Timico’s rebrand into Digital Space was driven by its expansion beyond its SMB telco heritage, said CEO Neil Muller.
Muller told UC Today that he joined the Horizon Capital-backed managed service provider (MSP) two and a half years ago in order to transform it into a “relevant” partner for larger corporate customers. This first step away from its heritage was the acquisition in 2019 of Atos IT Outsourcing Services, which gave it immediate capability with enterprise customers, marking its first shift away from the SMB market.
This was followed by the deal to acquire Arcus Cloud Solutions at the tail end of 2020, which gave the MSP cloud and DevOps capabilities and was a “fundamental piece of our jigsaw”, according to Muller.
“The reason for the rebrand is that Timico had this very good heritage as an SMB telco, but we’re far more than that now, and therefore it was the right time [to change the name],” he explained.
“The Digital Space name came from data being the new currency in business – when you think of data you think digital. ‘Space’ came from this terminology of there being a gap in the marketplace for an organisation like ourselves to not only digitally transform organisations but to also look after their legacy infrastructure as well.
“That's a really important point in terms of our whole strategy – we want to be known as being the digital transformer”
Muller is nonchalant about the pandemic’s influence on the accelerated rate of digital transformation, saying that it’s not a reason for Digital Space’s success nor for the challenges it faces. If anything, it has shown that the market now demands that providers be able to cater logistically to their customers’ needs, as well as offering subscription-based services.
“Broadly speaking over the last few decades, there have been three business models: you've either been a services provider, a manufacturer, or a merchandiser/ wholesale,” he stated.
