Cisco partner Ideal is aiming to win 50 new enterprise clients in 2025 as it strives to make smart buildings “just one of five things we do”, its CEO Moto Shakoori has told IT Channel Oxygen.
The Brighton-based outfit has over the last decade become known primarily as a smart buildings specialist, last month winning Cisco’s Smart Buildings/Venues Partner of the Year for its CNS and Wi-Fi deployment at Co-op Live in Manchester.
“Smart buildings is half of the business. If I spoke to you at the end of next year and I’d managed to turn it into a third of my business, with two-thirds coming from enterprise customers, I’d be very, very happy,” Shakoori said, however.
“We did Twickenham, and it just blew up”
Founded in 2009, Ideal won its first major client two years later in the shape of IKEA.
A second “defining moment” in Ideal’s history came in 2014 when it secured its first smart buildings deal with Twickenham Stadium.
“We became a construction reseller, or a smart buildings specialist, by mistake,” Shakoori said, however.
“We did Twickenham, then it just blew up.
“I want to bring that back now. I want to grow our enterprise customers.”
Shakoori characterised the world of smart buildings technology as “challenging”, arguing that there needs to be more standardisation in how smart buildings systems are designed.
Ideal’s smart buildings business took off just as Shakoori himself was taking a near four-year sabbatical from the company between 2017 and 2021.
“We had to build the networks at our offices, and then all of these operational technology companies – control systems, lighting, CCTV etc – would come to our office to do what is called factory acceptance testing,” Shakoori said.
“It’s a completely different world. It’s much more complicated and challenging.
“We’ve got really good enterprise customers, and want to win more.”
“I want to start winning in enterprise”
Ideal’s renewed focus on winning enterprise customers means Shakoori has come full circle since he started in the IT channel in 1997.
Despite acknowledging that he struggled to read or write “properly” at the time, Shakoori earned £40,000 in his first year as a cold-calling salesman for ABS Network Solutions, a Cisco reseller that went on to sell up to Capita in 2008.
P&O Ferries and British Gas were among his early client wins.
“I was really good at talking to people and finding out their problems,” Shakoori explained.
Winning IKEA in 2011 was a major factor behind Ideal’s early growth, Shakoori said.
After rebuffing Ideal’s initial overtures, the Swedish furniture giant agreed to let Ideal collect and sell on its old kit.
“We did such a good job, they said ‘what else do you do’?,” Shakoori recalled.
Ideal went on to sell the telephony system that is still used in each of IKEA’s UK&I stores, as well as its three distribution centres, he added.
Despite the perception in some quarters that cold calling “is dead”, Shakoori said Ideal will use traditional sales techniques (combined with a new tech stack it has built), to reach new customers in the midmarket space.
“We’ve become really well known for smart buildings, and that’s an amazing thing. But now I want that to be just one of the five things we do, rather than the thing that’s top of mind,” he said.
“We do really good cyber security solutions – we’re a big Palo Alto Networks house and do lots of Fortinet. We do SD WAN and connectivity. We’re very good at wireless.
“I want to leverage that smart buildings fame and start winning in enterprise.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
