Hey channel insiders, welcome back to channel insider partner POV. I'm your host Katie Bavoso and I'm excited to welcome back platform MSP Integris to the video podcast today. Glenn Matthysse returns this time as CEO and joining him is Kyle Wiwi, the company's new CRO. Glenn talks about his plan for a bright 2026 at Integris, which includes new acquisitions, a focus on AI and the application layer, and being a fully CMMC 2.0 compliant provider. Kyle explains how verticalization and deep customer expertise will separate Integris from the competition and what customers can do with the extra budget allocated to AI in 2026.
Gentlemen, welcome and welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having us, Br. Appreciate it. >> It's great to be here. >> Great to have you. Thank you so much. I got to make sure that we start with some of the the biggest news out of Integris uh from 2025, which would of course be Glenn, you're back. We're so happy to have you. And in a different capacity this time, in a different title, 2025 was a huge year for you because you became the CEO of Integris after spending nearly two years as the COO.
Congratulations. That's such exciting news. Thank you very much. Very very happy to be in the role and super excited to take Integress forward. >> Yeah. Super excited to see what you do, what you are doing already in the in the limited time that you've been in this capacity. So why don't we dig into that a bit in my first question because I want to know how your dayto-day role has changed and what was the first goal that you set for yourself or for Integress as a whole as the CEO?
Well, the good news is that, you know, as the president of the business, it was uh a lot of the learning of the day-to-day and setting strategy, working very closely with our private equity uh and really setting the direction. We just recapped recently at the end of last year. So, it was a great renaissance time for us to sort of reinvent, not reinvent, but reimagine uh and retweak and reset sort of our goals going into 2025 and then now going into 2026 and beyond.
For me as as as CEO of Integress, my role is to set the direction and pace of the company. Certainly about making sure we're building a platform that's scalable as you and I talked about last time. Definitely differentiated and as we talked about future ready as well. So you know that means really balancing three things kind of every day. Um it's it's about driving sustainable growth and strengthening our operational foundation. We brought in a new COO.
We brought in a lot of new leaders this year as well. just wasn't my promotion, but we we've we've been able to mature and grow the business through our people and then protecting the culture and values that really makes Integris what we think is very special. So, I spend a lot of my time aligning our leadership team around strategy and ensuring our investments, whether they're in people or in technology. We've talked a lot about AI in the past and and the digital state and where we see the industry moving or acquisitions because we're continuing to be very inquisitive on the acquisition side.
All of those things are tied directly to to long-term customer value, which ultimately is the most important thing for me as we grow the business and really positioning Integris to lead as the MSP market really continues to evolve and the industry continues to change. So the first few goals that I set out was to continue doing what we were doing, which was really diving into how do we make Integra continue to uh to grow into that digital state sort of MSP that's focused not just on the infrastructure side of technology for our SMB customers in a in a vertical setting, but very much focus on as much the digital state, the data side, the application layer.
How do we bring more value to our customers that are demanding so much more in this new evolution of where uh technology is taking us? And so that that's been our focus. >> You brought up so many things that I'm going to double down on in this interview. So, thank you very much for getting us set on the right path. But one thing you mentioned is bringing in new faces either through hiring or promotion. And speaking of which, we have Kyle on the line with us for the first time.
So, Kyle, speaking of new faces, you also stepped into a new role as CRO when you joined Integris in October of 2025. Congratulations to you as well on the exciting news. >> Thank you. It's uh great to be here. It's going on big month three uh which is great. It's exciting to be here. >> Very happy to have you and thank you for being a part of uh today's conversation. And I do have to point out the channel and the managed services space in general are not new to you. you did come from a global IT services provider.
What drew you to Integris to come over here as CRO? >> Yeah, I think it was a couple of things. Uh number one, you know, the people in the culture just were are are phenomenal here. The idea that uh we have this people first mentality, which a lot of people say but not a lot of companies deliver on. Uh so uh seeing that in our executive team and and our private equity company and some of the folks that I'd met along the way was really important to me.
