Sharp Europe invited analysts from across the region to find out more about our growing IT Services business, as well as plans for future expansion of the business. Roland Singer, Vice President of IT Services offers insight into how the day went.
Following an exciting period of new partnership, a new acquisition, extended services, and significant product development and integration, Sharp Europe recently held an event for key analysts at its European Technology Support Centre (ETSC) in Warsaw, Poland to further reinforce its agenda for growth.
Hosted by Sharp Europe’s President, Joe Tomota, and with presentations from leaders of Sharp Europe’s IT Services, analysts were given a comprehensive update from across Europe as well as a look into the future.
Insights from Sharp Europe and our Customers
The day featured presentations on strategic plans to increase momentum within IT Services, how more services and opportunities for customers are being delivered through partners and standardisation of services, how technology is being integrated across the business and how future positioning of the brand is being addressed.
Joe Tomota outlined how Sharp’s business-to-business smart office division is growing within the overall Sharp business globally and how in Europe, expanding IT Services is a key strategy to complement the continued importance of maintaining the MFP business.
He noted that with the recent acquisition of Apsia, Sharp has extended its on-the-ground support in France, Italy and Spain, following previous acquisitions in the UK and Switzerland. As a result, Sharp IT Services now delivers a comprehensive Managed Service Provider offering across IT, security, business processing and cloud to an increasingly broad range of businesses of various sizes.
A Look at our IT Services Across Europe
For my own part, I provided further details on the growing momentum within IT Services, its longer-term growth objectives and the steps Sharp Europe is taking to achieve this – including automation, business transformation, strengthening partnerships and vendor alliances and unifying European services.
For me, revealing that the business has grown and now has over 600 experts servicing 40,000 plus users across more than 100 countries was a key highlight. That and our diverse offering, including Managed Services, IT Services and Consulting, to Business Applications and Cyber Security, and our plans to expand these further.
With Apsia CEO, Olivier Massonnat, providing further input on applications, cloud and further opportunities this will bring, Roland outlined how Sharp is creating a unified model with innovation and expertise shared across emerging areas such as AI, automation and business apps. He also emphasised the company’s investment in training across the business. Sharp’s extended range of partners were also highlighted, ranging from Microsoft and SAP to Lenovo and IBM.
Special Guests of Sharp Europe
The analysts were presented examples of how Sharp is supporting its current customers – ranging from comprehensive IT support for Bertschi, a family-run bakery, to digitalising finance operations in 100 countries for TP, a French multinational BPO company – demonstrating the range of current projects.
Additionally, the presentation covered how Sharp is developing and providing services, technology, and expertise for increasingly larger businesses. New innovations in areas such as AI, connectivity, security, and quantum computing are constantly being developed to meet the complex needs of customers.
With continued growth in the upper mid-market and enterprise segments, and the development of more AI and Gen AI solutions to accelerate delivery and optimise customer business performance, I also shared further perspectives on the next stages of growth. This includes expanding through existing resources or through strategic acquisitions if the right conditions arise.
Sharp Europe IT Services Roadmap
John Shackleton, Head of European Systems & Support Services, provided an update on the product roadmap including new services being developed with partners – CyberSmart (represented by Jon Wood ) and Nimblr (represented by Lukas Landgren) to address significant operational regulatory challenges for businesses in Europe.
NIS2 is mandatory regulation for more than 160,000 business in the European Union, designed to enhance cyber security and improve supply chain security in organisations with over €10M and/ or over 50 employees. Introduced in October 2024, audits for non-compliance and potential penalties will apply from mid-2025. Sharp is offering support to businesses to comply with this new regulation. The partnership with CyberSmart will address the emerging demand for customers looking to assess current readiness and ensure ongoing compliance with these new requirements.
Despite 95% of cybersecurity breaches being caused by human error, only a minority of businesses provide cyber security awareness training to their staff. With this in mind, John Shackleton presented Sharp’s Security Awareness Training solution, in partnership with Nimblr, whose specialist product provides courses and simulations to change behaviour with simple individualised content.
A Guided Tour of the ETSC
Away from the presentations by Sharp, analysts were also given a tour of Sharp’s European Technology Support Centre, and introduced to some of the service desk team, who provide 24/7 support in more than nine languages and ranges from security, to print management, to application service, to back up and continuity.
Growth Plans for Sharp Europe IT Services
With a spotlight on the integration of Sharp’s technologies, Jason Cort, Director of Product Planning and Marketing, then presented plans to further develop and deliver a “frictionless” user experience and incremental customer value.
Plans include combining and standardising Sharp technologies and design attributes across products (devices and applications) and services (platforms) to support the customer value proposition, competitive differentiation and operational efficiency.
Jason provided some existing examples, such as cross product and services security to span Sharp’s MFP, Display and IT Services business groups with a unified approach. Additionally, SYNAPPX™ Sharp Services Platform is the backbone for Sharp services, designed to enable both Sharp’s direct customers and dealer channel and integrate into third party platforms. The plan is to integrate technology not as a closed Sharp ecosystem, but one which extends seamlessly into the broader IT landscape.
The day gave analysts – and through them, their audiences – a compelling look into Sharp Europe’s journey and future.
The momentum with the extended footprint, expanded services, increasing size of customer and the value chain were clear. And with new products such as Security Awareness Training, as well as AI, and opportunities across 65,000 customers, Sharp Europe is primed to lead the European market.
