industry news
STYLES & WOOD ACQUIRES KEYSOURCE
Styles & Wood Group has advanced its successful diversification strategy with the acquisition of Keysource – a provider of specialist technical services to the data centre and critical facilities sectors .
The acquisition will enable Styles & Wood to expand into the growing data centre services market and provide new opportunities to broaden work streams with both existing and new customers .
The Group has acquired the entire issued share capital of Sussex based Keysource for an initial consideration of £ 2m in cash and shares , with up to £ 5m payable as deferred consideration .
Based in Horsham , Sussex , and incorporated in 1998 , Keysource specialises in delivering engineering and technology services for business critical environments and employs in excess of 60 staff . The Keysource executive management team , which will remain with the business , has over 50 years ’ experience working with some of the world ’ s leading organisations across a diverse range of sectors , including finance and banking , education and industrial . Keysource will continue to operate under its existing brand and the deal has been designed to provide it with a stronger operational and financial platform to support its ambitious growth plans moving forward .
Inaugural Datacloud Asia Award categories to showcase innovation , bring recognition to new sectors in data centre and cloud
In what promises to be a bumper year for data centre and cloud innovation , the Datacloud Asia Awards has been announced to take place in Singapore on the evening of 23rd February .
As the bellwether for the industry , Datacloud Awards are globally relevant , and seek to recognise genuine innovation and the continuing evolution of the sector and the transformations underway and have now been extended to Asia .
All categories are open to enterprise owned or third party facilities with two unique awards for community impact that will recognise the positive contribution that both data centre and cloud make for social benefit .
The awards will bring new recognition for data centre location . Many agencies across Asia compete not only with each other , but also internationally and the award will offer a first in denoting industry distinction .
Philip Low , chairman of BroadGroup , commented , ‘ The industry has truly come of age . The Datacloud Asia Awards , as the premier pan-regional event , will uniquely reflect its importance and the shift to embrace new technologies and services through IoT . Innovation will be the guideline in judging this year ’ s nominations .’
Maintaining service levels remains a challenge , according to Pulsant research
Pulsant has announced the findings of its latest channel research in which 97 per cent of those surveyed said they experienced growth in the last 12 months .
The research , conducted by independent B2B survey company Censuswide for Pulsant , showed that growth in the market could be attributed to multiple factors , including new talent ( 63 per cent ), incorporating SaaS or cloud into their product offering ( 47 per cent ), working with a cloud services provider , and marketing initiatives ( 37 per cent ).
However , those organisations that were transitioning to SaaS or cloud providers still came up against a number of obstacles – with service delivery the most cited ( 33 per cent ), followed by adjusting to a new business model ( 20 per cent ) and difficulty in finding the right cloud provider ( 12 per cent ).
The survey also demonstrated the ways in which channel businesses are trying to remain competitive . Almost two thirds of respondents said they were working with partners with complementary solutions in order to stand out , while 60 per cent said they were adopting new solutions like cloud .
Chris Roberts , channel director at Pulsant , said , ‘ There ’ s absolutely no doubt that cloud has changed the way that we do business and is becoming a dominant market force . The channel has been transitioning over the past few years , adapting to the changes that cloud has brought , so this level of positive growth reflected in the research is a powerful indication of the strength of the market .’
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