Presidio CEO: Cloud, Security, Digital-Ready Infrastructure Are The Ingredients For Success

When Bob Cagnazzi stepped into his role as CEO of Presidio four years ago, his team began formulating a strategy to transform customers into cloud-oriented businesses.

To successfully transition their customers into the digital age, Presidio built a new solution set focused on three core areas: digital-ready infrastructure, cloud solutions and security. Cagnazzi said these are the three key ingredients that resonate with customers striving to become a digital-oriented business.

’We took all of the core technology competencies we’ve had – networking, collaboration, data center, mobility, infrastructure, security – and we reoriented them to deliver solutions in what we think are the three critical areas for our customers,’ said Cagnazzi, in an interview with CRN. ’That transition for our clients is what’s fueling our growth. That need to become a more digital-oriented business."

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The New York-based $3 billion-plus Cisco powerhouse solution provider, No. 22 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500, first invested in creating a digital-ready infrastructure platform for customers that emphasizes agility, security, mobility, fast time to market and extracting analytics from connected devices. Once the platform was built, Presidio focused on delivering it through its cloud and security groups.

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To successfully accomplish the task and drive faster innovation, Presidio formed three high-level engineering teams for cloud, security and the Internet of Things. Each of these three groups consists of dozens of Presidio’s most talented engineers in each space who focus on designing, developing and implementing high-end solutions.

’The benefit of these groups is you’re going to consolidate the resources so they can be more focused and you can focus the company around it,’ said Cagnazzi. ’It enables us to create solutions and deliver them in a more consistent manner and enables our salespeople to understand better what the solutions are.’

By creating purpose-built groups of top executive engineers, Presidio has been able to attract and retain ’high-level talent’ within those groups, according to Cagnazzi.

A core piece of the strategy has been the company’s homegrown Presidio Managed Cloud, which provides a single platform for central management of all cloud assets through a single pane of glass. It was designed to eliminate shadow IT and provide the orchestration and automation required to manage complex cloud environments, which Presidio provides as a service.

’It’s utilized by clients to give them that elasticity, security management, the ability to move workloads across public and private clouds, financial management – it will also manage workloads to specific budgets,’ said Cagnazzi. ’It’s a pretty robust tool.’

To boost its cloud push, Presidio acquired the cloud consulting, engineering and integration firm Sequoia Worldwide in November. Sequoia became the cloud business unit for Presidio, operating under the name Sequoia Cloud Solution, and helps customers create a multi-cloud strategy and assess where workloads belong.

Presidio also acquired Netech, one of the top Cisco solution providers in the Midwest, to boost its already strong Cisco portfolio. In October, Presidio also sold its refurbished hardware reselling subsidiary Atlantix Global Systems so it could better focus on its core vision.

’So from strategy, to digital-ready infrastructure design, to the development of an IT service delivering model in a multi-cloud fashion, to cybersecurity that’s going to secure the entire platform, then management solutions in all those stacks … We tied that all together and that’s really what’s driving the growth,’ said Cagnazzi.

Cagnazzi has high hopes for the future of Presidio with its revamped vision around cloud, security and digital ready infrastructure -- all tied to Presidio’s engineer-focused culture.

’We’re very much an engineering and architecture-driven organization, that’s what customers like about us,’ said Cagnazzi. ’We’re a very healthy business and we see a lot of growth in our future.’