Six Degrees is “pivoting from transformation to growth mode”, its new CEO has told IT Channel Oxygen.
Built last decade via a series of quickfire acquisitions, the Charlesbank-backed secure cloud provider has seen revenues plateau in recent years as its focus switched to integration.
Revenues sat at £80.9m in its fiscal 2023, down from £81.4m a year earlier and a peak of £105.8m in 2019.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, newly appointed CEO Vince DeLuca said his early conversations with Charlesbank made it clear that Six Degrees is “quite heavily pivoting towards a growth position”, however.
“They were transparent with me when I came in. The last few years have focused quite a bit on transforming the company and becoming more unified, having a better platform to operate on and looking at cost rationalisation where it made sense.
“Getting that done was no small feat considering the 17 acquisitions that were done without, I think, a lot of attention paid to how those integrations were going to take shape.
“It’s definitely pivoted from transformation to growth, and that’s where my focus is.”
“My wife gave me a dose of reality”
Having left ERP software provider Sapphire Systems in the wake of its sale to NTT Data in November, DeLuca had planned to take more of an extended period off.
“The Charlesbank guys called me. I had a good conversation with them – I’ve known them for a while. We started talking and I got a little more visibility into the company,” he said.
“Right around that same time, it was springtime and the weather was beautiful. And my position changed a bit to say, ‘my gosh, maybe I do need more time’.
“But then my wife gave me a dose of reality and said, ‘no, you need to get out of here and do something more aligned to what you love to do.”
Considering DeLuca spent a decade at Logicalis prior to Sapphire (latterly as its US CEO), Six Degrees – which ranked 78th in the recent Oxygen 250 – “feels more like home”, he remarked.
“So much white space”
Although Six Degrees has a “roster of target acquisitions”, DeLuca said his focus will be on “taking the portfolio of capabilities that we have and organically growing the organisation”.
He declared himself “really pleased” with Six Degrees’ current focus, which spans its heritage voice, UC and co-location capabilities, alongside ‘next generation’ hybrid cloud, cybersecurity and managed workplace capabilities.
“There’s a nice broad spectrum, with the appropriate focus on both heritage-type products and next-generation products that are really ready for the market,” he said.
“There’s a lot of demand for the current capabilities we have.
“The go-to-market teams have, I think, for whatever reason, been a bit sluggish, but even if I look only at our core customers, there’s so much white space there in terms of what we’ve sold them historically.”
“We’re taking a position on AI”
Six Degrees will now step up its efforts to “infuse” AI and automation into its operations, DeLuca said.
“I’m ten days in the seat, so it’s pretty early days,” he said.
“But the one thing I want to ensure we’re doing is taking a position on the AI influence to our product strategy, as well as how we use those capabilities internally,” he explained.
The goal is to influence customers throughout the entire lifecycle.
“If you [can do that], and you can really amplify it a bit through the use of AI, data-driven insights, I think there’s more work out there in this space than anyone can handle,” DeLuca said.
“We will gladly accept our share of it, but I think there’s a very good opportunity in what is still a fragmented market.”
Potential acquisitions will be to bring in differentiated capabilities rather than build scale, and are “in the longer-term lens”, DeLuca said.
“If one of these targets becomes, for whatever reason, more attractive to us, we may pull the trigger,” he explained.
“It’s definitely a growth dimension we’re majoring on.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
