AVI-SPL is aiming to build a $300m-revenue business in Europe, its local leader revealed as he claimed customers’ “eyes widen” when they learn of its enlarged AV, UC and contact centre capabilities.
The modern workplace solutions giant has in the last week established a dedicated Benelux entity and appointed a new General Manager in Switzerland.
The two-pronged move is part of a wider European expansion drive being led by former UK&I MD Michael Kellaway, who was in November handed a wider European brief.
“The market is definitely there for us”
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Kellaway said his mission is to implement a unified operating model across Europe, stressing that its in-country operations previously functioned as “individual islands”.
“We’ve grown off the back of customers into different locations, and that’s all well and good. But if you’re not delivering a high level of service, you’re not going to get repeat business,” he said.
“So the concept was, ‘hey listen, we want to take some of the goodness we’ve got in the UK, Germany, Spain and Ireland, and then roll that into a harmonised approach to how we win systems integration and services projects to build the region’.
“We need to make sure we’ve got a standardised, unified way to delight our customers.”
Globally, AVI-SPL – which welcomed in 26North Partners as its new private-equity majority owner last June – claims to be the world’s largest AV integrator with revenues “heading towards” $2bn.
Kellaway said the aim is to build a $300m-revenue business in Europe in the next five years.
“We have the plans in place to be able to achieve that. We have the people in place to be able to do that. The market is definitely there for us,” he said.
“This year is a year of bringing everything together and getting the basics put in place. But over the next five years, we want have a $300m business operating in Europe, if not bigger.”
“Their eyes have widened”
AVI-SPL’s new ‘One Europe’ operating model uses as its template its more mature UK business, which ranked 141st in Oxygen 250 2026 and turned over £37.9m in fiscal 2025.
Kellaway characterised the UK&I operation he led for five years as “very profitable”.
Having brought in new management including Kellaway at the turn of the decade, the UK business during the pandemic moved beyond its AV roots and into unified communications and collaboration (UCC).
This means AVI-SPL now competes not only with Kinly, Pro-AV and Diversified in the AV projects space but also the likes of NTT and BT in UCC and voice.
“We are a modern workplace solutions provider. We don’t just think of ourselves as AV systems integration, although that is our heritage and backbone,” Kellaway said.
“When you think about Microsoft licensing, that touches the meeting room, but it can also touch the contact centre, and it’s the same thing with Zoom.
“On a couple of occasions, we’ve gone to customers and had a contact centre-first conversation, and their eyes have widened and they’ve gone, ’sorry, you can look after contact centre and the meeting room environment’?
“They’ve been able to consolidate from two different vendors down to one to look after everything, and to then wrap manage services around that, which becomes a very powerful value proposition that we can take to our customers.”
“Extremely high bar”
AVI-SPL’s Swiss operation, which Kellaway said has traditionally supported the local needs of its global pharmaceutical customers, will be led by Natalia Landolt.
A new dedicated Benelux entity will now be headed up by Bart Donkersloot, meanwhile.
“We follow our customers, and those two sites are extremely important to us to be able to provide that local in-country support to our customers,” Kellaway said.
Kellaway said he is “surprised” and “really proud” of how the European unification drive is faring eight months after he got the idea approved by the US board.
“It’s allowed us to triple down on our investments into our talent that we have in the business,” he said.
“Because of the mission we’re on, it’s also enabled us to attract world-class talent to join our team to help us execute on this vision.”
AVI-SPL has “an extremely high bar” when it comes to standards, Kellaway said.
“The people that come into the business that can play at that level do extremely well – it’s a welcoming, open-arms kind of a place,” he said.
“If you can’t perform at that level, it can be tough because we move really fast.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
