing in the tech space anywhere close to the name, so if you Google us, you go straight to our website. If you rebrand, you must make sure you stand out and we do that with Espria.” Along with the rebrand has come the integration of the three businesses. “We got onto the
integration straightaway after the conclusion of the eacs deal and the operational side of the business is now properly integrated – the service desk, service delivery and sales are fully integrated with specialists in their sector. If a customer wants to place a ticket for any part of the service, they can go to the myEspria portal and place a ticket or make a phone call that goes to a single service desk.” Likewise, the sales team has been integrated and given training to sell on all aspects of the business. “Each salesperson can talk about the entire digital workspace, not just about IT or comms, for instance.” The integration process will culminate in the three trading entities going into one on January 1, 2023. “We have a new ERP system that goes live on that day too. Everything else, CRM, ticketing, monitoring etc are already fully integrated,” says Alex, “Our customers are already dealing with one brand but becoming one trading entity will make it much simpler for our customers to work with us from a contractual and commercial point of view. Same with suppliers, it will make things more efficient. “It’s also a good opportunity to get out into the market and talk about Espria and who we are and what we do, and that is what we are doing.” Positive response The response to the launch of the Espria brand has been overwhelmingly positive from existing customers, Alex adds. “We had already cross-sold to several customers so rather than dealing with three companies contractually, they will be dealing with one, so they see that as plus. “In the market Espria is a fresh, new brand and we are going out with a proposition that bundles the three services together and offers a differentiator in the market, because while there
“
If your printer
isn’t working, is it the printer company’s fault or the IT company
because their LAN has gone down and they
can’t access the wireless device?
”
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