GovernmentVAR of the Week: Strategic Computer Solutions

Company: Computer
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For a solution provider to stay in the black, it has to be able to adjust business strategies along with the target market. Take Strategic Computer Solutions (SCS). The company was founded three decades ago with a product focus. Then, in the 1999, SCS looked hard at the market and decided it was time to reinvent itself, driving resources into its consulting practice and professional services organization and taking a vertical approach to business.

"[Demand has moved toward] enterprise, service-oriented architectures, leveraging processes built around [an IT infrastructure library], and a focus on customers' needs and requirements," says David Swits, vice president of SCS' state and local government practice, "rather than the litany of hardware and software products that exist in the market place."

In terms of focus area, SCS saw huge opportunity in state and local government, which then -- and now --wants to improve efficiencies at a reduced cost.

"Do more with less is the theme," Swits says. "One must therefore reduce and eliminate the number and brands of servers; manage the infrastructure better, easier and more efficiently; virtualize server and storage; leverage component-based application development; and institute best practices policies that streamline data processing."

The result? Thirty-two percent compound annual growth during the past five years, and an increase in revenue from $16 million in 2000 to $96 million in 2006. Creating a perfect storm for SCS to continue to grow that business is the aging state and local government work force , the subsequent loss of intellectual capital, and the need to work within the confines of legacy-based systems -- from mainframe servers to programming languages like VisualBasic, Powerbuilder and Forte.

"[It's about] wrapping your hands around a disparate disarray of technologies and formulating a cohesive architecture that focuses on efficiency to drive overall costs out of the environment and emphasize services-based applications," Swits says.

And where does that lead? "We're more closely aligned with customers' needs and provide more strategic value as opposed to [acting as a] transactional partner," he says. "Those are a dime a dozen."