And then just a lot of the growth uh that I see that's happening in the com company as well as the transformation that's really intricral to the the way that we're going to market and wanting to be part of that. Uh I could go on and on about all of the things that attracted me here and take up the rest of the time, but those were the the first two is just the confidence that uh our customers have in us, our people first mentality and and uh what we're doing in the market and what Integris was doing really resonated with me. >> And by the way, you talked about growth there, Kyle.
I should actually check in with you about this, Glenn. Last time we talked we were at uh for Integress about 1,800 plus customers obviously nationwide here in the US. Has that moved the needle quite a bit since the last time I spoke to you? I want to make sure I give you a chance to talk about those numbers. >> Yeah. So I guess it depends on remind me again when we chatted because um we did the TechMD acquisition this year changed significantly. So that 1,800 customers has grown to over 3,000 um and that's certainly on the inorganic side. and then obviously, you know, some number of customers.
We've we've obviously grown it organically as well this year. So, yeah, probably a lot's changed since the last time we chatted. >> That's exciting to hear. So, thank you very much for adding that in there. And I I do want to ask you, Glenn, knowing where that that timeline kind of lined up as far as uh Kyle's hiring and your promotion to the CE CEO position, I would imagine that he was probably one of the first hires to the leadership suite that you made uh at Integra.
I'm actually very curious for you. What stands out as a leader for you when you're hiring to those very crucial positions at the company and what did you see in Kyle and anybody who walks through the door? What's important for you to really identify about them to say this is somebody who I know the very large integrity team is going to look to as a leader and how I know it's going to work. I I would say the number one thing above, you know, people are going to look at your resume.
They're going to look at where you went to school. They're going to look at your experience. And certainly all of those things are really important, but for me, the number one thing is is always been curiosity and a strong troubleshooting mind. There's a lot that we've talked about, you and I, rel uh relative to where we see the industry going or where I see the industry going. And so that means you got to reinvent a little bit of what you might believe the your company can needs to do in order to to match those changes.
And so having people that are curious that uh are change managers that uh aren't married to what was and really more focused on what could be uh is really important to me. So finding those those naturally curious people is just as important as anything else. the space that we're in is also uh demanding and eclectic and and especially when you look at the upper end of the SMB marketplace, it's it changes is very dynamic. And so you have to have people that can go with that flow and can rise to the demand of the everanging needs of our customers.
So a little bit of been there done that is is really great especially at scale I think is important. And as you mentioned with Kyle as an example, he came from from Verge one, so C1. And so he he knows what it's like to work in a large consulting organization in the services world and he has all those other attributes that I just mentioned. So as I've been building out my team, those are the things that I look for more than anything else. And and being able to work closely together, uh it's not about building an empire and and building out your little part of the organization.
It's about how do we come together and work together shoulder-to-shoulder on the common vision that Integris has as it's growing and and as we're trying to be and will be one of the largest platform players in this space. And so Kyle was certainly one of the people that I brought on board this year. Uh we brought uh Deborah Julius who runs our marketing department. We brought in Brian Lucky at the end of last year who came in as our CIO who had been with me at All Covered and helped me build the All Covered organization.
We brought in a new COO that was part of the acquisition with TechMD, uh, Bill Thompson who's great experience across the board and really wonderful in in in running the operations side of the business. And then we have a new CFO and Ben Enard who's uh same thing uh worked on the tech MD side and is a great CFO. So, we've slowly but surely built out the team and we're super excited about uh going forward with this this this this team to build the organization with us. >> Speaking of being curious, Kyle, I'm going to pick your brain.
When you and I when we first met, you told me that a priority of yours for 2026, and of course, in general, is to show customers their MSP, in this case, Integris, is not interchangeable with another MSP. You don't want them to look at you guys and say, "We'll just change this out next year, swap it for a different model, whatever." that's not what you want that to be. So, with who your customers are, you want them to know that they're partnering with a strategic partner for a long-term relationship.
