MWC 2017: ANOVO claims Ingram buy has led it to leadership in lifecycle services

The distributor had acquired ANOVO in 2015

ANOVO has claimed it has become the global leader in the lifecycle services market since its £80 million sale to Ingram two years ago.

At the annual trade show in 2015, global distributor Ingram revealed it had completed the acquisition of Paris-headquartered ANOVO.

It now feels it is now leading its rivals in the lifecycle service sector, which UK sales and account director Ron Harckham attributes to a number of elements, including increased global presence, an increase in resources and additional revenues.

From a reverse logistics perspective, ANOVO now operates in 20 countries across Europe, with more customers coming on board.

Last year it received three million mobile phones to its hub in Norwich last year – growing by 50 per cent from 2015. Customers include Samsung, Tesco, and all four major mobile operators.

Services portfolio

“Globally, in terms of lifecycle services, we are definitely a leader”,boasted Harckham. “It’s a combination of the global presence, infrastructure and team that sit around that, skill sets, financial security and revenues we have seen through lifecycle services, which are growing substantially.

“We offer all of the services available today. We can do for- ward and reverse logistics, we have the accreditations in place to support mobile, global presence and we can ship, repair, refurbish most electrical gadgets.

“Some of our competitors have it in various areas but not to the scale we do.”

Harckham also revealed ANOVO has extended its premises and mobile phone process- ing hub in Norwich, Norfolk by 8,000 square feet, taking total capacity there to 44,000 square feet. This can potentially be extended by up to 20 per cent if required.

The expansion here has created 300 jobs, which will take total staff count to 1,400 heads. Call centre staff will also more than double from 90 to 200 heads. This process began at the start of last year and is due to be completed by the end of next month.

This growth has largely been driven by the award of major contracts with household mobile players over the past 12 months, with more, including an unnamed MVNO, set to be added later this year.

Last April, ANOVO won a multi-million pound repairs and reverse logistics contract with Vodafone. It had poached this deal from rival UTL, which had run these operations for a decade.

Vodafone had received 3,000 handsets per day, which were collected and repaired by UTL before being dispatched.

In June, ANOVO won a second major contract from major contract from UTL, this time a multi-million pound agreement to manage all reverse logistics and handset returns for Three. This led to the creation of around 300 jobs.

Business expansion

“The expansion of our premises and increase in staff numbers is linked to our contract wins with Vodafone and Three, as well as continued improvement and increase in productivity in terms of how the lines are run,” said Harckham.

“Each network needs its own returns line where products come back, which might not actually be mobile phones, and they have to be sorted quickly.

“There is a huge amount of investment in terms of extending space and moving people around. The new volume increases from the new contracts won’t kick in until April so at the moment we are hiring, training and getting additional staff up to speed with all of that.”

 

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