Video: EchoStor on Building and Maintaining Client Trust

hey Channel insiders welcome back for part two of my interview with Echo Store and their longtime client UVM if you haven't watched or listened to part one yet head on over to channel insider.com to do that right now in this episode we continue to talk about what's made the Echo Store UVM partnership lasts for more than a decade as well as what investments Echo store is making in its portfolio and business growth in 2024 Mike became the CEO uh this past December December 2023 but Mike you were working with CC Ander team as their account executive at one point in time and you stayed on and you still have that very personal relationship with CC and with the hospital even after all this time and even after your responsibility list I'm sure expanded exponentially in the last few months but I think that really speaks to the team that you have at Echo Store and being able to still be a part of the day-to-day yeah I don't care if we're A5 billion global company that'll never change one of the unique things is we call it our 20 to1 philosophy we want 20 of our employees whether that's sales project managers delivery Engineers touching a customer on a regular basis and CC's probably seen 50 of those right but you know that's a philosophy that we have and additionally we want two executive sponsors one more on the sales side uh and then one on the technical side so having an executive sponsor is there for all of our customers you know small medium or large and regardless of what industry they work in but obviously with UVM Health in my history naturally took that that role on but that's something that we have as a standard across the board is we want Executives to have a working relationship with our customers to know that you know again good bad or indiff whatever is happening day-to-day in the account that they have access to leadership for an escalation path uh which is really really important I would also say that you know I think we took the blueprint for how myself and some of the other co-founders cover customers again all the stuff we've been talking about today but again it's finding that right air apparent right somebody that's got the DNA like a Caleb you know that wasn't just by accident Caleb didn't just fall in our lap right it he was somebody that we had talked to for many many years because again he fit that DNA that customer first mentality and if you're going to bring in a new face into the organization and have support some of our longest standing larger customers they sure as heck better you know better support the customers the way that they're accustomed to supporting them and now CC said this the other day where regardless of your size and we've grown four 5x in the last 36 months just tremendous growth but we always feel like that same Regional Boutique partner which was really really nice to hear because the minute that changes I got to know about it and I don't foresee that happening but we want to make sure that every customer feels like they're our only customer and continues to spread that feeling across the organization and all of our customers and I think we've done a nice job of picking the right sales and Technical and project management type resources and leaders to continue down that path I continue to feel that way and uh you just said something mik that you know if you if I ever don't feel that way because we have that longstanding relationship and trust and partnership I am very comfortable calling Mike and saying I don't feel that way anymore I feel that that's exactly how we still feel we are the only customer but I think that it's also speaks to the the strength of that that partnership and Caleb and CeCe I'd like to know what are you doing to be able to continue this partnership between UVM and Echo Store even when there isn't a Cyber attack or even when there isn't a crisis so Caleb how are you showing up for UVM and showing that you're there even when nothing is going wrong yeah so I mean at the end of the day I'd like to think of us eore myself and my team being an extension of CC's team as needed if they have uh staff that come and go or change roles or perhaps they go through a reorg there's always going to be tasks and things to get done whether it's keeping the lights on or looking at new technologies that her team is responsible for and ultimately more likely than not can ultimately get to all of it and some of it could just be managing all those vendors that we talked about some of it could be keeping up with the maintenance of existing equipment that's in the data center today all of those things change from quarter to quarter or you know month to month depending upon what CC's teams working on we want to have the capability but also the resources to support any all of it as needed we're never doing all of it at once it can change month to month um but anything that her team does we want to also be able to do and be there when they need us and they are I think I talk to Caleb every week at least once a week I think whether it be a contract renewal an extension just a check-in how are you guys doing you know we have a lot of new hardware we're installing do you need help do you need hands he's always offering to support us um throughout any of a life cycle of equipment or system he definitely helps keep me in line I've got we've got a lot of contracts and they are do I feel like every other day and Caleb has organized them for me and shares some of me says heads up this is coming up I say the large environment