DIY Investor Magazine
/
Jan 2017
26
Chris Evans, MD
ADAPTING BUSINESS AND INVESTMENTS TO BREXIT –
Q&A WITH HSO’S CHRIS EVANS
DIY Investor Magazine is always looking to speak to
interesting businesses and investors; since our last
issue we met with IT and network service provider hSo
and their Managing Director Chris Evans who works in
hSo’s Head office in the City.
As a business that is looking to challenge the more
established and well known suppliers in their industry,
we wanted to see how hSo has manoeuvred itself since
the Brexit vote, whilst at the same time see what action
Chris has taken to adjust his own investment portfolio.
DIY - Tell us a little about hSo and what the
business does
CE – ‘HighSpeed Office Ltd (hSo) is a leading and
award winning network service provider specialising in
bespoke cloud solutions for voice, data and IT security.
Founded in 2000 we raised funds a year later, secured
our first client in 2001 and became profitable in 2005.
hSo is a one stop shop technology services provider
for businesses, delivering everything from internet and
cloud services to telephone systems and data security.
Essentially we package up existing solutions, but
because we are whole of market, we obtain discounts
from the wholesalers and pass these on to our
customers. This approach allows us to offer truly
resilient and diverse solutions to customers especially
for connectivity services.
We pride ourselves on our flexible and customised
solution approach with the added benefit of a dedicated
account manager and 24/7 UK based support.
To date we have been recognised for our growth and
exemplary service with a number of achievements and
industry awards, most significantly we were listed in
the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and more recently
won the Business Continuity Award at the 2016 Vendor
Excellence Awards’.
DIY - What trends have you seen since the Brexit
vote and how, if at all, has the business adapted?
CE – ‘We recently researched the number of
government technology tenders since Brexit and found
that they have declined since the referendum (Click here
for more information).
There’s definitely been an impact and we’ve seen some
delays to orders, however, UK businesses are always
looking of ways to cut costs or increase efficiency and
we’ve not seen any lull in demand from smaller UK
centric businesses.
The weakness in sterling has also made hardware that
we source from US manufacturers more expensive, for
example networking equipment, switches and routers.
However, we see this as a natural reaction similar to
the aftermath of the financial crisis, but probably on a
smaller scale; back in 2008 businesses held back on
their spending but it wasn’t long before they started
again as they needed to improve efficiency and
productivity, which meant our products and services
were back in demand’.
DIY - Can you give a little background into your role
within hSo?
CE – ‘I joined hSo back in 2001 as the Financial Director
but had a very commercial bias and soon after moved
to become the Managing Director, a position I’ve held
since 2003. Back then I was heavily focused on the
systems and processes, but in the past few years
my role has been more orientated around attracting
the right talent, growing the business and increasing
revenues; this has been particularly exciting just
recently, since we have joined some of the big players in
our industry having been admitted to the government’s
RM1045 network services framework agreement.
