'Customer focus and engaged employees take precedence over efficiency' - Interview with Sebastian Ootjers, Head of M&A

What is your strategy to respond to these developments?

“As a group, we want to participate actively, stay close to Microsoft and other major players, and invest in employees, AI, smart tooling, and cybersecurity. At the same time, we offer SME entrepreneurs the opportunity to join us without losing their autonomy. Many SMEs are on their own and have to make difficult choices themselves. With us, most of the owners remain actively involved and together we form a network in which knowledge and experience are shared. We do this through meetings, communities, an internal online knowledge and networking platform, and projects with our team of colleagues who help entrepreneurs apply proven best practices in their organizations. In this way, we help each other move forward without bureaucracy, but with practical support.

That space to help build the bigger picture without letting go of your own company, that decentralized model, appeals to many entrepreneurs.

That space to help build the bigger picture without letting go of your own company, that decentralized model, appeals to many entrepreneurs. We are not private equity, nor are we a traditional strategic buyer. We do not buy to integrate and absorb. We are a group of companies that want to move forward together. We have no hidden agenda, but we do have the ambition to keep improving and growing. That requires good coordination, but it works very well in practice.”

You have now also made a few foreign acquisitions. What kind of companies are they?

“In Germany, we acquired Abtis, a modern MSP with around 200 employees. In a market that still often operates traditionally, Abtis distinguishes itself with a strong focus on Microsoft and public cloud. In England, we acquired HDUK, which specializes in hosted desktops, mainly for accountants. This company is what we call a ‘vertical’ – a sector specialist, in this case in the accountancy sector. That requires in-depth knowledge of specific applications and how they interact with IT environments. It is a smaller company, but it fits in well with us. This is our first step in the UK and it looks very promising.”

What is your long-term ambition?

“We want to become the leading MSP in Europe, with a focus on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and value creation. We are targeting larger European markets such as Germany, England, Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Thanks to our long-term shareholder Strikwerda Investments as a family office, we don’t have to perform within a tight timeframe, which gives us room to grow carefully and sustainably.”

We want to become the leading MSP in Europe, with a focus on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and value creation.

What do you look for when selecting acquisition candidates?

“We are looking for genuine MSPs that are responsible for their customers’ IT and have a recurring revenue model, or telecom parties that want to expand with an IT proposition, for example – not consultancy or secondment companies. We prefer to work with small to medium-sized MSPs with healthy, stable growth. Management is also crucial: we need to be able to rely on an entrepreneur who will stay for the long term, because we do not integrate or centralize. Continuity for employees and customers is essential to us. We prefer to buy companies that are profitable and ready for further growth – not heavily loss-making companies.”

How do you help companies within the group to grow further?

“We start with insight: through standardized financial reports and benchmarks, we help entrepreneurs understand their business even better. We then provide them with targeted support, for example with our team that helps implement best practices for topics such as customer satisfaction, technology, and commercial growth. Once companies are well embedded, we link them to other entrepreneurs within the group for collaboration or joint projects. One example is Sbit and VSA, two MSPs in the hotel sector that can now learn from each other’s insights while remaining independent. But the greatest value often lies in the network: entrepreneurs who meet, share experiences, and can switch gears together when unexpected developments arise. That’s what makes the difference.”

Why did you consciously choose a decentralized model?

“The alternative to decentralized is centralized. And that would suggest that you can make the best choices on all issues at head office, far away from customers and employees. We don’t believe in that. We believe that entrepreneurs, together with the employees who talk to customers every day, know what is needed. That’s the club of thirty people where everyone knows each other’s name.

Customers just want to be able to call someone who knows them, in their own language. And entrepreneurs want to continue doing business – not wait for headquarters to tell them what to do. We make a conscious choice to let companies do things themselves in as many areas as possible. On paper, that sounds less efficient than centralization, but the positive impact on customer focus, autonomy, and employee engagement pays for itself many times over. In the long term, this results in more satisfied customers, more satisfied employees, and healthier companies.

What are some important lessons you have learned from previous acquisitions?

“One of the biggest lessons is how crucial culture and local presence are. Foreign acquisitions are more difficult to manage from the Netherlands. You lack the language, context, and details that are so important in such a process. That’s why we work according to the ‘local for local’ principle—local deals with local people. It’s also very important to be open and clear throughout the process. We only enter into letters of intent (LOIs) with companies that really fit with us. As a result, our conversion rate from signed LOIs to completed acquisitions is high. We don’t believe in strategic overbidding and then haggling. If it clicks and the due diligence checks out, we go for it.”

We work according to the ‘local for local’ principle
local deals with local people

What motivates you personally in your role as Head of M&A?

“For me, it feels partly like coming home. The long-term vision and the idea that what you add today is permanent really appeals to me. We are building something sustainable – no hype or quick exit. That peace of mind gives us room for quality. What also motivates me is the goal: market leadership based on customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and value creation. That’s more than just numbers. And if we succeed in building a pan-European organization that unites strong local companies, that will be something special. I also enjoy working with motivated people. The interaction is sharp, open, and constructive. The collaboration with Strikwerda Investments through Your.World as a shareholder really makes the difference: they contribute substantively, know our sector, and don’t have a standard exit agenda. That ensures trust and continuity.”

What do you want to achieve personally in the next three to five years?

“I want to establish a clear plan for sustainable growth in several European countries, with strong local teams. The goal is to build a solid pan-European network from what was originally a Dutch organization. If, in five years’ time, people still look back with pride on what we have built together, that will be the greatest satisfaction for me.”