Recurring Relationships

How do you become a member of the billion-dollar club? According to Joel Schleicher, knowing your customers' needs—and meeting them—is a pretty big piece of the puzzle.

Schleicher, CEO of both Greenbelt, Md.-based Presidio Inc. (CRN Fast Growth No. 13) and its largest subsidiary, Presidio Networked Solutions, is aiming for that revenue milestone in 2008. Presidio Networked Solutions' portfolio includes unified communications, wireless, security, optical, telepresence, storage, managed and hosted services and much more.

Schleicher recently spoke with Senior Editor Jennifer Bosavage about Presidio's growth strategy and the challenges that the company faces.

CRN: With all the doom and gloom in the news today—the housing slump, the financial sector malaise—will the tech sector suffer?

Joel Schleicher: I don't think that's true. It doesn't seem to be true from a consumer or from a technology standpoint. For example, Cisco, IBM and EMC are all showing good results.

Any economic downturn will affect raw hardware rather than affect implementation.

CRN: Will the tightening of credit affect Presidio?

Schleicher: The credit crunch affects us as it does most everyone. We don't market to Fortune 100 companies; we serve regional banks, which didn't delve too much into the subprime market. Customers may have some trouble getting finance, but we have a financial arm to help with that. Still, as we grow we have to finance that growth. But Presidio has experienced almost 30 percent revenue growth from last year.

CRN: How do you account for that growth?

Schleicher: We have the wherewithal, the knowledge and the training to handle IT infrastructure. Excellent execution is a great strategy for any business and we execute better than anyone else. Loyalty from customers is tremendous. All advanced technologies are up for us—our voice business grows, we've got traction in virtualization. We're very specific as to solutions, but we have deep knowledge.

Businesses are finding that if they are going to enhance business, they have to grow their technology.

Look at VoIP. In 2003, first, we saw business become more dependent upon IT infrastructure than in the past. Second, we recognized that Cisco had VoIP figured out. VoIP is not a plug-and-play solution. It's complex and it has to be implemented.

CRN: We hear a lot about the unified communication space these days.

Schleicher: It's all about productivity, new ways to use technology to be effective. I may be on the road four days a week. I get voice-mails, e-mails and text messages.

Presidio is the third largest deployer of voice systems for Cisco. Therefore, we can give CEOs comfort on deadlines, and relieve their uncertainty. Customers are looking for solution providers to say what they mean, mean what they say and deliver on that.

CRN: You've had extraordinary growth in the past year. What's the biggest challenge facing you in 2008?

Schleicher: The biggest inhibitor to our company's growth is finding qualified people. Fortunately, we were ahead of the curve. For example, we've increased our sales staff by 20 percent in 12 months, likewise with engineers. We've been investing in people and in scale. We've been successful finding people in the Northeast and in the Midatlantic region, where we are growing,

Last year, Presidio was primarily in the Northeast. Now, Presidio is in Ohio and the Midwest and we recently brought on 25 to 30 employees in the Northwest. Our staff growth is driven by our geographic expansion and it's also driven by taking good care of customers. We have [a] skill set they can trust.

CRN: You said you invest in staffing—tell us more about what you're looking for.

Schleicher: We look for people who are passionate about their jobs, about taking care of people and being the best they can be. Most of them have a slice of the equity.

To maintain our position in the market, we are focused on the best high-tech employees. We have Master certifications [from Cisco] in unified communications and security specializations; we are one of four in the U.S. that are certified in both.

We have great customer satisfaction, which has led to 18 percent compound annual growth over the past six years. Even in the rare case in which there may be a hardware flaw, the customer looks to us for assistance, rather than the vendor. We do not have recurring revenue [like managed service providers]; we have recurring relationships.

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