Video: AHEAD President On Consolidation In The Channel

hey Channel insiders welcome back to channel Insider partner POV your source for untapped opportunities and unfiltered opinions in the it Channel all to help you make Better Business decisions I'm your host Katie boso if you haven't subscribed to channel Insider on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform yet go and do that right now so you never miss an episode my guest today is Rich Falone president at ahead a solution provider company specializing in building and managing digital platforms for Enterprise customers Rich spent 20 years most recently as CEO and president at CDI which was acquired by aead in February 2024 now he looks to the Future and explains why the consolidation of the two companies will benefit their customers and vendor Partners Rich welcome thank you very much Katie thanks for having me thanks so much for being here are you still getting used to being called president of ahead at this point it's only been a couple of months by this point when we started this process we had uh we had talked to to some companies that were International and was talking to my wife about what you know my new title would be and it might not be coo which is okay and it might be president at one point she said to me so if it was an international company would you be president of the United States of America and I said uh I I don't think that I don't think I want that but uh yeah no it's not to get used to I was president of CDI for for a little bit um I think titles are necessary but uh I don't get out of bed in the morning worrying about what my title is so nothing to get used to but happy to take it on let's continue to talk about ahead a little bit so now that you've been there and you're officially integrated in part of the company why don't you give me your explanation of what ahead is for the audience that maybe hasn't heard of ahead before yeah sure I mean look I think it's no doubt that it Services digital transformation hybrid Cloud cyber security all these things are invading our life in our world I mean whether you're a seven-year-old or a 70-year-old you know things like cyber security things like you know the automation of the way you procure you know anything from IT services from your infrastructure Community to buying things on Amazon and and digitally transforming the way you interact with your colleagues your friends your Enterprise it is just sort of in everyone's domain right now and I think when you look at ahead and I think if you ask any CIO in the last you know year five years 10 years has gotten a lot more complicated than than it used to be there's more opportunity than there used to be meaning that they have a wider menu of choices multiple clouds SAS providers there's a lot on the menu a lot they can do for the business but it's a lot harder to manage it and to automate it and to digitally transform it and to secure it and I think where a head comes in is I think a lot of customers are very frustrated with sort of a vendor's inability to take the project and the program across the goal line they can only do a piece of it and then they can head ncdi with our combined service catalog really create a very powerful experience for an end user to digitally transform to really leverage multic Cloud to really leverage automation to really leverage digital transformation and marketplaces and things like that without having to deal with a lot of you know pure playay providers that may have you know good domain expertise but really can't program manage a wellth thought out program over many many years uh along with you know what we feel the greatest you know Engineers greatest professional account management back office support culture marketing so I think you know you glue that all together and it's a very powerful story for customers who were trying to accomplish a lot of the things I just mentioned absolutely who are those customers typically what verticals are they in yeah no great question so so both companies um had tremendous success in very similar vertical so Finance Healthcare legal manufacturing uh sled State local government you know those are some of the larger ones media and entertainment um those are some of the the biggest ones and they were almost like for like in terms of which ones were number one number two obviously finance and Healthcare very dominant in both but again those other vertical sled media legal all successful verticals for both a head and for CDI with numerous references how does a head's acquisition of CDI ultimately benefit the customers that already existed between both companies and what gaps does it fill for each of them I mean very simply the project gives the customers a wider service catalog of solutions to solve the problems we were just discussing it gives them a wider bench of Engineers who can service that service catalog and really just give them the ability to work with less companies to plug out a lot of these things and to be specific you know a head had a digital solutions group which focused on application cloud data management application transformation we were dabbling there but we weren't nearly as deep as the head team they bring some services with you know finops and really helping customers create the proper business cases and financial models to justify Cloud versus onr versus offr you know C didn't really have that finops sort of you know capability and expertise now in Reverse you know CDI was very deep in what we called let's say our security red team so ethical hacking tabletop exercises things like that CDI has over 20 pedabytes of data across seven data centers in America where we're managing customers infrastructure and monitoring maintaining backup infrastructure Dr as a service you know head was using a partner for that where now that can be in housee ahead had an in-house sock CDI worked with great sock providers and we'll continue to do that but having the in-house sock option is also sort of you know a nice Advantage so I could go on and on but when you look at the two companies there's just certain