Net At Work Continues To Scale With OnPar Acquisition

‘OnPar is so similar to us, and they also overlap in the same industries. So culture and values, family-oriented philosophy, that’s the way they run their business. It’s really similar to the way we run our business. Luckily, they are also living in the same verticals that we live in so we can do a lot more for their customers, for the OnPar customers that we’re on-boarding,’ says Net at Work Co-President Alexander Solomon.

Net at Work, a solution provider and MSP focused on SMB and midmarket organizations, has grown significantly in the 30 years since it was founded. That growth, fueled in large part by about 40 acquisitions during that time, continued this week with the acquisition of OnPar Technologies.

Alexander Solomon, co-president of New York-based Net at Work, told CRN in an exclusive meeting that while it looks to organic growth as part of its strategy to become a nationwide solution provider and MSP, it also counts on acquisitions to scale its business.

Net at Work, ranked No. 246 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500, is unique in that it brings both an infrastructure play and an application play to the SMB space, Solomon said.

“When we launched, we did a lot of research and decided to launch an infrastructure business and an application business so we could remove the finger-pointing that lives in the SMB space,” he said. “Our clients are infrastructure companies and application companies, and you have all this finger-pointing going on. So we said, ‘You know what? We’re accountable for the entire solution.’”

Net at Work a few years ago took on private equity and is now a platform MSP play with a goal of expanding its reach across the U.S. and Canada and eventually overseas.

With OnPar Technologies, Net at Work gets a team that shares the same business philosophy and culture as well as a very similar technology focus with almost no customer overlap, Solomon said.

“We also wanted to bring in more strong resources, and the team they’re bringing over is incredible,” he said. “Everybody’s pretty much joining us. It was just a really, really good fit. A well-run company, smart company, profitable company, and it allows us to take our managed services business to the next level, which is what we were looking to do.”

There’s a lot going on at Net at Work and its strategy of growing its dual infrastructure and application business. Here is more of CRN's interview with Solomon.

How do you define Net at Work?

We’re a technology consulting firm unleashing the potential of our clients’ businesses through leveraging technology. We do a lot of business consulting, leveraging technology as the tools for the SMB market. We focus on the SMB market, and we have a lot going on in the upper midmarket as well. We generally embrace certain verticals where we’ll go really deep with customers to help them with technology for their industry. All the technology. We figure out what their needs are, what a client’s wants are, where they’re looking to go with their business, and based on that we’ll recommend solutions best for that customer. Then we’ll help them first improve their processes because we want to get the processes right before implementing systems to run their businesses. So we are an end-to-end technology consulting firm.

We started this business about 30 years ago and built it a little bit different from the majority of the other folks in our space. I know a lot of people say that, but we really are, because the majority of, let’s call them ‘competitors,’ they compete with elements of what we do. Nobody does what we do end to end. And that’s been the philosophy of the company from day one. When we launched, we did a lot of research and decided to launch an infrastructure business and an application business so we could remove the finger-pointing that lives in the SMB space. Our clients are infrastructure companies and application companies, and you have all this finger-pointing going on. So we said, ‘You know what? We’re accountable for the entire solution.’ And that was really how we launched the business, and how we continued to grow it over the years. We added additional software and applications the SMB market needs. We added additional infrastructure. We moved to managed services over time. So as technology comes out to help the SMB market, we embrace and implement it for our clients.

Net at Work has a new acquisition, OnPar Technologies. How many acquisitions is this so far?

That’s a good question. We’re probably at about 40 or so at this point, maybe more. Starting in Q4 of last year, we closed four acquisitions, and we have about four more closing in the next 45 days.

What’s behind all these acquisitions?

It’s good to understand the story of Net at Work and how we got here and why this is such an important next step for us. We built the business over the years with different divisions, and we do a lot for our clients. We may take a client in as an ERP customer or as a managed services customer, and inevitably they make their way to other parts of our business. So while we’re handling their infrastructure, we’ll start talking about their applications. When we’re handling their applications, depending on the industry, we’ll start having conversations with them about the right tools for them to implement.

The Net at Work growth path has always been to bring in additional customers and going wider and deeper with our existing customers on both sides. To do that, you need talent. Our best asset, and I know everybody says it, but for us truly our best asset is our people. Our folks have deep knowledge in certain industries and can really help our clients unleash the power of their business. So we built our business to about $50 million some years back, and we thought about how we can get to $100 million. To get there one customer at a time would take us forever. We had to do it faster. So we launched something we called the Network Partner Alliance program which, in essence, announced to all of our competitors, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we do not compete with you. We’re happy to walk away from any business we’re competing with you on. But your clients need a lot more than what you offer them today. If you believe you’re the trusted adviser to your customer, and all you do is the infrastructure and you’re not helping them with their applications, are you really the trusted adviser? They’re going to find somebody else to handle the applications, and that person’s going to also help them with the infrastructure, and you will lose your customer.’

So we told channel partners to leverage our portfolio of products and services and our value proposition to help them go to market. That’s what built Net at Work: our value prop of being accountable for the entire solution. And the Network Partner Alliance program took off. We have about 300 partners in our program now that leverage us. And that took us to about $100 million. And when we hit that mark, we looked at how to scale to the next level. And we knew we couldn’t do it one customer at a time. We couldn’t do it one reseller at a time. We needed acquisitions to continue to grow the business. So over the years, we did acquisitions. For example, when we wanted to enter the human resources management and payroll software business, we didn’t want to start from scratch and build it one client at a time, one employee at a time. So we decided to find the best consulting firm in the HR and payroll space, one that already understands the market we’re in, and then we acquired it. Sometimes we buy because we want to strengthen our people’s skill sets, or we want to launch a new business, or to buy customers within the verticals that we’re in.