it's a large operation and I don't want to get too specific on it too but I also want to make it seem like it's a managed service because it's not right that's still something that Echo Store just delivers for our customers it's not a time and materials engagement or anything like that it's something that we want to make sure that we can work with them as they look to implement new technologies and augment their environment we're just there assisting and facilitating yeah I don't get an SLA yes correct yeah I don't get an S so I don't get time and material bills they're just there I was going to ask about that like is there a price tag prior to them showing up but it does not sound that way I know it's not the way MJ's done business when I've worked with him prior when I was at a vendor and I don't think expect that that's something eore wants to do going forward either no I think that's part of what we would like to offer our clients so there's nothing more insulting than being in a pinch and needing something and then asking for a $2,000 s so I mean it just it goes against all of our core and ethical you know business values it's just not how we operate that's not what the partner experience is all about if you're going to leverage my team for pre-sales architecture best practice type deployments hey you mind just hopping on a zoom for half an hour we get something you know kind of funky going on in the data center that is absolutely not warranting any sort of cost or statement of work now if we're going to do an elaborate you know 10 week data center move and there's a lot of different moving Parts there we need to bring in moving trucks and assign PMs and put in you know 10 12 bodies again maybe you know TBD but maybe not right so it all depends on kind of what we're doing at that time I would say regarding how we support our customers Katie particularly you know the health network is we always say we like to have weekly bi-weekly monthly cadences right and those are you know again hitting a multitude of topics right right hey let's sync up by weekly we're going to talk about compute storage Cloud security and service now right we're going to kind of hit them all and have breakout sessions and and you know next steps reach of those again the CC's point we often find ourselves talking almost daily right but when you start to talk about all those other manufacturer Partners they all want to talk to CC daily weekly monthly quarterly right so it's really establishing those cadences and we're not trying to prevent the manufacturers from meeting with CC because obviously it's important that they understand their technology road maps and what those guys are doing right but I think having a monthly or a quarterly with the manufacturers but almost having a weekly and bi-weekly touch point with your partner I think lends to a better experience right because you're not getting overloaded with you know repetitive conversation which I think is is is quite helpful I would give you an example of what I've seen out there in the field you know you get a vendor they have a piece of Hardware or a software subscription or whatever managed Services subscription whatever it might be that's up on July 1st of 2026 right they're probably going to wait to March 20226 or June and say hey CC this is due what do you want to do with it we're getting ahead of that now 24 months ahead and sometimes it's almost nagging to a fault to to CC te like yeah yeah we get it it's July 2020 26 but at the end of the day if we're not talking about that 24 months 22 months 18 months in advance time flies it's going to sneak up on you and all of a sudden you've got a situation where you might need to now prolong a legacy hardware for for example or you've got an unbudgeted situation where CC's like I didn't predict this $100,000 subscription renewal it's not in my budget I don't want to roll that Upstream you know what are we doing here right so it's both budget predictability but also again what are we doing with that technology in the next couple years because technology changes very quickly so we might look at that and say hey that application's running on on Prem hyper converge infrastructure hey in in July 2026 we want to move that to the cloud right well it might take 18 months 12 months to move it out there six months right so we have to get ahead of that make a decision of what the end state is and then how we're going to get there right and then ultimately if we do move it out to the cloud and there's a 50% reduction in cost we're shifting cost from Capital the operational CCE can then go to her executive leadership and say hey we moved this to the cloud it's part of our standard we saved $50,000 right so it has a trickle effect of getting ahead of this when you're a vendor or an order taker which will never be you wait till you get a reminder in your calendar or within your CRM send CC quote for subscription or Hardware right and that just puts the customer in a really bad spot so you really have to get ahead of this both technology-wise and financially to show value right or continue to show value so CC before we move on to some some Channel specific questions that I have I'd like to know from you for the audience that is watching whether they're a CIO or whether they're an MSP really looking to expand their customer base what are some of the things that you would advise the CIO audience to look for when they're recruiting a partner some of what uh we have and with our partnership with eost store is uh the open communication some of