C3 Systems - In The Press
CRN Magazine - Next Generation VARs: Tuned In |
| Posted by Chris Cunningham (admin) on Jan 21 2008 at 1:31 AM |
Original Source: http://www.crn.com/it-channel/204702048?pgno=2
Next Generation VARs: Tuned In
New-breed solution providers abandon old ways of corporate thinking and embrace fresh ideas on making money and keeping their employees happy
By Jennifer Bosavage, CMP Channel
12:00 AM EST Mon. Dec. 10, 2007
From the December 10, 2007 issue of CRN
Page 2 of 4
Dot-Bomb Refugees
Many of these young VARs lived through the tech bubble, which climaxed in 2000 and burst in 2001. Back then, they may have been at their first jobs or working during college. They had learned that the "get big fast" strategy so popular at the time was flawed, and that moving quickly to react to market forces did not require acting recklessly. Ambition had found a few boundaries, and they included formal business plans, not ones scribbled on cocktail napkins.
Chris Cunningham is the 25-year-old president of C3. Cunningham founded the solution provider in 2001 after working for a failed Internet company. He, like many of his ilk, started working in technology as a teen.
"During high school, I did consulting; I had a decent client base. When I graduated high school, within three days I had a job that was great for 18 months," he said. Then the company went under and Cunningham went on unemployment. "I started helping friends and family with their computers," he said. "I got an office, had two or three customers, then five, 10. Today, we have 500."
Among those 500 clients are very low-end customers (mom-and-pop shops) to high-end clients for which C3 does general computer consulting. That includes content filtering services, particularly intrusion detection and network management.
"We're not interested in being a hardware reseller," Cunningham said. "We will order or advise on product, but we have zero margin on product; that's a cutthroat business."
TriQuest's Tonniges agreed: "We take no ownership of hardware and software. We're completely independent of that and have been for four years. The margins just fell apart.CDW (NSDQ: CDWC ), etc., get better pricing, and maintaining licensing agreements takes a lot of time." The company reviews its product lists periodically to ensure its recommendations are up-to-date.
C3, TriQuest and other new-breed solution providers offer MSP-type offerings, which provide a recurring revenue stream. They also provide an open door for additional offerings, as small customers often look to their solution providers as a trusted resource for information on how to grow their businesses.
These integrators are acutely aware that there is a large opportunity to remedy growing customer dissatisfaction with IT services.
"There is huge customer dissatisfaction, whether that's with cell phone providers or IT. There's no difference," Flaherty said. "We offer white-glove service; complete, consultative selling. There's no phone queue here. Everyone picks up the phone: 99 percent of the time you will get a person."
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