How do you do that? What's one way that you're able to do that with your customers to make sure that they know you're in this for the long run and they should invest just as much too? >> One of the interesting things uh personal things about me is I have an identical twin brother. Um and uh even now when we come up to people at the first time, you know, it's when sometimes we speak or what we're wearing, you know, people get us confused. And uh you know, being back in Dallas today, I'll inevitably run across somebody that knows him because he lives here.
It's interesting because when we initially present ourselves to people, they don't know the difference between us. And I think that's really it's kind of applicable to us in the MSP market is that you have to choose how it is that you present yourself to a customer because if you present yourself the same way as everybody else, right? Uh into this idea of uh into some of the areas that our customers see as commoditized, then you all of a sudden get put into that basket or into that box like, hey, you know, when a renewal comes up, it's easy for me to flip over or do whatever.
Uh, but when I start to have conversations with people and I tell them about what I'm doing and my career and my background and all that stuff, when I'm standing next to my brother, they're like, "Oh, you're Kyle and you're Keith." So, the same thing is true for us is that when we lead in customer interactions and lead in conversations, there are some things, it's understanding what those things are that are table stakes that our customers expect us to do, right?
We will always nail the things that the customers expect us to do. What we want to do is thrill them. And the way that you thrill them is you work into those areas uh and into their business on the things they didn't expect. those outcomes uh and delivering things to them that they uh are quite surprised and Glenn mentioned the idea of curious curiosity as being a thing that um attracts leaders into integring us to be curious about who they are. When we're curious about who they are, then we start to position ourselves, our portfolio, the things that we inter ways that we interact with them differently than everybody else.
And so it's very important for us as we're looking at this idea of port portfolio rationalization and looking at the offers within our portfolio to say here's what makes us different. Here's what makes us relevant to our customers. Here's the things that make us transformative and and a real partner as opposed to just a vendor. So it's important, right? Is that I have to so I have to open up my mouth and speak and I got to tell customers what I'm doing.
I can't, you know, I've got to continue to have that evolving conversation. It's it's not static, by the way. It's like just like our business, customers business change periodically, so do ours. So, I've got to continually follow up with them, continue to be curious about them, as well as tell them what I'm doing in my business because just as curious as I want to be about their business, they're actually just as curious and sometimes more about mine.
And so, uh, honoring that relationship and saying, "Hey, you're curious about me. I'm going to tell you." Um, is, uh, I think what sets us apart and it's what it's going to lead us into 2026 and beyond. >> We've also very purposely looked at our customers differently. And last time again, you and I talked about building those Rosetta Stones for the various verticals that we support. So we we've put a lot of effort into building those language structures that allow us to understand the very specific natures of our customers and the very specific outcomes that they're looking for.
No two customers are the same and not even two customers in the same vertical. And so we have to be really purposeful in thinking about um what really is important to community banks which is different than might be important to a legal c customer which is very important to different than what might be important to a manufacturing customer. Now that we are CMMC certified you know we're able to uh speak that language in a more meaningful way for those customers.
And so I think part of it is also making sure that the way we present ourselves differently is through the way in which we interact with our customers. Um, it's not just about the infrastructure while you were sleeping, services, knockock, help desk, but it's now also about the data. It's about building out the data links and the automations and and the AI that you can build into those conversations with our customers. But it's all about driving to those outcomes and and I think we're different because of the way we approach those conversations with our different customers.
It reminds me a lot of the reporting that we've been doing on Channel Insider about 2026 trends and the predictions that a lot of people in the ecosystem have where they're highlighting exactly what you're saying where verticalization and going deep on these very specific areas and knowing what your customers need. That's going to be the differentiator for many many folks out there, for many MSPs out there. A question that I actually have for you in that same line though, Glenn, when it comes to verticalization and showing up for your customers, where does the line fall where you can really show them that you go deep as opposed to, oh yeah, we specialize in that vertical?