it comes over time and building that relationship and trust but their willingness to engage right up front the strategic planning piece is huge because that'll helps us align I know Mike was talking about the budgeting aspect from support but also for you know technology changes for me my job is to think two three four five years down the road right so having a partner that has that thought right that Forward Thinking um and is looking down the road with that understanding but really finding a partner that can connect and understand what your mission is and what is important to you and what your job is right for us it's delivering patient care and knowing that they understand that they respect that and they feel it also and can relate to it I don't know how you can pick that up if you're looking at new partners because it does come over time so talking to other organizations may help but that's something that's really important that's probably the most important thing is they understand our mission and our values and support us with that beautifully put thank you so much CCE now Mike and Caleb I've got a couple questions for you considering the state of the channel in the technology space right now is there any kind of tech or any vendors any technology providers in general that you've got your eye on you know from my side Katie um you know going back to the four pillars I mentioned earlier right you know so we're laser focus very fit Focus organization especially as we look to grow and bring in new technology Partnerships as I mentioned earlier we're vetting these Technologies out you know meeting with Gartner ourself right and understanding what fits in our portfolio and what does not but NextGen data center you know that for us is inclusive of cloud both public private and hybrid right so we're continuing to you know work with the AWS and Microsoft folks and Contin to further those Partnerships I mentioned digital and modern workspace around service now and Microsoft but the real area that we're doubling down quite a bit lately is around security you know we talked about you know the unfortunate event that happened at the health network and within that zero trust framework that we've built out Cloud security is one that that I'm keeping an eye on quite a bit so you look at a lot of changes in that space we've got great Partnerships with you know whiz for example uh we're doing quite a bit with zscaler as well in the security space but you know really looking at some of the cloud security players and cnap space is is been pretty exciting for us you know a lot a lot of growth in that space and again security is continuing to to be a high growth segment of the market lastly everybody's talking about AI right generative Ai and you know everybody's got a strategy in a go to market in that space you know we're trying to uh further our own go to market regarding Ai and how it ties back to those particular pillars for example in the next gen data center everybody's talking about gpus right we just launched a big partnership with Nvidia we were just out at their conference you know what does that look like and how do we bring that back to our customer base and then verticalized of AI as well with Healthcare specifically right so for cc you know it's disrupting every industry what does that mean for healthcare right that could be increasing speed and accuracy of you know diagnosing patients right okay great we understand that but what does that mean for cc from an infrastructure perspective how do we outfit her infrastructure uh to be built for scale whether that's gpus that's you you know larger high performing parallel NFS you know unstructured storage systems right that is what makes sense to run in the cloud versus on Prem if it is on Prem how do we outfit her data centers to support the power and cooling demands that AI workloads can can yield right so everybody's talking about this terminology it's how we bring it back to our pillars how we verticalized that and bring it back to our customers and then get ahead of it right great that we talk to a lot of infrastructure folks and Cloud folks uh and security folks but what about when there's a data scientist in the room and then now they're interfacing with infrastructure and they're giving their requirements to cc's team and then CC's team comes to us you know hey we're having a lot of conversations with both data scientists in INF infrastructure it's let's bring the the party together and and be more strategic and outfit a you know a nextg infrastructure that's going to support you know AI workloads for the future right so uh definitely again to recap for us doubling down on our core competencies but Cloud security is very interesting for me and then following the AI trend and how it ties back to our verticalized customers and then our our pillars and I'll add specifically for those those areas Cloud security AI ml whatever the case may be I found that what also separates Echo stores we' like to pick a few technologies that we can have expertise in to MJ's Point earlier in the conversation that we are going to have vetted out in our own lab kind of taking it through the paces to make sure that we want to place a bet on that partnership with that vendor we're in that process right now for a number of these Technologies because this is a newer space right everyone will have some type of AI ml go to market strategy whether it's a compute vendor or a storage vendor or a software vendor right everyone's going to have that as part of their pitch to our customers