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Maintel shares transformation progress with FY24 update
Managed services player Maintel issues trading statement, with the results of its focused approach clearly seen in the numbers
Financial results continue to be shared by players across the channel, underlining just how challenging 2024 year was.
The latest to add to the flurry of trading statements, such as from Computacenter, is managed service player Maintel, which has issued a trading update for the year ending 31 December.
The update includes a revenue drop to £97.9m from £101.3m reported a year earlier. Maintel stressed that despite the decrease, the underlying level of organic growth improved by 8.2%. The previous year had been affected by a build-up in the order book caused by the semiconductor shortages.
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to come in close to expectations at £10.5m, which represents an increase of 15.3%, with the improvements driven by the firm sealing a number of large contracts over the year.
Those who follow the company’s fortunes closely will have been monitoring the strategy to move away from being a generalist to a business focused on three key areas, including unified comms and collaboration, customer experience, security and connectivity. The trading update did include signs that the plan was delivering, with 79% of all bookings coming from those key areas.
The channel player launched a fresh customer portal to increase automation and to support SD-WAN sales, with the Maintel Application Platform making it easier for the business to develop apps and roll out its innovations.
Maintel also followed the mantra echoed across the channel of going deeper with existing customers, as well as bringing fresh logos on board.
The firm reported £45m total contract value in new business, from both existing and new customers, with customer wins with a housing and care provider and a European credit management player.
Despite the organic growth, the signs of the strategy working and other positive signs, the firm warned that economic headwinds remain a concern going into 2025.
Maintel echoed Computacenter in warning that changes announced in the Autumn Budget will have an impact on employee costs, and a small number of significant contracts ended in 2024 so their contribution will be absent in the forthcoming year.
Dan Davies, interim CEO at Maintel, said that the firm had made progress against its strategic transformation as it evolved the business and moved away from being generalist.
“The relaunch of our brand in November has successfully framed our strategy for our people, our customers and our prospects, and we remain focused on our aim of using technology to create customer experiences, services and workplaces that inspire and empower people, and to continue delivering solid solutions for a dynamic world,” he said.
Davies, who has been with the firm for a decade and has been interim CEO for the past year, helping drive the transformation strategy, spoke to MicroScope in the past about the channel player’s ambitions.
“We did quite a lot of business with dealers and built a really successful business,” said Davies back in November. “But it got to the point where they wanted to diversify into new technology areas, and maybe move up the food chain in terms of size of customers they can deal with.”
The firm will publish the full results for FY24 in April.