Is Net at Work private equity-backed?

When we hit that $100 million, we looked at how to scale this. We decided to bring in a private equity partner, LMP [Lovell Minnick Partners], which is our private equity partner now. The objective is to grow the business organically, of course, but to also grow the business inorganically by doing more of these acquisitions. That’s what gave us a lot of fuel, a lot of gasoline to scale a lot faster now.

Would you consider Net at Work a platform MSP, acquiring other MSPs with the goal of building a regional or national presence?

We already cover North America now. We do a lot of global business, but we are not set up globally, meaning we don’t have locations, not yet at least, in Europe or other parts of the world. We really focus on the U.S. and Canada now. We work with a lot of European partners who leverage Net at Work to handle the North American portion of their clients, and we’ll tap some of those European partners to help us when our clients have a location in Europe that needs technology. So we do a lot of collaboration there. But right now, expansion is all about North America.

Do you expect to eventually expand globally via acquisitions?

Likely, yes. We’ll have to. For a lot of our clients, especially in the SMB space, as they start expanding globally, we need to be able to grow with them, and we want to be able to do that in those countries, so we’ll start looking at that right now. There’s still so much to do in North America. There’s still so much opportunity here, and there are so many SMBs here that can use our help, so we’re keeping ourselves pretty busy here.

What’s behind the OnPar Technologies acquisition?

We’re very selective with the MSPs that we acquire. Right culture fit is crucial. At our size, if we bring in a company that doesn’t have the right culture or the right values to align with our culture and values, it’s going to be a problem. So we’re very selective. OnPar is so similar to us, and they also overlap in the same industries. So culture and values, family-oriented philosophy, that’s the way they run their business. It’s really similar to the way we run our business. Luckily, they are also living in the same verticals that we live in so we can do a lot more for their customers, for the OnPar customers that we’re on-boarding. Like a lot more. Their customers look very similar to the Net at Work legacy customers, to our traditional customers. So that works really well. We also wanted to bring in more strong resources, and the team they’re bringing over is incredible. Everybody’s pretty much joining us. It was just a really, really good fit. A well-run company, smart company, profitable company, and it allows us to take our managed services business to the next level, which is what we were looking to do.

How much work is involved in integrating OnPar Technologies?

That’s a big focus for us, not just with OnPar but for all our acquisitions. We have a whole integration group. All they focus on is on-boarding the employees and customers. We have a client experience team that calls every single one of those customers like Julie from ‘The Love Boat’ television show. If you remember, Julie’s job was to give everybody a tour of the ship. We’re trying to do that with all of these customers, really let them understand the value that Net at Work can provide for them, and really start to understand those customers a lot better, what they’re looking for, what their wants and needs are, what their necessities and luxuries are. There’s a whole team we put in place just to focus on integration of these acquisitions.

Did you partner with OnPar in the past?

OnPar was a new one for us. Some of our acquisitions, especially new ones coming up and some recent ones we’ve done, are alliance partners of ours that we get to know because they’re working with us and we’re helping them with their customers. Many of them eventually sell to us because it just makes the most sense. We’re the easiest exit for them. Both Network Computer Solutions [acquired in January] and OnPar were not part of our alliance program. They were net-new deals. We actually hired somebody full time that just sources new managed services companies for us to acquire.

Given that you hadn’t partnered with OnPar in the past, how did you get involved with discussions to acquire them. Who introduced you to OnPar?

We have a full-time sourcer at Net at Work who came from the industry and works a lot of deals, has a lot of relationships, and also works with a bunch of bankers. This one came in through a banker.

How much did you pay for OnPar?

I don’t think we disclosed that. … [But] it was a healthy deal for them and for us.

Was OnPar a profitable company?

It was.

Net at Work has been around for 30 years. Any plans for an IPO?

No. Our big plans were to platform out to PE [private equity], and we’ve done that. We’ve grown the company pretty massively. So far, we’re two years in. The objective is to continue to grow at a really massive scale, and we’re going to continue to do that. Hence, a lot of acquisitions as we scale.

The difference between Net at Work and a lot of the other folks in this industry is, and I say this with as much humility as I can, there’s nobody bigger than us. There’s nobody to model ourselves after. There are companies that do elements of what we do that are of size, but nobody bigger than us. So a lot of this is really figuring out how to make sure we do not give up an iota of customer service or customer service philosophy as we scale. It’s a fine line to walk because on the one hand, you need to put checks and balances in place. You need bureaucracy in place to scale. On the other hand, you don’t want to become this dodgy, big company. Even though we’re a PE platform that’s much bigger at this point, we’re really very focused on keeping that small-company culture, small-company mentality, as we go to $300 million, $400 million, $500 million.

Has Net at Work ever been an acquisition target itself?

No. We got a lot of phone calls, but we’re not interested in that. Getting acquired by our PE firm was the first time we did an event where we brought in partners. We never had any outside money, no investors, no debt. [We’ve always bragged about] no outside money, no investors, no debt.