Softhchoice Corp. (TSX: SO) once again walked away with the top prize in last night’s CDN Top 100 Solution Provider awards.
The Toronto-based company reported 2008 revenues of $450 million to $500 million, followed by Compugen who reached its first ever No. 2 position with $300 million to $350 million.
The No. 1 solution provider of the year once again proved that it can achieve excellent results even in a down economy. In 2008, Softchoice recorded a 60 per cent increase in revenue over 2007. Its gross profit increased 37 per cent.
The company also knows its role in the industry and announced a goal to become North America’s leading enabler of sustainable IT practices and an ECO-Efficient Partner. To that end, it formed the first ever fully searchable Green IT product listing on its Web site (www.softchoice.com) using the EPEAT standard.
The Top 100 Solution Providers achieved revenues of $5.5 Billion, an increase of 13 per cent over the previous year when it was just under $5 billion. At the bottom of the list, there is further proof of growth as the revenue cut off was $7.8 million, versus just $6.4 million last year at this time.
The Top 100 were also surveyed for this program and it produced interesting results. For example, more than 80 per cent said that the best solution sell was IT consulting services, while PCs and notebooks came in at just over 50 per cent.
Well over 90 per cent of solution providers are still looking to hire skilled IT professionals.
And more than 30 per cent are offering green solutions.
Other award winners from last night’s show include: Insight Canada as the Top 3. solution provider, CCSI Technology Solutions Corp. as the Top 4. solution provider, and xwave as the Top 5, solution provider.
Mainland Information Systems of Calgary was named the Fastest Riser for the Top 100 list and Visual Defence Inc. became the best Newcomer of the year.
Other newcomers to the list include: SHI Canada of Toronto, Grand & Toy’s solution provider division also of Toronto, The Skipton Group of Richmond Hill, Ont., Gibraltar Solutions of Mississauga, Ont., Benchmark Corp. of Mississauga, Ont., and AccueTrust Security from Calgary.