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Force 3: Strong Consulting Focus Leads To Technology Breakthroughs
Force 3, a Crofton, Md., solution provider that has won Cisco’s Federal Security Partner of the Year for four consecutive years, earned its Tech Elite status by investing heavily in a “value” sales methodology that has resulted in dramatic technology breakthroughs for clients.
Force 3’s “four-legged” sales model puts a presales engineer on the front end of every customer engagement. That has powered the company from a product reseller to a customer-focused business-problem-solver.
Force 3, for example, used its value methodology to deliver an Active Defense Platform (ADP) application to solve a thorny network security riddle for one customer. That ADP application, which provides “cross-platform intelligence sharing” to thwart network attacks, has gotten the attention of Cisco and large national systems integrators.
Force 3 also has been singled out by VMware for creating a “reference architecture” for virtual desktops using VMware View, making Force 3 a go-to partner in one of the hottest emerging markets.
“Customer success is what we are all about now,” said Sudhir Verma, senior director of consulting services at Force 3. “It’s all about how we can help the customer. We have a 100 percent deeper relationship with the customer now.” That has resulted in a 20 percent to 30 percent increase in average deal size and huge sales gains.
Force 3 has tripled the number of engineers on its data center team and is now attracting some of the brightest minds in the business. “We have more top [technical] talent knocking on our door,” said Verma. “We’ve become a destination for the best engineers.”
Nexus Information Systems: Seeing The Technology Future
Nexus Information Systems, Minnetonka, Minn., has a knack for identifying game-changing technology shifts before they happen and then making sure its clients get big-bang business impact from those technology transitions.
In fact, Nexus customers have come to rely on the solution provider for delivering unmatched IT innovation with a 100 percent success rate. Nexus employs a “proof-of-concept” model with its own multimillion-dollar technology lab and a mobile demo-lab on wheels that it brings right to the customer site to head off technology trouble spots.
“Our clients want people that know more because they don’t want to make a mistake,” said Nexus CEO Dan Evans. “Mistakes are always expensive. There are so many different technology combinations, and if you get one product wrong it screws up the whole solution.”
Keith Norbie, vice president of sales and vendor management at Nexus, said having multivendor capabilities is critical. “The danger in being single-threaded with one vendor is you don’t really serve the client, you serve the vendor,” he said. “That’s like a doctor single-threading one drug or treatment option for every patient.”
Evans said he is proudest of the fact that the company has “stayed grounded” and maintained its sharp focus on taking care of clients and employees. In fact, he goes to great lengths to make sure that the company expresses how much clients and employees are appreciated. Nexus holds an annual customer appreciation event, and any employee that hits the 10-year mark is treated to a Caribbean cruise. “Without our clients and employees, we have nothing,” he said. “That is the
reason we are here.”
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