How do you prove that? And how do you show up with new customers to say, "This is how we can prove that we're not just saying this is another line item inside of our portfolio." I think as as important as anything else with our customers is is showing them that when we talk about verticalization integrating industry specific expertise so we can really move from that managing technology uh to what Kyle said which is you know managing outcomes. Most MSPs are very horizontal.
They deliver the same set of tools to everyone. So our approach is is certainly going to be different. When you think about how it's different, it's it's organizing around the industry we serve, but it's also tailoring everything from the playbooks to the automations to the KPIs that those clients care about to those particular verticals. And our our organizational structure is built around those verticals. So, we don't have the same um sales team talking necessarily to the community banks, as the ones that are talking to healthcare, as the ones that are talking to manufacturing because they don't speak quite the same Rosetta Stone.
Same thing with the delivery team and the project team and the CX team. We we're very much trying to create majors and minors within those teams. So they they major in a vertical. Now you might minor in a vertical as well. So you can speak Italian, but you you're also learning how to speak French so that you can have overlap and you have the ability to be able to utilize all almost 900 employees at our company today. Because that's the other thing that's important is we want to be able to route any problem, any opportunity, any situation to the right resource.
I want all 900 people to be able to have sure our customers have access to any skill set that we have in the organization. So, it's a little bit of making sure we know where our skills are and be able to manage those. It's also about organizing our skills more correctly with those verticals. I would say 80% of the work that we do with our vertical is probably very similar from vertical to vertical, right? Putting a firewall in for a healthcare customer, putting one in for a banking customer, 80% of the work similar.
The secret sauce is that 20% which is that that Rosetta Stone part where you want to have expertise that comes in and able to not only sell to that particular client but also be able to advise that particular client and then be able to support that particular client and then continue to advise that customer. And so that's the way we look at the at the vertical side of of and why it's so important because if a generalist help desk is servicing all customers the same with the same resources only so much information a help desk person can know. he or she cannot speak all languages very well.
And so you're probably not going to put the right person in front of the right problem in that type of model. And so in our world, the stratification of the roles is one of the big ways that we're able to kind of match the need of those of those languages that those particular customers want to speak. And the fact that they're also regulatory compliant driven verticals also means that 80% of some of that stuff also can be shared across all of them.
Right? It's HIPPA and healthcare and it might be CMNC with with regulated manufacturing but you know audits are audits and we know how to do audits and you know a lot of that work is is very similar but when we need to be able to differentiate between the two in particular we've got specific resources that come in and parachute it and help. >> I really like that example especially talking about how you're not going to just send every team to be a generalist because you reminds me of the the term jack of all trades master of none.
Things start to slip through your fingers very quickly. Uh, so really great example there, Glenn. And Kyle, I'd like to go back over to you kind of building on that way that you approach customers. Obviously, budgets are always top of mind for for many customers. It's no matter what size you are, it's always going to be in the back of your mind. With that in mind, how do you approach customers and avoid them shopping you just based on your price range or based on your contracts? like how are you able to avoid the speeds and feeds the SLAs's essentially from being what determines if they go with Integress or not? >> Yeah, a lot of that starts with uh you know frankly in our sales process as we're looking for customers as we're onboarding them and and being relevant throughout that sales cycle with them.
So the diligence that we put into uh our investigation into customers around technical assessments is not common in our industry. We're spending a lot of time. We're sending engineers on site in a lot of cases to spend time with our customers to actually get in look in lines of code like go figure out what key fits that closet over there in the corner that might have something in there and figuring out what our customers have from a technology perspective and spending time understanding about them as we're putting together.
We're not sending a customer a spreadsheet and saying, "Hey, fill this out and we'll give you a quote on the back end." Because there's things that we want to do with our customer. We want to first, you know, we owe them that if they're giving us an opportunity to uh be relevant and a partner within their business, we want to make sure that as we're turnurning work to them, that we're being the best partner to them and as responsible as possible.
