A new $3.6bn-revenue distribution brand named by its employees was born today in the form of ‘Nexora’, ahead of its planned sale next year.
It is the new sobriquet for the remaining businesses of DCC Technology following the sale of Exertis IT last month.
“It was important to give ourselves a new identity”
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Nexora CEO Clive Fitzharris confirmed parent DCC Group still intends to sell the business in 2026 as it refocuses on its core energy business.
Nexora houses 27 brands including UK storage specialist Hammer, US AV distributors Almo and JAM and European AV distributor Comm-Tec.
At the same time, the Exertis name has been retired from Nexora’s retained businesses, Fitzharris confirmed (Hammer rebranded from ‘Exertis Enterprise’ last month).
“We’ve completed the sale of Exertis IT in the UK and have also moved out of our low-margin IT business in France and Spain – and are in the process of doing so in the Netherlands,” Fitzharris said.
“We’re retiring the Exertis name from our retained businesses and bringing back the heritage brand names.
“A lot of these businesses, while they may have rebranded to include the Exertis name or entirely moved to it, that’s not what they were known as in the market – people continued to refer to them as Hammer or Almo or Comm-Tec.”
The 27 specialist companies mainly focus on professional technology, Fitzharris stressed.
“We set the strategy a number of years ago to focus on those higher value-add activities on the professional side, and have done an awful lot of work on the portfolio to step out of those IT businesses which were largely branded Exertis,” he said.
“It was important to give ourselves a new identity.”
Although the Exertis IT business turned over a whopping £2bn, Nexora is larger still (with revenues of $3.6bn) and 2,500 staff. North America generates two-thirds of the top line, with Europe chipping in the remainder.
“It’s our full intention to sell it as one business,” said Fitzharris, who characterised Nexora as a “large-scale portfolio of value-added distribution businesses”.
Naming Nexora
It’s something of a bumper week for distribution rebrands, with Nuvias UC only yesterday rechristening itself as ‘Konekt‘ after selling its hardware business.
While the 2016 ‘Boaty McBoatface’ debacle shows attempts to put rebrands to a democratic vote can backfire, Fitzharris claimed his business had struck gold with Nexora.
Employees put forward 400 names, with five staff from around the business (apparently independently) suggesting the ultimate moniker.
“We narrowed it down to five, had a vote among leadership, and then went and did another round into the business – and Nexora came out,” Fitzharris explained.
“I liked it from a long way out, because of the ‘next’ element and the energy element – it symbolised progress and forward motion.
“To do something entirely internally without going through a brand agency, I think that’s a great way to arrive at where we’ve arrived.”
Asked why DCC Technology needed a new name, Fitzharris said doing so will “freshen our identity”.
“We will be looking for a new owner during 2026 and the business will not be DCC Technology beyond that point. So it’s a good opportunity to rebrand and to bring Nexora as the opportunity for a new owner,” he concluded.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
