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back to article Softcat to float in November, £500m market cap expected

Tech reseller Softcat has confirmed it intends to float on the London Stock Exchange from next month, as it rolled out another set of healthy financials for fiscal ’15. The Marlow-based firm’s intention to go public was perhaps one of the UK industry’s worst kept secrets; it hired Credit Suisse some months ago to run the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Already showing signs of change

    "Softcat management may be in danger of diluting the work environment it has set up"

    This has already begun in my opinion.In recent months Softcat have been far less responsive to our requests. Normally, i would expect a quote to be returned in less that 24 hours. Now it seems to take days, even weeks to get a response.

    The fact is, in a large enterprise the first to respond usually gets the order, unless the price different is massive. It is kind of assumed that we are asking for a quote because we need the kit ASAP.

    Our firm is starting to use alternative suppliers already. Unless the level of service returns to it's former level, i see no reason to spend our money with Softcat.

    0 0 Reply
  2. colinbrown62

    Feedback

    Hi, in response to the comment above - as MD of Softcat then I'm very disappointed to hear about your organisation's recent experience with us. We do pride ourselves on our responsiveness, our flexibility and ability to get things done quickly, therefore the service you have been receiving doesn't meet the high standards we set ourselves. I'd be really happy to discuss the specifics with you with a view to getting things back on track. If you'd be comfortable doing that, please drop me an email at colinbr@softcat.com. and I'll get back to you. Regards, Colin Brown.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Feedback

      Colin, it's great you have replied here to the above comment. However I think things are going to go very wrong very quickly with your stock market float. I have experience of your company, we (an SMB) asked for a solution with a budget of less than 20k and ended up with a quote for 50k. Needless to say we parted ways on that. Even your account manager said you had over engineered the solution. We ended up doing what we needed for 8k in house. All I've ever bought from your company are projectors and even that got messed up sending me the wrong ones despite being very clear in the spec we asked for. I find going to Dell direct even with their offshore account managers more reassuring than dealing with what must be 5 account managers I've had ring me in so many years to introduce themselves. I think the intent is there with your company but you fail to deliver and your momentum has overtaken you. Maybe you treat really big businesses with really deep pockets better, who knows, but like they say, look after the pennies...

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A different experience

    I have to say that my experience of SoftCat couldn't be further from this. I'm the IT Manager for a relatively small charity - that makes us a "small fry" client who will never spend big however SoftCat have treated us like a highly valued customer with excellent personal service. I've worked in financial services where big money is spent and I can honestly say the service I have received from Softcat equals anything I got there. When they made a recent mistake with an order, they bent over backwards to put it right at their expense to the extent that we actually got a better service than I initially expected.

    That said, I am concerned that public flotation will damage the culture at Softcat which seems to produce contented, hardworking staff. I can't see penny pinching investors allowing them the freedom to continue some of the very nice perks I hear their staff receive. We will be monitoring the situation closely as our IT service provider is an essential component of our IT services delivery operation.

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