So, it helps us in regards to understanding uh you know, the environment they have. It also allows us the ability to be really prescriptive with them to say, "Hey, you know, as we're talking to you about solutions, like here's some things that we would recommend you do that adhere to industry standards, NIST or whatever other standards uh we want to apply to the customer in particular verticals, as well as here's some remediation things that we think that you need to take care of." And we're proactive and in making sure that through our sales cycle uh that we're we're explaining that and vetting that to the customer.
So I think a lot of the depth in our sales cycle and our exper and spending time with our customers along that cycle and as we on board them is is extremely important. I think that the second thing uh it is that we do is that you know you have to continue to keep your customers a breast of things that are relevant to them in the market. So it's where indust uh verticalization is important uh to us as well is that we do have 3,300 plus customers and clients.
It's easy to see and and map out trending for our customers to say hey here's what the trending that we're seeing other customers go in and here's the outcomes that it's producing within their business. It's being advisory. So advisory is a big opportunity for us as we go into 2026 and beyond uh to really resonate with our customers uh because we have the data by the way uh because we have the depth of the customers. It's it's understanding how it is that we consume that data and uh propagate that back to our customers in relevant ways.
Uh so it is being really prescriptive on the front end and advisory and we're their counsel uh throughout their relationship with us. And by doing those two things as well as uh just the evolution of our product portfolio really uh helps us uh continue to have customers for for long periods of time and not experience churn. >> We talk all the time about beginning the way you mean to end. And so, you know, I always say if a customer leaves us, I could probably go all the way back to the sales cycle to see where that beginning of that relationship, if it's not started correctly, can really lead you down the path of having unrealistic expectations.
And you know, a lot of times we'll think, oh, well, we lost a customer because of this thing, this incident, this one problem that that incurred with occurred with the delivery team. No, it's usually the way we started the relationship. So, Kyle's right. how we mean to end is the way we mean to start. And that's really really important to us. And and the trending he talked about is so crucial when you think about um being able to provide very industry specific trends for our customers which are very relevant to what they live day-to-day.
It doesn't help to say across all companies across the entire United States or all 3,300 customers here's how we see the cloud trending because cloud trending in healthcare is very different than cloud trending another vertical. So it's just a another way for our customers to feel like we're we're not only talking the talk, but we're walking the walk on that advisory side that helps them make better decisions for themselves and their businesses. >> And Glenn, advisory, that word has been brought up a couple of times.
So, I think this question plays really well into that. You also brought this up earlier. Integris recently acquired TechMD in June 2025. It's a cyber security and managed services company. So, it aligns very nicely with what Integris is all about and what you do and offer. Uh, but you recently told me that Integris is looking to buy non MSP businesses. What kinds of businesses are you looking to acquire and why? >> If you hearken back to the coin where I talked about one side is is what MSPs have always been sort of very infrastructure focused while you were sleeping cloud helped us that type of thing. certainly security and then the other side being the digital state and thinking about data and thinking about automation and thinking about AI.
A big part of of of what we're really focused on is is making sure that we're building for both sides of th those coins and and so that means I don't know that there's a we've got a lot of experience on the MSP side relative to what's always been. It's not that we can't learn more, but I think with all of our dozens and dozens of years of experience in the space, we know the infrastructure side really well, and we're going to continue to buy companies that really help us grow and scale on that end and maybe buy more MSPs that are vertical and and certainly tuck in well with our strategy, but there's just as much that we need to be thinking about to build the other side of that coin.
And when you think about data and you think about automation and and AI, there are definitely technologies out there that we're going to either partner, sometimes we're going to partner with companies to provide services. Sometimes we're going to build, you know, my CIO and our head of AI are building things every day, but we're just as likely to invest and acquire companies that aren't necessarily MFDs, but they have a technology stack or they have something probably more akin to what we're trying to do on the on the other side of the coin in the digital world that we could just add that last 10 or 20% that'll really make it useful for our our MSP customers.
