Enterprise Ireland spoke with Chris Ambler, Head of Asia Pacific at Arkphire, on the company’s plans to drive regional expansion from Singapore. This comes after the company announced an acquisition deal with Singapore-based Generic Technologies.
The full interview can be found here.
Headquartered in Ireland, Arkphire is a world-leading managed services provider (MSP) delivering services across cloud, cybersecurity, networking and digital workspace technologies in addition to desktops, collaboration and data centre offerings. The company also provides IT procurement solutions to Multinational companies globally. Arkphire’s expansion into APAC is driven by demand from their multinational client base who want to set up operations in the region.
The company has seen significant growth in the past few years, from a modest €12 million in 2013 to €150 million in 2019 – a marker of its growing industry leadership as an established specialist in global IT procurement and tech services. As Arkphire continues on this growth trajectory, it was only a matter of time that the company expands its service offering and caters to rising demand for these services in the Asia Pacific region.
Responding to a question on Arkphire’s expansion plans for Asia Pacific, Chris Ambler shared, “The goal is to bring all of our solutions and partnerships that we provide in Europe, and offer them to our existing clients in the region. We also want to bring on new customers to expand our client base, and the real value is in our ability to share customers between Asia Pacific and EMEA and help support our clients’ growth across the globe.”
“Over the past few years, we have received a lot of requests from our clients to help with their challenges in Asia Pacific. So what we are bringing [to the region] is a lot of knowledge and experience, and the way I see it, we are going to grow our business to give our customers continuity globally across the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions, and provide solutions for all their IT procurement needs,” he added.
Generic Technologies quickly comes to the forefront as a strategic move for Arkphire. The Singapore-based business was built on the back of increased demand for Apple and Adobe technology and support services, with a specialist focus on digital and creative sector customers, in addition to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Having grown to become a specialist authorised reseller of Apple, in addition to holding gold partner status with Adobe, Generic Technologies has recorded an annual turnover of €5.85m.
Singapore, one of the major business hubs in Asia Pacific, serves as a strategic launchpad for Arkphire’s regional plans. Often cited as a key gateway to Southeast Asia, Singapore is at the heart of Southeast Asia’s burgeoning tech and innovation landscape, one of the most vibrant and competitive innovation ecosystems in the world.
“It is important that we invest in the region to show that Arkphire is here to stay. If we’re going to do that, it is really key to identify a business that has pedigree and talent in the local market. The focus around this acquisition is to acquire the knowledge and expertise [that has been gained] over a long period of time to help us develop a solid foundation to grow the business locally, and [subsequently] expand across the region,” Ambler said.
Arkphire’s acquisition of Generic Technologies will deepen its ability to support a network of customers across Southeast Asia and help scale up service delivery model capabilities at a regional level. The acquisition is a landmark deal for Arkphire following the opening of its regional office in 2019 and will support the company’s expansion in the Asia Pacific market.
“We opened the Singapore office last year as the headquarters of the Asia Pacific business. We have since added Hong Kong and Japan as regional offices, and we are working on expanding those. Asia Pacific is a region where we see significant growth and opportunity for the business. We see the Asia Pacific market as a region where we can add significant value, and also where we can build a sustainable and long-term business to continue our growth,” said Ambler.
Enterprise Ireland, the Irish state export agency, has played an important role in supporting Arkphire as the company navigates challenges in the region, according to Ambler. “Not only has Enterprise Ireland supported us through the initial stages of getting our business set up and running but the agency also linked us up with contacts that we needed to access to get things up and running in other countries, and help solve challenges that we face locally as well. Enterprise Ireland has been a significant help to us, and we look forward to what we can achieve as we continue to develop our business in the region,” he said.
Contemplating the unusual market circumstances that Asia Pacific and the world is currently in given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Ambler believes that technology will become a necessity to the survival and long-term resilience of businesses.
“Every business, no matter what they’re doing, has been disrupted in some way by the outbreak of Covid 19. Aside from the usual tele-conferencing technology that we’re seeing in these times, we foresee a big wave of new technology around digital workspace and office collaboration. Businesses also need to evolve and adopt technology so that their businesses can be more agile and survive business disruptions into the future .”
Arkphire is now positioned as the largest and fastest growing Irish headquartered IT procurement and IT managed services business. Arkphire Group has an unrivalled network of partnership accreditations with leading global IT vendors and is an Apple Authorised Enterprise Reseller (AAER), Check Point 4-Star, Cisco Gold, Citrix Platinum, Dell Titanium, HP Platinum, IBM Gold, Lenovo Platinum and Microsoft Gold Partner.