like CC and our team we're right now trying to make sure we understand those and we want to place the right bet on the right technology so that if Cc or some of our other customers want to choose it we can support it potentially service it and be confident that it's going to work um and I still feel like we're in that phase right now as I'm sure a lot of folks are in the it space trying to figure out what all this means and ultimately where is this Market heading so that goes for cloud security that goes for AI and that still goes for the traditional data center technologies that we know in you a work with day like backup and computer and I got to ask about the growth that ecostore is experiencing Mike you said to yourself it's been a really exciting 36 months what does the future look like this year for echos store what are you planning for and what benchmarks can you point to saying we're accomplishing our goals I think outside of what we talked about with just technology Trends and focusing you know from an innovation perspective it's continuing to recruit and and add top industry Talent right that's not easy to find right so we're going to continue to add the best folks that we can bring into the organization again sales marketing leadership engineering project managers delivery folks Finance folks right it doesn't really matter we want to make sure that we have the best and breed folks on our team it's part of that mission we want to continue to scale geographically as well right so finding great talent is one thing but finding great talent in new Geographic areas can also be you know fairly difficult as well so we had a successful launch of our Tri-State operation which is down of Windsor Connecticut we have a great team there it started with four folks we're up to about 25 which in two years is a lot of growth uh stationed down there in that territory they're working with some of the largest insurance providers in the state a lot of the financial services lot of the power utility space so you know these guys are doing a great job in expanding down into that region from there we want to continue to move South down the East Coast right so we have an eye on you know New Jersey in the DC area and then continue to go Southeast from there so I think we use the same Playbook that we have in New England which we kind of grow out to the Tri-State Upstate New York and continue to move Southeast I think while maintaining that culture and some of the things we've talked about today that Boutique type feel and specialized partner type feel I think we'll continue to see the numbers uh in top line revenue continue to grow top top and to the right but we need to have a more well balanced business right so again outside of the data center security Microsoft Consulting service now manage services Professional Services but I truly feel like we have the right infrastructure to support that growth which again the last couple years has been 50% year-over-year growth which is just insane to say out loud but it's the truth so having the right infrastructure in place that's Financial operations the operational aspects of the business um the right engineering folks in place and then the right Innovation team keeping an eye on you know what's happening four8 12 quarters ahead I think we're in in a great position to continue to grow the other thing I would mention is a lot of that growth has been done organically right we're not looking for third party you know funding we're not private Equity back we're not looking to be acquired if anything we're looking to continue to grow and be the acquirers so if we continue to be in growth mode and again look for the right DNA the right Talent the right potential companies to acquire and fit them into the existing culture that we've had certainly over the last 19 years but more importantly the last three to four which has yielded those incredible results think sky is the limit for us and finally folks if I am in the market for looking for a new partner or just want to discuss what my options are and learn more about echoo who can I reach out to where can I find you and where can I go sure you can go to echo.com obviously it's our website you know we've got a number of social media you know presence whether it's LinkedIn or you know Twitter Etc right but uh reaching out you can certainly go to our website you know put an inquiry there that routes back to our marketing team uh our PR team uh as well is our leadership team so I would route you right through the website and uh and contact us there um and we will respond quick as we always do with our customers and partners now lad if you're in the Northeast I'd wag you we have an Echo Store employee somewhere nearby that'd be willing to drive and say hello in person so we always wouldn't come to the office for sure so um is there a costume involved in that though that's only on Halloween thanks again to Mike Caleb and CC for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening check out all all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or watch on our YouTube page at channel inssider news and Trends you could take us with you wherever you go with the podcast version of this episode and all episodes available on your favorite podcast listening platforms like apple podcasts and Spotify don't forget to like subscribe and follow wherever possible to never miss an episode we put out a new video and podcast every week once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time

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