And so we're looking at um you know certainly Microsoft 365 customers. We're looking at or companies that are building out automation and AI in a 365 way. We're looking at dynamics. We're looking at you know a variety of different technology stacks that we can bring to the table that aren't MSPs but that can be used in an MSP way. >> Is this also something that you believe will also help with the application layer focus that you spoke a little bit about earlier?
And why don't we move into that? what ruminate for me a little bit more on when you talk about the application layer truly what are you trying to accomplish in 2026 at Integris? >> Yeah, it's a great question. So again, historically uh MSPs being infrastructure focused um have really been uh the center of the universe has always been the user and the device. How many users? How many devices? We'll monitor them for you. You have issues, we'll fix them for you.
But in the future, well, we'll continue to do that. outcomes are really going to be determined by what we do in the application layer. And so there's so much data that our customers have access to because done such a good job of engineering them into the cloud, but most companies haven't really changed enough to help them advise them on how to leverage that data once they're there. And so we're looking and digging deeper into process automation, workflow automation, application automation, data lakes, and then finding chores in our customers environments and then automating them and writing scripts and helping them be more effective with how we present data and utilize that data.
So when we talk about application layer, we're really talking more about the data layer. Uh and so we want to understand how they use their applications today. How do they use their their their data today? And still continue to marry that to the user, still continue to marry that to the devices and still continue to marry that to the infrastructure side of the world. But now combine the two and provide a complete outcome for the entire digital state of our customers.
Um that is really really really critical I think in the new world where the customer now is more sophisticated than they've ever been in the space. They understand that there's a lot more they could and should be doing with the data and what they should be thinking about from an application perspective. And they need an MSP that's going to advise them for the entire digital state, not just about their firewalls and their switches and their servers and their users and their desktops, but really help them with how do they leverage data more effectively to become more efficient with their own data and how they can do that for their customers as well.
So in the past MSP would partner with companies like the Cisco and the Citrix's and the Microsofts and uh enables and cases a lot of the those types of companies which are really focused around the infrastructure side of the world. In the future, a lot of our partners, whilst continuing to be them, will also now be diving into the application side, legal applications, community banking applications, healthcare applications, DoD applications from a CMMC perspective.
And we need to be able to speak in those languages a little bit more and then automate around the data to be able to provide an all-encompassing service to our customer in that new digital world. >> I love that. And Glenn, I'm also going to stick with you for this next question. And Kyle, don't go anywhere. I am getting back to you, so don't move. But Glenn, you you said something earlier where you dropped in our head of AI. And I absolutely want to talk about artificial intelligence when it comes to Integress.
How are you at Integris investing in AI in 2026? And please tell me about that new AI leader that you brought in. >> Yeah. Yeah. Lots. It's the thing we're as excited about as anything else. I think that when you talk about the digital state and and how we're now marrying the data side to the infrastructure side, AI and automation uh is going to be super critical. It's not just bolt-ons for us either. They're they're really going to be built into how we design work.
Um a lot of MSPs ask how we can add AI to what we do. We've really flipped that question around and we're asking which workflows should be replaced or reimagined by AI agents and automation and the like. So the mind shift is going to be really big. is going to be huge and we've built I I've used the term a bunch of times already the digital state where every process from ticketing to monitoring to client reporting it's really broken down it's standardized and it's exposed to real orchestration so once you do that AI can make decisions for you trigger actions even predict issues before they happen without relying necessarily on a person to get in the middle of that and do something right people make mistakes the automations that you build especially if they're built around standards in these vertical languages that we're talking about rarely make those same mistakes.
