Softcat’s CEO told us earlier this week that Microsoft’s LSP partners have had to “go through the stages of grief” on the EA incentive changes that kicked in on 1 January 2025. How would you assess the impact on BTG’s business?
Similarly to Softcat, we get advance warning of these changes coming down the line. So we were well informed, we accommodate it, we work with it, and we’re much, much more than just the transaction. We’re doing lots of other discrete activities. Equally, the other non-Microsoft vendors are just as important to us. The Microsoft business is the ticket to go and sell everything else that we want to talk to our customers about.
You estimated in your results that you now have 4% market share in the UK and Ireland. What’s that based on?
We take away the high-level, big systems integrator market – that’s not where we operate. We take it back to who are the key software vendors we represent – there are over 1,000 of them. That’s the addressable market we see.
You’re forecasting high single-digit operating profit growth for your fiscal 2026, which is well down on the 17.1% growth you achieved in 2025. What’s the reason for that?
We’ve got the headwind of the NI impact, which if you wanted to get down to the detail will be around £1.6m to BTG. Then of course we’ve got the continued investments that are going on into systems and other areas. So that’s why when we see a slight disconnect on the outlook where we talk about double-digit gross profit growth.
Interview continues on final page…
