18 01732 759725 Angus Shaw “In addition to my UK role, I’ve taken on a Group board position and am responsible for the whole group portfolio – the vendors we work with, why we work with them, the terms on which we work with them – essentially trying to leverage our European volume to make sure our partners get the best commercials and the best margin they can. “This also involves sharing expertise across the group. For example, we have a £10 million-plus relationship with Heimdal in the UK and are now launching them in the Nordics. My team has been heavily involved in that. And we’ll be launching them into DACH in October as well.” Expanded product offering In turn, Shaw has brought two products from Elovade’s own-brand EL portfolio to the UK&I, EL Storage and EL Mail Archiving, and is planning to add more in the future. The results so far, he suggests, are very promising. “I was a bit sceptical as to how much demand we would see for a mail archiving solution in the UK. Historically, demand for mail archiving has been very much in the professional services space where the likes of Mimecast have made a lot of money for a long time. But we’ve seen good interest in it already, so there is clearly space for a more SMB-friendly offering.” In addition to the two EL-branded products, Elovade UK&I has signed IT operations platform SuperOps, an existing Elovade group vendor, and extended its UK&I partnership with IT monitoring brand Paessler to Germany, highlighting the benefits of Elovade’s greater reach to vendors. The two-way exchange of products and expertise is not the only benefit of being part of a larger European group. As Shaw points out, Elovade’s European heritage is an added attraction at a time of growing interest in IT sovereignty. that it would drop ‘Brigantia by’ once the two organisations had been integrated under a group management structure. That time has now come. What it means for partners The re-branding of Brigantia as Elovade UK&I marks the beginning of a new era for the business founded 30 years ago as a buying group for computer dealers and IT support companies. But what does it mean for partners? Not a great deal, initially, says Elovade UK&I Managing Director Angus Shaw. “Partners will have to get used to a different brand, but in practical terms the change of name won’t mean a huge amount. Partners won’t see a new account manager or anything like that. It really is just a change of name. That said, over the next 12 months they will see more services and hopefully more expertise and more reasons to work with the wider group.” Planned developments for 2027 that will clearly have benefits for partners include the launch of a cloud marketplace in the UK and other regions, giving partners a more seamless way of interacting with Elovade and its vendors; the launch of a training academy; expansion into professional services, building on Elovade’s existing professional services business in Germany; and more collaboration between regions. “We already have regular Europeanwide team meetings where we can get to know each other and learn what works well in other regions. In the UK, we’re a strong sales organisation. The German business is a strong technical organisation. The Nordics do marketing well. We’re trying to lean on each other’s strengths,” explains Shaw. He adds that partners will also benefit from vendor relationships across the wider group and Elovade’s scale which should translate into better commercial terms. For over 30 years, the Elovade Group has built a reputation as one of Europe’s leading value-added software distributors for IT professionals. A little over a year ago, it extended its European footprint further, entering the UK and Ireland through its acquisition of Yorkshire-based cybersecurity distributor Brigantia. The move has brought benefits for both parties. For Elovade, the acquisition added greater geographical reach and access to new vendors. For Brigantia, becoming part of the pan-European group has opened up new opportunities backed by more resources and ambitious plans. It was Elovade’s eighth acquisition and the start of a new chapter for Brigantia. Initially, Brigantia changed its name to Brigantia by Elovade with the expectation An exciting new chapter begins for Elovade Group, with Brigantia by Elovade now officially Elovade UK&I New name, same values COVER STORY
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