things that each one brought to the table that now that account man manager has the ability to bring to the end user and again get that Consolidated multivendor multi-discipline value absolutely it's own in-house sock too I know adds the mssp official title to what the two of you do now so I'm sure that's very exciting to know that that's with portfolio and how does this acquisition make ahead a more valued partner to the it technology vendors out there I mean the ones that you're partnered with as well as the ones that maybe are on the fence or haven't approached you yet how does this just generally make you a more valued partner partner well I I think I I'll answer that a couple facets I mean scale matters in this business right so you know if you're a service now you know working with a service now partner that maybe is you know very regionalized or very nichy in one or two modules there's obviously a benefit to you and your Salesforce to work with a $100 million plus service now provider that's National that that can really span all the modules in your platform if you're Dell you got a very wide platform you're a global business working with a a business that can scale with you is very important the other thing I'd say is sometimes these pure plays yes they can have technical expertise but they really lack you know account velocity or sales velocity or sometimes even a sales force so I think the vendors sometimes they have to pick maybe between the velocity and scale of a larg organization versus sort of the focus of the thing that they are focused on security transformation you know all the things that the infrastructure providers provide and the head kind of gives them both we have such a deep engineering bench to give you that focus ofme and Technical experience but obviously you get the benefit of the scale of the business and velocity of the Salesforce and the marketing engine the account base the Summits the healthcare Summits so I think for the vendors whether they're large like Dell or service now or even some of the newer more upand cominging vendors especially in the security space you know we give them the dedicated focus and the scale of a big business and I think that's attractive to them and probably more importantly you know attractive to customers again who are trying to solve these multi-discipline problems across numerous data sets knowing that vendors like consolidation they like scale do you think that we're going to see that sort of want drive further m&a activity within the solution provider Community this year 100% absolutely yes I don't want to call it this consolidation but I mean objectively if you look around there has been a lot of m&a in The Last 5 Years I mean that's just an objective fact and you know it's funny I see some of our competitors try to use that as a uh almost like a bad thing like hey look we didn't do a m&a and you know we don't have any you know private Equity partner I find that kind of hilarious I I don't think somebody's Financial structure should be discussed to me at the end of the day like it's a darnis outcome the customer needs to get to Market to do things faster you can build it or you can do strategic combination there's no wrong answer but sometimes the right answer is strategic combination that's why m&a has been since the dawn of time and and won't stop and if you look at our space I think there's some great companies out there who have great clients great Engineers great sales forces but maybe to build the gaps the value gaps in their portfolio it might take five years three years and by then those gaps may need to be different so yes you will see more m&a I think it's great for the clients I think it's great for the partners you got to do it right it it can be done wrong for sure but it is not over and I don't think objectively in technology it'll ever be over because of how fast technology changes I mean look at VMware was acquired you know data domain was acquired I mean look at all the security Acquisitions at Cisco and Palo Alto so I think m&a is here to stay for the dawn of time because of the rate of change of Technology you sort of have to be able to have successful strategic combination really great insights there let's go back to talking about that it complexity could you talk to me one more time about why it's more complex than it's ever been the choices that we have now that we can almost have analysis paralysis so to speak and how is that all of that impacting your clients buying decisions and what they're asking for from you you know when I first met you I said uh when I go to watch a movie with my kids now you know 10 years ago maybe 15 years ago you put in a DVD you press play there you go streaming came along it was great I could get more than just the DVDs in the house press a button and you know now there's 15 streaming services and we go to watch a movie takes us a half hour to turn it on because we can't remember the password for this one this one this one and got to update the credit card but why is that it's because the data is in more places so I have more access to the data quicker but it's in more places so when you look at the end user the data is in two three four hyperscalers it's in SAS providers it's in their own on-prem data centers it's in Legacy applications in main frames it's in modern applications with automation so the data has sprawled there were years when you had one two three four data centers you you did a few Dr test a year and that was your it operating model and if you look at it now I mean you have multiple Dr situations multiple ransomware recovery situations multiple ways to automate multiple application sets and stacks based on where that application sits where it used to sit where it wants to sit so again going back to the video analogy I have more movies there's more data that's the good news you can bring more value to the business with more options so they can get to quicker but then the management the backing up the securing of those options is just more complicated because of that data set set sprawl and for me personally I think