GovernmentVAR of the Week: Storsoft

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For channel companies, success typically rides on partnerships. That's because manufacturers are necessary to populate the linecard. But Storsoft Technology defines the word "partnership" in far more literal terms, leveraging vendor relationships not only for the sake of the technology they offer, but as a means to transform business.

"Competition is extremely fierce in the world of IT," says Jonathan Evans, who is director of the company's government division. "It takes an alliance of able-minded partners to successfully achieve traction throughout both public and private sectors. Although we employ seven professionals, our coalition of partners provides us with the ability to compete more effectively through established accounts, an abundance of qualified resources and team synergy."

That not to say Storsoft's linecard isn't impressive -- particularly given its size (the company is a federally certified small disadvantaged business) and the fact it had to relocate from Mississippi to Florida because of Hurricane Katrina. The solution provider lists dozens of vendors as partners, including Cisco, HP, IBM, Oracle, Quantum, APC and Symantec, enabling it to serve up federal, state and local government agencies with data protection, disaster recovery, open storage management, software development, storage and telecommunications solutions.

Beyond that, Storsoft works with government customers using the same partner philosophy that drives its vendor relationships. Solutions are developed to enable what the company calls "Operational Best Practices," or an effective level and mix of policy, procedure, process, metrics and training. By integrating such capabilities into an agency's existing infrastructure, Storsoft and the customer can together achieve "quick wins" to raise the level of IT service delivery. They nail down the allocated budget, payment preference (contract or open market), time frame for deployment and critical success factors, then move forward.

Those quick wins add up. Since its founding, Storsoft has experienced triple and double-digit year-over-year growth. In the past few years, the company won contracts with the departments of Defense, State and Treasury, South Florida Water Management District, Fort Lauderdale Airport, Miami-Dade County Schools and Palm Beach County Public Schools.

Much of that success is thanks to its service capabilities. Storsoft invested heavily in training, marketing and customer relationships associated with its services practice, which grew more than 400 percent in the past year.

"Our firm understands the importance of services as a major differentiator in the marketplace to dramatically improve net profits and growth," Evans says. "The first phase of our success is to thoroughly understand the customer on multiple levels and the needs of the agency. Many customers are reluctant to provide insightful information unless a degree of trust is established."