And so we call a lot of that chore automation which is taking the repetitive low value high volume work off people's plates so they can really focus on much higher order thinking to to Kyle's point consulting um problem solving relationship building and it just makes us much more efficient but it also uh has made the work you know much more human um and I think we're humanizing the relationship with our customers now because of AI which is kind of counterproductive to what people always thought well we're going to just get rid of all these people and going to replace people in the industry.
No, I think it's actually humanizing the the interactions with our customers because now we can consult more. Now we can focus on those workflows and how they work and and then how do we marry that to the technology in a much more effective way than just worrying about what servers they have and desktops and what firewalls they build and what infrastructure uh does. So AI is going to sit at the center of our skill, data, workflow, and insight loop that we've created, which is going to be really continuously learning from every task we perform across all of our clients and all of our verticals.
And the more consistent the data, the smarter the systems are going to get. And that's what's going to make verticalization even more powerful. Um, really will give AI a clear context for how the business actually operates. So it's not just about being a service provider in the future. It's going to be about being decision platform. And our job is to build the systems and the data and the talent that makes that possible. And so when you think about um one of the key hires we just made, which is our new lead of AI, um Meera just joined the company recently and her job is going to be taking a lot of the work that we've done over the last year and and create products and solutions and services for our customers.
We've invested heavily in outside consulting to come in and talk to our customers. And we've I think we've interviewed I don't know 60 customers and really found out what are chores in their environment. And so we've already got a lot of effort built into figuring out what those first chore automation should be by vertical. And so Mera's job is to build out an AI center of excellence. Um which will be a grouping of people whose job will be to take these automations by vertical and figure out how to build services and solutions around them. and then also create more capabilities within our own existing employee base to help them get better at how to think about AI and automation in a digital state world.
Uh which again doesn't means we don't have to we're not losing people as a result of AI. We're going to be upskilling and training those people so they can be more consultative with our customers. Um so that's that's really exciting for us. And so Mera's she's she's relatively new. We've got a we've got an AI process we're going through next week where we've invited I think 15 AI and automation companies to come in New York and share with we shared problems and opportunities with them automations that we want created chores that we want to uh utilize and we've got companies coming out there to show us how they can help us and Mera's going to pick a few and maybe we'll partner with them maybe we'll buy some who knows but we're investing a lot in the space. >> Well tell me to get real comfortable real fast because I'm going to make her come on this video podcast very shortly.
Yeah. >> Oh, so exciting. So exciting. And Kyle, I want to build on that in the same topic of AI because what we were talking about right there when it comes to the way that you're approaching customers now differently than saying like how can we add AI in just to add AI in. We're now looking at what can we automate? What processes can we redo? Uh that you don't need to get bogged down with. In 2026, we are expecting more budget to go toward AI allocation.
So for you, how are you already thinking about approaching your customers saying this is actually what we can do with that extra budget and what are you advising them to look into with Integress to move forward with their own AI journey? >> Yeah, so the interesting thing about this and growing this part of our portfolio is it really does open up our uh ability. It's like this communal ideas uh with or we call ecosystem within our uh environment. It opens up this ability to kind of bring together this ecosystem of different players and get more prescriptive in our customers environment and it opens up new conversations.
Right? A lot of our customers, they all know they want to do AI. Uh they all want to prepare for AI. They all use chat GPT, but none of them know how to use it in their business. So the conversations that we're having with our customers is helping them conceptualize like how is it that this could fit in your environment, right? That that's what you know as Glenn had mentioned, you know, interviewing 60 customers oftent times when you've got to find relevancy in AI in a customer's environment to solve problems and you have to kind of recommend say we could do X, Y, and Z for you, right?
And once we get AI and then some type of solution within their environment, then they start to brainstorm. Then they start to think of things that even I did not think about in regards to what it is the the uh journey of this particular solution might be within their environment and they start to get to thinking about different case studies and it opens up opportunities. So as part of uh the journey with our customers, what we're talking with them right now is like here are some consumable things within your environment on where AI has relevancy within your market.
