Hobnobbing with Paul Blore, Managing Director of Netmetix

How did the idea for the business come about?

Our cloud business was an evolution of the conventional IT infrastructure business that we’d be doing up to that point. However, we recognised very early on both the threat and the opportunity that cloud computing presented.

The threat was that if cloud services took off and all of our clients migrated into the cloud, we wouldn’t have any onsite systems to look after. The opportunity was to get in early and gain a head-start on our competitors, which was what we did.

When was the company first established?

February 2001

How is the business doing?

Now that we have gained good traction in cloud-based services, we’re doing pretty well. The business grew by 107% over the past 12 months when compared to the previous 12 months.

Since the company began, what has been the biggest challenge?

Changing from a conventional cap-ex model to op-ex and riding out the dip in income that resulted from making the change.

What makes you stand out from your competitors?

We have much greater experience by virtue of having been providing cloud services for longer. As a result, we’re able to deliver a much wider range of services and bespoke solutions. We are also much more highly qualified and have multiple Gold certifications from Microsoft to prove it.

What’s been your best business decision?

Making the decision to commit wholeheartedly to cloud computing. Most of our competitors at the time dipped a toe in the pond, but we immersed ourselves in it completely, firstly by building our own cloud platform in a co-lo data centre and then taking up Microsoft’s Azure offering when it was very new. We’re now providing services via the UK’s largest Microsoft distributor to other Microsoft Partners.

What is next for Netmetix?

We’re still very much in the early stages of cloud adoption by businesses. There is still a long way to go before the market is anywhere near being saturated, so we mean to maintain our lead and maximise on the momentum that we have gained so far. We are currently developing new services around the Azure platform that will open up new opportunities for us and we will continue to work with new ISV’s to provide a fully managed infrastructure on which they can host their applications. Azure has allowed us to perform on the global stage, which we intend to develop further.

If you could help one business now with a single piece of advice, what would it be?

Explore and embrace the enormous opportunities that cloud computing presents.

Finally, what is your favourite biscuit?

Shortbread