The way businesses consume technology has changed dramatically over the last decade. With cloud solutions becoming ubiquitous in modern enterprises, technology environments have inevitably evolved to become hybrid.

With this in mind, Velocity Technology Group acquired Stellarise Limited in the UK in April, the first acquisition outside South Africa for the tech giant. Stellarise is a hybrid cloud enablement expert and was the ideal vehicle for Velocity to expand its footprint in the UK and the EU.

Before the acquisition, Velocity was already delivering Microsoft-based services on a project basis to UK and EU customers. However, Stellarise has significant skill and capability in the managed services provider (MSP) space, and the acquisition was in response to the industry’s demand for leading-edge technology services that make it easy and secure for customers to access their business applications.

The company believes that as technology continues to evolve, staying up to date with the latest advancements to ensure that customers’ businesses stay ahead of the curve is key, and bringing Stellarise on board will help Velocity provide additional solutions that meet each company’s unique needs, irrespective of whether their applications are on premises or in the cloud.

Reducing complexity

Concurrently, because infrastructure procurement can be an onerous and arduous task, Velocity and Stellarise endeavour to make this process as straightforward as possible, while still keeping customers fully informed along the way. Although this might seem simple, without a deep understanding of how the industry works, the result is often frustration for everyone. Similarly, the complexities that go hand in hand with any technological changes require a technology partner with deep understanding and expertise.

Stellarise developed internal IP and systems to add true visibility and insight back to supported customers – for instance, it built a dashboard that shows a snapshot of device estate performance, compliance and security. This allows the group to shape the conversation with its customers to ensure their environment is performing correctly and that it can focus on the right areas in our support engagements.

Adding additional skills

Moreover, the skills and IP can be used in Velocity’s South African support structure to offer better services to local customers. The acquisition also adds significant additional skill in terms of Microsoft Autopilot and Intune, allowing the company to deliver a secure and managed endpoint experience to customers.

It also added 30 customers to the group’s customer base meaning it now has about 400 regular and active customers in any given quarter, and boasts customers across more than 20 countries and four continents.

Hybrid cloud

Moving forward, the group plans to expand its value proposition in the UK by being a hybrid cloud partner, offering UK mid-market and corporate customers leading brands of hardware and software as well as the existing services capability.

Stellarise is an expert at helping customers navigate today’s hybrid IT world and make the right technology decisions that will help them achieve their goals. Together with Velocity, the company aims to ensure that customers’ workloads are deployed in the right place and their users have secure and efficient access to them, regardless of whether on premises or in the cloud.

Unified support

As a Dell Platinum and Lenovo Platinum partner in South Africa, Velocity has a wealth of experience that it can apply in the UK to help companies in the region. Many of its existing customers have presence in both territories and as such, Velocity can offer a unified support and purchasing experience to them.

Ultimately, the group is using this acquisition to formulate a template for deals in other English-speaking territories and is already putting out feelers in both Australasia and the US. Its goal is to double the Velocity Technology Group business over the next three years through acquisitions and organic growth.

Believing that practice makes perfect and with deep expertise and experience in all facets of technology, Velocity is constantly refining its vendor partnerships, industry relationships and business processes to make sure that its customers can acquire the solutions that meet their unique requirements efficiently, and with ease.