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Australian MSP First Focus Accelerates Acquisitions to Round Out 2023

First Focus joins a large number of Australian MSPs that have used acquisitions to continue to grow and meet customer demands during challenging times in 2023.

Written By: Matthew Sainsbury

Dec 14, 2023

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Broad-service MSP First Focus has closed its sixth acquisition in the past three years and is signalling to the market that it intends to accelerate growth through further acquisitions.

The company, whose services include IT support, virtual CIO, security, cloud, UC, applications, and professional services, announced that it has acquired Rock IT – another MSP that specialises in end-to-end infrastructure services. Under the deal, Rock IT’s entire Melbourne and Philippines-based staff will move to First Focus.

First Focus’ other acquisitions in recent years have included Brisbane-based specialist in education and Apple products eStorm, enterprise-focused Ordyss, niche player EnactMSP, Mitel and communications specialist Flexnet, and networking experts The Specializt.

Prior to this bevy of acquisitions, First Focus had not acquired another company since 2014. The company’s CEO, Ross Sardi, said that the acquisitions were designed to “augment organic growth” and broaden its service offering further.

Sardi also said First Focus wasn’t done investing, and that the next acquisition may well be announced before the end of the calendar year.

“The acquisition of Rock IT is not merely a strategic move but a testament to our commitment to delivering exceptional services and driving innovation in the ANZ MSP landscape,” he said. “As we welcome the talented Rock IT team into the First Focus family, our joint expertise will further elevate our ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions and unparalleled service to our clients.”

Capping Off a Year of Consolidation

It has been a year of significant consolidation within the APAC MSP space. Earlier in the year, Atturra announced major acquisitions, including industry giant Somerville and Sabervox. Elsewhere, Fusion5 acquired Liberate I.T., and Seisma took over Data Addiction.

These acquisitions have allowed the larger companies to continue to grow and diversify when a challenging market has made organic growth and investment slow to come by.

It benefits the smaller companies as well, as the expectations that clients have placed on their MSPs have continued to expand. As EnactMSP Director Alexandre Home said at the time that First Focus acquired it: IT was changing “alarmingly fast,” and the speed of change was making it increasingly difficult to maintain the capabilities needed to offer the services that they needed to.

“We saw this as a sign that this was the right time to join a larger organisation that could provide the extended capabilities our customers were starting to demand,” Home said at the time.

Thanks to these acquisitions, First Focus is a much larger company now, with over 300 employees located across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, the Philippines, Ireland, and South Africa.

As organisations move into 2024 and look for where the strategic opportunities lie, we will likely see yet more consolidation. Small MSPs and niche players will benefit from having access to a larger group’s resources, and those larger MSPs, as well as launch companies looking to grow quickly, will be able to develop the holistic end-to-end services that customers will prefer, as it will allow them to deal with one MSP for all of their needs.

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Matthew Sainsbury

Matthew is a Sydney-based multi-disciplinary journalist that has covered IT for 15 years. . In particular, he covers B2B IT and other channel topics in the APAC region. In addition to Channel Insider, Matthew’s work has been published on ARN, where he previously served as the editor, as well as CRN and AFR. On the side, Matthew is an award-winning arts and entertainment critic and author, and he also participates on the judging panel for the Australian IT Journalism Awards.

Australian MSP First Focus Accelerates Acquisitions to Round Out 2023

Capping Off a Year of Consolidation

Featured Partners: Managed Service Provider (MSP) Software

Matthew Sainsbury

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