that's at the heart of the complexity you know throw in work from anywhere throw in again you know Ransom I mean there's all these sort of modern day challenges that that maybe weren't as severe you know 10 15 years ago so you know any it you know executive will tell you the opportunity is the best that's ever been to bring value to the Enterprise but it's more complicated to manage at the same time absolutely so when your clients are coming to you and expressing this sort of issue and challenge how are you able to get them to understand about how you're able to help them do you use that analogy do you just tell them exactly what you told me right or wrong I I speak in analogies here and there so sometimes it'll come up but eventually the rubber meets the road right and I think you know ahead and CDI uh in the past one thing we kept in in Forefront of the Mind was you know to invest in the customer so so we don't necessarily go in looking for like a quick project or a quick po we'll deploy a vast amount of resources you know oftentimes many times at no cost to the end user they're not people that were looking to Bill they're not people that were looking to monetize within the first you know month of the relationship we want to understand the customer program and what they're trying to roll out in the next X amount of years what good looks like in the end and then once we feel like we understand that then yes eventually the calvalry comes with you know the deployment engineers and the project management and the execution but I think back to your scale question you know a smaller organization needs to be making money all of the time and a larger organization has the ability to invest in a different way than you know maybe someone who's a pure play who really needs sort of every minute to count from a monetary perspective so I think that the breath of the service catalog and the ability and willingness to invest is really where you know the head team shines and that's why we have you know some of the largest Enterprises in the world and some of the most complicated vertical in the world you know spanning Global Solutions can you give me an example of how you're innovating on top of some of those offerings and innovating for those verticals and customizing those solutions for them yeah I I think taking multi-discipline projects right so taking something that instead of looking at it as you know six to 10 vendors and five applications and and stove piping it and sort of unifying that and sometimes you know through our digital solutions group through different aspects of our our service now team sometimes we can sort of create some custom IP to glue those Stacks together so maybe get software package a talking to software package B through some level of intelligent automation that you know we may have scripted out or iped out or worked on the application development so I think off the-shelf is is an aspect of our business but I think aead you know can really stand out to customize those outcomes those Technologies across a multi-discipline stack not maybe just siloed in the network or on the backup or you know in the itm or itom or you know I think really unifying that together and creating some custom Solutions as well as things like you know Mass Global rollout um life cycle management with our hatch platform the ability to provide sort of an Amazon like experience when you're procuring and deploying things globally instead of you know spreadsheets and things like that our integration Center you know in Chicago and Libertyville excuse me that can ingest you know Global projects ship them out track them stage them you know some of that scale stuff that we spoke about before you add that on top of you know sort of the custom engine engineering I was defining great account management great culture and I think you know it's hard to it's hard to match that you know quite frankly is there a customer success story that you may be able to share with me uh where we can talk about a specific instance in which you were able to help a customer and I know at this point it might come from a CDI perspective and that is totally fine I know it represents a head as a whole there is a um Clearing House you know um in the financial Market that a lot of the world's trades have to clear through and you know you're talking about an older organization with a lot ofch teal debt um but now you throw in things like blockchain and you throw in things like all the financial sort of parameters that Bitcoin and all these things have brought and the way they needed to service their customers you know the banks of the world uh really changed so that involved application transformation that involved things like creating a Marketplace things like merging and meshing networks with the banks around the world and understanding how that impacts blockchain and things like that so really what I'll say you know modernizing one of the largest you know Financial workflows in America while maintaining you know the Legacy application the Mainframe process and things like that you're talking about a four or fiveyear initiative that's you know been wildly successful leveraging the new maintaining the old merging the two leveraging automation leveraging multiple clouds while also leveraging on-prem infrastructure modernization and automation it's really been a phenomenal project it's been going on for for some time um it's had different names you know run the bank change the bank on Prem Cloud you know all that that stuff comes and goes but that's a good example you know in our Healthcare space giving doctors you know a faster better way to analyze critical patient data leveraging Ai and infrastructure accordingly which really creates you know healthier people right so the ability to get the right information in the right doctor's hand leveraging you know super machine learning and and you know all the things that Ai and large language models bring to the table that's something that's helping the world and you know we're proud of that and then again you know media customers working on their content delivery