Lessons From Building the Number One Citrix Distributor in Northern Europe

I did not set out to build a career in IT distribution.

In fact, after studying leisure management, qualifying as a tennis coach and following a passion for health and fitness, I took a very different turn into the fast-growing IT industry, and ended up building, turning around and selling technology businesses.

The most instructive of those was InterQuad, which we grew into the number one Citrix distributor in Northern Europe before a management buy-out and, eventually, a trade sale.

Here are a few lessons from that journey that I now bring to the owners I work with (along with a picture of me doing what I love most).

You can't beat snowboarding in the Dolomites

1. A struggling business is usually a focus problem

I was brought in to turn InterQuad around when it was in trouble.

What I found, as is so often the case, was not a lack of talent or opportunity but a lack of focus, with energy spread too thinly across too many things.

Turnarounds rarely start with a clever new strategy.

They start with deciding what to stop doing, and committing hard to the few things that will actually move the needle.

2. Pick a wave and ride it

Becoming the leading Citrix distributor was not luck.

It was recognising a technology that was going to matter and backing it wholeheartedly while others hedged.

Growth businesses tend to attach themselves to a rising tide, a platform, a shift, a category, and commit before it is obvious.

Being early and committed beats being cautious and late.

3. Ownership changes everything

Being part of the management buy-out that acquired InterQuad and formed the QA-IQ Group taught me how differently people behave when they own the outcome.

When the team has genuine skin in the game, discretionary effort goes up, decisions get sharper and short-termism fades.

However you structure it, giving your key people a real stake in the result is one of the most powerful levers you have.

4. Build it as though you will sell it

We ultimately sold InterQuad Systems to a trade buyer, where it now sits inside one of the world's largest IT distributors.

Incidentally, if you are thinking about selling your IT business ...take the "Am I Ready To Sell My IT Business?" Quiz here, for some useful insights into what is required to optimise value)

The businesses that sell well are the ones that were built well: diversified, systemised and not dependent on a single person.

Running your business as though a buyer might look at it tomorrow is simply good discipline, whether or not you ever sell.

5. The lonely decisions are the important ones

The biggest calls, the turnaround bets, the buy-out and the sale, were also the loneliest.

There was rarely anyone in the room who had done it before and had no agenda of their own.

That experience is precisely why I now do what I do: to be the person in the corner of an IT business owner who has already made these decisions, so they do not have to make them alone.

Every business is different, but the patterns repeat: focus beats breadth, commitment beats caution, ownership drives performance, and the hardest decisions benefit most from experienced counsel.

If any of that resonates with where you are, book an introductory call and let's talk about where your business could go next.