President Kyle Lanzinger On Why Fulcrum IT Partners Is A Leader In ‘Pragmatic, Actionable AI’

Boosted by the recent acquisiton of AI solution provider pioneer Razor, Fulcrum IT Partners President US & Canada Kyle Lanzinger says the $1 billion solution provider behemoth is poised to be a leader in “pragmatic, actionable AI.”

Fulcrum IT Partners’ acquisition last month of AI solution provider pioneer Razor sets the stage for the $1 billion solution provider behemoth with 12 partner companies to be a leader in “pragmatic actionable AI,” said Fulcrum IT Partners US and Canada President Kyle Lanzinger.

Razor, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom has about 50 data scientists, is driving data-driven business outcome AI-as-a-service solutions in vertical industries including manufacturing, retail and healthcare, said Lanzinger.

“We are not just selling AI for AI’s sake,” said Lanzinger. “We are solving problems using AI as a core engine and adding other horizontal adjacent technologies that further the problem-solving in our different vertical markets.”

Fulcrum IT Partners is building out an ecosystem of data-driven, business outcome-focused companies that create real solutions “built on the back of industry data and knowledge from our companies like Advizex (a Fulcrum IT Partners company), which has (retail) vertical industry expertise (from Advizex President and COO Kurt Schneiders- former CIO of Dick’s Sporting Goods and L Brands),” said Lanzinger.

Fulcrum sees Razor as the foundation for a suite of AI solution platforms focused on driving revenue gains for customers in highly specialized vertical industries including manufacturing, retail logistics and healthcare. “AI is a rocket booster to the data-driven, business outcome-based solutions (that we are building) as (Advizex CEO) C.R. (Howdyshell) would say,” said Lanzinger.

Among the Fulcrum IT Partners companies are Nimbitech, a bespoke apps provider that leverages AI-powered low code tools from the Microsoft Power Platform; PayiQ, a maker of cloud enabled payment processing platform; Reyt, a consulting company focused on building mobile and web applications in the sports, healthcare and wellbeing markets, and

“We have vertical expertise starting with manufacturing on the AI side and also with retail, healthcare and all the other wonderful verticals where we have experts who understand what the real business challenges are and what data is available,” said Lanzinger. “When we talk about AI, we are talking about data driven technology and applications. We are not just talking about some fluffy thing that everyone puts on their marketing materials.”

How important was the acquisition of Razor- a hot AI solution provider- that has recently been added to the Fulcrum IT Partners’ arsenal?

Razor came on and it’s a huge AI offering in our business. They have about 50 technical people – data scientists and data analysts. The real power of what they do is not just the people, but the way they have verticalized their offerings in AI to actually be applicable to industry problems. It is not a horizontal technology looking for a problem. It is a vertical solution with horitzontal technology which is really fascinating.

That’s what leads us to what we are able to do today with Razor – not just with their existing customers – but with our overall $1 billion platform. We are now actioning AI. We are not just talking about it. We are actioning it. We are creating real solutions backed and built on the back of industry data and knowledge from our companies like Advizex which has (retail) vertical industry expertise (from Advizex President and COO Kurt Schnieders- former CIO of Dick’s Sporting Goods and L Brands).

We have vertical expertise starting with manufacturing on the AI side and also with retail, healthcare and all the other wonderful verticals where we have experts who understand what the real business challenges are and what data is available.

When we talk about AI we are talking about data-driven technology and applications. We are not just talking about some fluffy thing that everyone puts on their marketing materials.

AI is a rocket booster to the data driven, business outcome-based solutions (that we are building and selling) as (Advizex CEO) C.R. (Howdyshell) would say.

We are not just selling AI for AI’s sake. We are solving problems using AI as a core engine and adding other horizontal adjacent technologies that further the problem solving in our different vertical markets.

What do you see with regard to Fulcrum IT Partners’ ability to lead in the AI solutions market?

I think we can lead in pragmatic, actionable AI. This is going to be massively, massively impactful.

Razor is an AI solutions and services platform. They have something called the Manufacturing Informatics platform, which brings together heterogenous data in manufacturing environments and applies a suite of AI and machine learning technologies on the back of it to solve problems. It identifies opportunities for both reducing costs and increasing revenue and it is all powered by Microsoft.

What stood out as you made the move to acquire Razor?

If you want to talk about what Razor did to interest us and impress us, it is that they are pragmatic about their AI business which is very, very hard to find in this industry and incredibly rare.

They go into a manufacturing facility and say- ‘I have done this, this and this for customers just like you. I have got a thing called the Manufacturing Informatics platform where I can actually bring together heterogenous data. I have proven the ROI a bunch of times with other customers.’

They don’t try to come into a facility and boil the ocean. They go after one or two high proof of value type of solutions. They take a bite of the apple. They don’t eat the whole thing at once to prove their value. As they do that and hit that low-hanging fruit they continue to expand on what they can do.

The beauty of this is as their customers get more value over time they learn more and more and are able to bring those learnings to other manufacturing customers. The pragmatic approach, the software platform and the partnership with Microsoft was really impressive.

The other really interesting piece to it is that the Manufacturing Informatics platform is actually quite easily adaptable to our other strong focused verticals like retail and healthcare. We intend to roll out Informatics platforms for retail and healthcare in 2024.

So Fulcrum IT Partners is going have a full suite of vertical AI platforms?