networks the movies I was watching before you know working on those networks to bring you know the latest Disney movie to your house in a not just a quick but a secure way um I could go on and on in the different verticals you know the way lawyers write papers the way that they analyze past cases you know how quickly they can do that from their house over a sassy Network you know things like that I mean there's all these cool use cases from Legal Financial Health Care media um State local government the way children learn and the way they access data and where that data lives and keeping that data secure and keeping that data mobile you know all those things too so it's kind of fun when you think about it um when I try to explain what we do to my kids I use true stories like that um yeah it's computers at the end of the day it's pretty cool outcome so one of the best parts of the job and that's what you do during that half hour of trying to choose explain your job to them yeah I'm just happy they still want to watch a movie with me they're 13 and 10 so oh oh those yeah totally get that totally get that what's next for ahead this year I know that currently you're a $3.7 billion doll company which is incredible by the end of 2026 you're looking to be a $6 billion company so what are you doing right now how have you hit the ground running to be able ble to start getting to that point and could we potentially see more Acquisitions this year sure uh a couple things so let me start with the the acquisition question so anyone can buy Revenue right so I I don't think buying revenue is a metric of success um you know I was CEO of CDI us to always say you know four two and we buy two and it's four you know what we really accomplish now ultimately nothing if four becomes six and and the question is well because that combination brought added value to our install base and then they just saw more value in our services and therefore they expanded their wallet share with us well then that acquisition made sense for everyone for the employee for the partner for the customer if you just do 2 plus two is four again I don't want to use a name but but but there's you know been some headlines recently of a pretty large organization that did a tremendous amount of m&a and it didn't go as planned so I I think that m&a done right you'll continue to see at ahead again it's got to be the right additive value to the end user the client and the vendors and our employees more importantly I do think you know continuing to build our Solutions whether it's our side whether it's our digital solutions group and the things we're doing around data and security and Ai and application management and also don't forget about your your bedrocks right I mean like look keeping the lights on I mean you turn your lights on at night even though you may automate your music and and turn your TV on with your voice and you do all this stuff you still don't have to keep the lights on you can't see anything so so as we've been discussing I think you know like I said you got to keep the lights on and um with that said You Gotta you got to also modernize your home modernize your data center um but keep that Bedrock safe and sound so I think ahead will continue to do both uh on the Next Generation Solutions as well as you know the foundational Solutions my last question for you today is a personal one rich um yeah sure those are my favorite I've been in this space for a bit been working in the channel going on six years now and for me uh I've noticed a bit of a trend especially in leadership positions there are a lot of two-year people they come in they spend two years they go out you spent more than two decades with CDI that really struck me because it means that you were there for a reason you were building something and they gave you a reason to stay why why is that something where you chose to stay with CDI as long as you did and how are you going to try to continue that culture in ahead now well I mean I think that culture already exists in AE I mean if you look at Dan you know the founder you look at you know Tim the cro you you look at Eric the CTO I think it's for the same reason you know I stayed at CDI you know quite friendly more than half my life um if you got great friends and you're having a lot of fun and you're working on interesting stuff and you're willing to make mistakes and and you're willing to learn and the people around you don't have an ego and are willing to be wrong and not pretend Things Are always perfect and and in the end you get to a good spot and you get challenged and then you get challenged again and again and again I think if you're competitive and you like to bring great outcomes for your customers and you like to bring great outcomes for your employees and and you just have a lot of energy I think if you have energy and competitiveness and transparency and great people and fun and friends and you know Tech's kind of cool to begin with right it's everywhere we go um I think you add all that up and it's like you know why would I leave and Rich if we want to get in touch with a head if we want to learn more who can we contact where can we go what should we do well you obviously go to our website there's a form you can fill out that's great feel free to fill it out I'm joking because this was a thing at CDI that drove me crazy not everybody has time for forms so you'll see an update on the website soon where it is just an alias email but for now obviously our website thank you so much Rich it's been a pleasure and I appreciate your time I appreciate your time you've been great thank you have a great day thanks so much to Rich for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or watch us on YouTube at Channel Insider newws and Trends you can also listen to the podcast version of every episode on your favorite podcast listening platform like apple podcast and Spotify don't forget to like subscribe and follow wherever possible to never miss an episode once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time I

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