Tag: Claranet

Cloudy Claranet has signed a five-year agreement with AWS which will see it certify more than 1,200 cloud experts and set up a global Cloud Centre of Excellence.

Claranet migrated its first customer to AWS in 2013 and became a premier-level Services partner and a Managed Services Provider partner with the vendor in 2016. It migrated more than 500 customers to AWS by 2020.

Claranet CEO Charles Nasser said the five-year agreement with AWS takes its partnership “to the next level” and will see it build a global Cloud Centre of Excellence around security; sata; SAP; and migration and modernisation. Read more…

Global technology services provider Claranet has completed the first leg of its Leeds 2 Sao Paulo Challenge and has raised £8,239 for charity by travelling a total of 8,611 miles.

To celebrate Claranet’s 25th anniversary, the first part of the challenge saw participants set out on a 5-day cycle from Leeds to London. Additionally, up until the 5 November, Claranet employees participating in the challenge can walk, run cycle, swim, skate, skip, hop or samba to help reach the goal of 12,000 miles – the equivalent to the distance from their Leeds office to the Sao Paulo office in Brazil. The challenge has even seen 25 French participants taking part in the Paris marathon to boost the total miles travelled.

The total fund raised will be donated to charities local to Claranet UK offices; Simon on the Streets, Warrington Wolves Foundation, Hollie Gazzard Trust, Holborn Community Association, and the Fredricks Foundation. Read more…

UK-based MSP Claranet says it plans to invest $100 million expanding its Brazilian operations.

Claranet Brazil CEO Edivaldo Rocha said the idea is to become “the leading cloud services provider in Brazil” by making Brazil’s operation one of the largest hybrid cloud and cybersecurity players in the market, focusing on services with high growth potential and aligned with the digitalisation challenges of medium-sized companies.

Claranet Brazil has grown 37 percent year on year for the past five years and has a team of more than 200 staff in-country, but plans to more than double that to 500 by the end of this year. Read more…

Claranet has written a cheque for the data storage and security reseller Union Solutions.

Claranet has paid an undisclosed sum to acquire the Surrey and Kent-based Microsoft Azure partner, which employs 30 staff and has a turnover of £10 million.

Claranet has bought up 20 firms in five years – its more recent purchases include UK security provider Sec-1.

Operating in the UK and seven mainland European countries, Claranet claims to have a revenue of £325 million and hires 1,800 staff and have 6,500 clients.

Claranet UK said it bought Union to boost its presence in the retail, legal and financial services sectors.

Union Solutions will enhance its hosting design, transition, and migration capabilities for large-scale on-premise solutions as well as additional strong Azure skills and offerings.

Union founder Jason Rabbetts is staying with the business. He said that Union’s data management services, hyper-converged platform skills, and Azure specialism – now coupled with Claranet’s public cloud and private cloud capabilities – brings an incredibly powerful hybrid transformation proposition to our customers and the general market.

Managed services outfit Claranet had a good year thanks to the acquisitions it made just before its financial year ended in June.

The firm has reported a 40 percent increase in revenue – £216.5 million up from £152.5 million from the previous year.

UK acquisitions included application management player Ardenta and security firm Sec-1. There were deals struck in France, Portugal and the Netherlands to bolster the Group operations.

Charles Nasser, founder and CEO of Claranet, said that its growth now gave it the chance to provide more scale and capabilities “that are increasingly relevant to our customers’ journey, allowing us to develop ever stronger relationships. As we continue to expand our portfolio of services, we are also attracting larger customers with a broader range of services.

“This strategy has enabled us to make significant inroads with upcoming technologies and related services in the areas of Public Cloud, DevOps, Security and Big data.”

Nasser also indicated that there would not be a change to its strategy of using acquisition as a means of expanding the business.

“The steps we have taken to grow the business provide the ideal platform from which we can consolidate our position in the market and pursue further growth as the IT services industry continues to evolve and consolidate”, he said.

Claranet CFO Nigel Fairhurst said: “The investments we’ve made over the past few years in our staff, technical expertise and partnerships mean that we’re now capable of competing with some of the biggest players in the industry, and we fully expect to maintain this momentum into the next financial year.”

Managed service provider Claranet has written a cheque for firms in the UK, France and Portugal as part of its cunning plan to become a European player.

Claranet has gone through refinancing, which provides it with an acquisition facility of £80 million.

It has written a cheque for Leeds-based Sec-1, which is a security outfit with a turnover of £6 million and comes with 60 staff. The firm’s founders Matt Hawnt and Gary O’Leary-Steele will remain with Claranet.

In France, it bought Oxalide which is a DevOps and cloud specialist with a turnover of £15 million.

It bought ITEN Solutions in Portugal with revenues of £69 million and 360 staff. The firm had itself been created by merging two of the largest players in that market and now makes Claranet one of the main operators in the country.

Charles Nasser, founder and CEO of the Claranet Group said that the growth, combined with acquisitions made the company a significant operation in the managed IT services market in Europe.

“These latest acquisitions represent a significant step forward for Claranet, confirming our market-leading position in France and Portugal and boosting our Group-wide security and application management capabilities for the benefit of our customers,” he added.

Nasser expects to see a continued consolidation of the European managed services market over the next 24-months and we are on a strong footing in all major markets in Western Europe.