Yes. And the really important piece here is people typically build horizontal technologies and then look for verticals or problems to solve after they built the solution. We actually went the other way. What we did in 2023 is we built a $1 billion platform that has incredible depth and expertise in certain verticals like retail, healthcare, manufacturing and public sector. We have people on the bench that are so deeply knowledgeable about those markets and the challenges customers face.

So we are much more excited about identifying problems within the verticals we operate in and then finding, acquiring, building and investing in horizontal technologies to go and solve those problems we find on behalf of our customers.

Do you wish you bought Razor earlier?

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish we did it earlier which is not always possible. We did it as fast as anyone obviously could. We want to solve more problems for customers as quickly and as soon as we can. That is why we move quickly on acquisitions. We identify opportunities to solve new problems, to add new tools to the toolkits of our sales staff. We want to do that quite rapidly.

Does the Razor AI platform integrate with Microsoft Copilot?

Yes. Microsoft knows how to co-invest and fund us to go and solve problems with them. They know what we are capable of and how we can deliver solutions using their technology.

Some solution providers are doing strategic partnerships with cloud vendors committing to cloud consumption spend. What do you think of that?

We are doing strategic partnerships but we don’t look to do a minimum cloud spend with Azure. That is the wrong thing. Because then we are going to customers and at the end of the year when we don’t hit the number we could just drive a bunch of cloud licenses and consumption that the customer might not need.

We are narrowly focused on solving customer problems. That doesn’t come by committing spend on their behalf for the future. It comes by bringing Microsoft into our solutions, building industry leading and game changing technologies to solve customer problems and having Microsoft there hand in hand with us to solve them and empower us to do so.

What is the solution strategy when you go into a customer engagement?

A lot of partners out there are one- or two-vendor type partners. We are not out here saying this is the vendor we are going to go into every customer with. We are going to every customer and saying what are your industry focused problems? And then we look at what have we solved for customers that are very similar to – maybe 10 percent different – and where can we apply our industry knowledge, our IP (intellectual property), to solve those problems, bringing in the right vendor for them. Not necessarily the same vendor everytime. We are multivendor.

We have vendors enable our managed services and recurring revenue and enable our vertically focused offerings and solutions.

How big is the AI business in terms of the AI opportunity for 2024?

The opportunity is massive. It is hard to quantify. When we go to a customer we are not going to say we are going to sell you AI. We are not going to do that.

AI is an incredibly complex technology. It is incredibly new. Vendors are learning about it all the time. We are learning about it all the time. The channel is there to help the customers get the best ROI out of the technologies and the services that we provide them. AI is embedded in all our offerings. It is embedded in all our managed services and it will continue to to be so.

What is the vision for AI in terms of the Fulcrum IT Partners portfolio?

AI is a massive powerhouse behind what you can do with data but at the end of the day as we bring in things like PayiQ, 5G applications, and cyber-insurance, these are all things that either enable or reuse data to generate outcomes and solve problems. AI is at the core of that of course. It is one of the largest powerhouses behind it. But that technology needs to be appropriately adopted and added to customer’s networks and stacks and that is what our managed services offerings are all about.

What is the difference between the Fulcrum IT Partners acquisition model versus private equity?

Private equity has a very good model that works for a lot of people. It doesn’t usually work for the people we are acquiring.I don’t think it works as well as it could in this industry if they spent more time with people. That is what we specialize in. That is where we focus.

When you look at our model it is the opportunity to be part of something that doesn’t have an end life to it (versus private equity which is focused on flipping companies). Everyone always asks: what is your exit timeline? We don’t have one. We are entrepreneurs. We built this from the ground up. This is not a private equity backed company. It is not a fund that needs to liquidated in three or five years. We are playing the long game here. We want to build something really special. We want to build something really meaningful that changes the industry not just does what everyone else is doing.

How big can Fulcrum IT Partners be and how big an impact can you have when you look at the opportunity ahead around AI and the solutions you are bringing to bear?

It’s hard to say how big it could be. But with regard to how impactful and changing it could be, we are not just doing this for ourselves. We want to bring the vendors, distys and partners along who bring us creative new solutions. We are even looking at financing partners. We are here to see what can we do better for end users than what has been done in the past. So we are looking at all the tools available and who are the partners we are going to do that with. I want to say we will change the entire industry. The truth is we and the people we partner with are going to change the entire industry.

What is the acquisition strategy with regard to niche solution providers and larger solution providers?

The reason we go after niche companies and larger VARs is because larger VARs are fantastic sales channels. They understand their businesses and their customers really well. The smaller providers have fantastic technology and service capabilities, but they don’t have necessarily the same level of sales channels. They don’t make the same investments. There are two very different kinds of businesses.

That’s the magic of what we are doing: we are taking those high value solutions and productizing them in a way that the sales channels can easily consume.

What is the secret sauce of Fulcrum IT Partners?

It is the people.

This is a people industry. That is why private equity has a harder time with it. You can’t put it in a financial model very easily. These are people.

So what does that mean? What are your customers’ real problems? What is the CIO of a retail chain concerned about? They are concerned about their job. They are concerned about cybersecurity – not cybersecurity products. They don’t care what XDR is. They don’t care what SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response). They care about if they are going to be attacked and if they are attacked are they going to served incredibly quickly and financially covered. Our leaders see that side of the world. They are there to solve real problems. They care about their customers. They are not just going golfing and selling a bunch of product or laptops. They are there to solve real problems and make a better experience for the end user.