Cameo says it has successfully novated around 90% of Agilitas’ channel partner customers – and taken on 12 of its fallen rival’s staff.
Channel services stalwart Agilitas in October laid off 72 of its 80 employees as it went into administration.
The Perwyn-backed outfit stumbled to a £41.9m net loss in its fiscal 2024 after losing work with its biggest customer the previous year.
Rival Cameo was quick to step in to acquire the rights to novate its customers.
Two months on, Cameo has successfully lured around 100 of Agilitas’ 110 channel partner customers to its fold, Commercial Director Rob Darby confirmed.
“Those that didn’t novate did it for other reasons, not necessarily because they didn’t want to novate – they maybe took the opportunity to take some services in house,” he said.
Cameo has also taken on 12 former Agilitas staff, including former Marketing Director Helen Boggs, Darby confirmed.
These and other hires have pushed the Leicestershire-based outfit’s headcount to 185, up from 130-140 before Agilitas’ collapse and just 40 three years ago.
“More than a sales engine”
Cameo strive to mark itself from other channel services providers by having its own engineers and logistics (see here for more).
“Our field force now is in my opinion undoubtedly the largest of any channel service provider,” Darby said.
“We’ve got over 90 of our own directly employed field engineers now, and off the back of the Agilitas novations we recently TUPED in a number of engineers from one of the partners that was net new to Cameo.”
Cameo has also just taken on its largest logistics site in Hinckley, propelling its total warehouse space to 35,000 sq ft, Darby claimed.
A European logistics hub in the Netherlands is set to go live in January, with a US one planned for 2026.
“Some channel service organisations are essentially run out of offices,” Darby said.
“When you add in the fact that we’ve got our own directly employed field force and now over 35,000 sq ft of logistics capability spanning not just the UK and Ireland but now into Europe, we’re more than a sales engine – we’re actually a true infrastructure services provider.”
“Best-kept secret”
How easy was it to lure Agilitas’ customers into the Cameo fold?
They were a mix of those wanting to “take the path of least resistance” and those “who wanted to know more about Cameo’s capabilities and credentials”, according to Darby.
“Some came and visited our sites and checked us out before novating,” he said.
“One that sticks in my mind is quite a long-standing Agilitas customer we’d been trying to do business with for a long time. He turned to me and said, ‘if I knew you had all this, I would have been with you years ago’.
“It just goes to show that Cameo is still a best-kept secret.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
