Ch-ch-changes

Ok, a tl;dr up front: There’s a ton of exciting things being announced at CTS this week, and as part of those changes I’ll be leaving the company. I thought I’d share that early on, so if you’re hoping for cloud computing news (or monkey pictures), you can look elsewhere this time around.

As you may have seen already, the next stage in CTS ’ journey, following another round of investment in January, is a cloud-native mega merger with those purple hoodie loving folk at Appsbroker. This creates the Google specialist in Europe, and it’s something I’m super proud to have been part of making happen. I’d be surprised if this is the last deal the company does, so keep your eyes open for further growth.?

With the merger comes a host of people with new skills and capabilities, and an enlarged leadership team that no longer needs me to steer and direct, so I’m stepping back. Not an easy decision to have reached with Mr Tom Ray , my partner in cloud computing crime for 3 years at CTS, and 10 more before that - but the right one for both the new business and myself.

Time warp

Three years have gone past in the blink of an eye for me - just the way I like it. The pace, collaboration and energy of fast growing companies remains the key thing in ‘what gets me out of bed in the mornings’ (that and some cats jumping on me to whine about being fed).?

From a Google perspective, the growth has been incredible to watch. Revenues were circa $13Bn for cloud in 2020, and will break the $30Bn barrier when 2023 closes out. And their loss making turned into a profit during the period, alongside a host of feature releases, a much stronger competitive position, and a massive push towards all things AI.

On the CTS side, things have changed a lot also, and indeed some things haven’t changed at all - hopefully in the right blend. The business has more than doubled net revenue in that time, and the blend of revenues has pivoted massively towards services and now reflects the hyper growth in GCP mirrored in the market.

Memories… light the corners of my mind

I tend to say to people at CTS that what I (and hopefully “we”) want to achieve is ‘building a business we’re proud of’. There’s lots of elements to that, but ultimately I am proud of what we’ve achieved - above and beyond the financial growth.

It includes winning 4 Google awards in that period, plus others for culture and flexibility and growth. We’ve hired a ton of smart people, transitioned from a founder-led business (thanks James!), won big deals, become a B Corp, improved systems and processes, rebranded, secured new investors and much more.

The investment process was “lively” last year, and I learnt a lot on the sell side (and this year on the buy side). Thanks to Tom and Bill Bates (CFO/Chief Fun Officer) for an alarming amount of time spent together in the Shard and assorted Wagamamas in London whilst prepping presentations on utilisation and EBITDA bridges.?

I joined CTS during the more covid-y periods of UK working life, but the culture of the business still was exactly what I was looking for. Fast, friendly, flexible - all the things you expect in a smaller business, but don’t always get. Covid has limited travel, but I really enjoyed San Francisco this year for Next, and a personal highlight was a company kick off in Alicante. The energy you get from bringing a group of like minded people together, cannot be beat, and I’ll remember that stage and room for a long time.?

Despite strange plagues, travels have still taken me to the Netherlands many times, including for the first time to the lovely city of Utrecht where CTS has an office, alongside other glamorous trips to far flung locations like Birmingham.?

I’ll also fondly remember our Christmas charity auction last year, with Chief Auctioneer’s Assistant Charlotte Batters (She/Her) by my side helping to make the magic happen - we raised thousands of pounds in a short space of time. Just another example of something I’ve enjoyed about CTS - nice people doing nice things, that I had basically nothing to do with, bar having a loud voice.

My time at CTS has also helped me to continue my streak of using Workspace since 2011, maybe I’ll have to learn something new in my next role?

We don’t need no education

The last time I left a role, the thing most people seemed interested in were lessons learned, so I’ll add a few here too in terms of things we could have done better, or that I think worked really well.

- Focus. Even working with a single major partner in Google, they still provide a big, broad offering and doing “everything” isn’t pointed enough. I think we took too long to focus in on areas of specialism. It’s a tricky balance of course, as you don’t want to cut off existing revenue sources from certain product areas, or customer sizes/industries, but it does make the GTM approach a lot easier when you can clearly articulate that “here are the three things we specialise in, across industry x and y”. It’s needed as the industry matures and “doing Google” isn't enough of a differentiator any more.

It’s hard to balance this in a smaller business where a) people tend to be more entrepreneurial and want to try new things (and should in many cases) and b) the focus on customer service leads to people saying “yes” when perhaps the answer should be about helping a customer find another organisation to solve that particular challenge.

- Alignment with partners. Sounds obvious, but I think most people don’t really get under the skin of what makes a partner organisation, and specifically the different stakeholders you’re working with, successful. What are the metrics they personally care about? How about their boss? How can you align that with what makes you and your business successful?

Oh, and despite the working from home “revolution”, if you’re not “seen”, people will forget you. You have to be out and about, and in the mix in person.

- Coming back to something I’ve said before, referencing ‘the hard thing about hard things’, it’s always better to make the harder decisions sooner. Nine times out of ten, you’ll know what you need to do - just get on with it. The counter balance to this of course is there’s only so much change a company can handle in a given period.

- Customer empathy. This sounds so simple, but in practice getting a whole company to think ‘how would I like to be treated if this was me?’ isn't easy. If you can get it right, you’ll engender significant loyalty. I often use Amazon.co.uk as my personal example here of excellence, but there’s plenty of others from your local greengrocer upwards.?How does your company react when things go wrong?

- And finally on a personal note, as you’re scaling an organisation - especially the leadership team - and helping to develop the careers of others, you will likely need to be prepared to sacrifice doing the things you personally enjoy. That’s been a learning curve for me, but the right thing to do. You could build a business around yourself, and make yourself essential, but is that the right thing to do? Probably not.

Anything else? Well, I moved to the North West as part of joining CTS, and it is lovely up here. All you smog breathing Londoners, take note. I’ve learned (ish) that lunch is in fact dinner, and if you think you want a roll, you in fact want a barm. I’m available for translation services.

And now, the end is near..

So, a massive thanks to all at CTS, plus Marlin and NorthEdge for their support and belief. Thanks also to Google for partnering closely with us, and supporting the progress to date and long into the future.?

Once again I’ve seen that smart, organised people who can collaborate well together and have a bit of fun, can get a lot done and really differentiate on quality. The people in your business are your differentiator. In CTS’ case, that included a few I’d been lucky to work with previously, and many many more that I’m delighted to have newly met and worked with. If you can enjoy going to work every day, that’s a lot more than most people experience in their lives.

I’ll leave Bill and Charlotte in charge of keeping Tom Ray under control without me to keep an eye on him…

So, what’s next? For CTS (and whatever exciting new name they end up with in the future as part of a larger group), I can see a boatload of opportunity as Google continues to expand, with them right alongside. It’s a superb company, and one I’m very proud to say I worked for, and led.

For me? Well right now, I’m off out for a walk. It’s a small world, keep in touch.

To quote my favourite CTS value to close: Crack on.

p.s quite a lot of pictures of running were on my phone when digging through the archives, but I’d like to reassure the regular reader that there’s also been plenty of fried breakfasts (thanks Brewdog!) and Guinness along the way.