Uh whether that is it can be as simple as uh voice transcoding or using co-pilot or using other applications as part of their sales cycle or as part of their journey with their customers. it's mining data in the back end because oftentimes if we don't give customers those use case studies the first thing when I say hey let's put AI in your environment they're think about some chatbot sitting somewhere with some you know horrible voice uh that's trying to route calls and they're like I'm not interested but when I help them conceptualize like here's what it's going to look like and here are the things that it's going to do and actually have some tangible outcomes that's where the power of that uh starts to occur. within our customers and that's where they start to allocate budget to those things because they're trying to solve those problems within their business.
The question is is are we going to be the ones first to market to help them do that because they're going to either solve it with us or they're going to solve it with somebody else. >> And more often than not, Katy, they don't really know what they don't know either, right? I said they're more sophisticated they've ever been. They are, but it's a new world that they're all trying to figure out here. And there's lots of buzzword soup word items that are out there floating around that they just don't know what they mean.
And and to be quite honest, even the technologists don't exactly understand how to implement some of these things out there. They're so new. But the reality also too is that when you sit them down and you go, well, how long does it take you to close your books every month? Let's take something that you're not even thinking about. How long does it take you to close your books every month? How many people do you have tied to that? Well, we got 10 people and it takes us 28 days to close our books every month.
And and then here's all the things that we do. and and when you sit down and walk through how automation and AI and tools and systems that are out there and processes that we've built and honed for their industry um are available and these are things we can do and you can go from 10 people down to two and maybe repurpose those eight and something else and now all of a sudden you create budget and where you can create budget for customers. It's not that you're trying to lose people through the process even for our customers.
It's about reimagining what you can do with that with the same resource or with the same type of spend. There's natural attrition that happens with employees and you don't have to backfill some of those if you can become more efficient and then now you can leverage those resources more effectively to something else and you create budget and that then allows them to become much more efficient uh in driving their own business. Yeah, I was on the phone um a couple of days ago with a CFO of a um regulated manufacturing company and he and I started this conversation and um I you know naturally I we gravitated towards some business and I asked him how his uh MSP was treating him and he's like oh we're we're completely satisfied and was a little curious.
I'm like okay well why are we talking if you're happy? Uh, and I kind of knew the answer to the question. He goes, "Well, they're taking care of everything it is that I expect them to do, but the thing is is they're not they're not wowing me with what it is that I don't know I should be doing." And it was really around this idea of AI is like he's like, I really want to start leveraging this within my environment, but I don't know how. Uh and so he was looking for somebody like us that you know is developing our portfolio around this idea of being more intentional with our customers on how it is that they can leverage it and how it resonates.
And that's what he was looking for. And as a result of that, you know, we uh end up booking a deal with a customer. We get the MSP stuff, which is great. You know, that's business that we want to do. Uh but we really get the opportunity to transform a customer's environment. that's why he was looking and uh we have a lot of other customers that are doing the same thing. So, it is opening up a lot of opportunities for us to continue to be relevant with our existing customers uh and thrill the ones that need to be working with us. >> I love that that the bar is no longer meeting the needs, it's thrilling them on what they don't know. >> Yeah.
Yeah, >> that's a really good point. That is a great point. Well, as we start to wind down here, gentlemen, one thing that I haven't been able to address yet that Glenn, you brought up way back at the beginning was Integress is now CMMC 2.0 certified. So, I'm very well aware of the process that that is. So, bless all of you. I know that that takes a while. You go through a lot. Congratulations on coming out the other side of it. >> Thank you. >> How does this differentiate you in 2026?
And I that might be a really long- winded answer, but what I'm looking specifically for is when it comes to compliance and knowing how much more seriously it is being taken now by customers in 2026, how heavily does it impact the partnerships you make, the solutions you offer, and even the customers that you choose to work with? >> So, yeah, that's a great question. Um, CMMC, we're very excited to be CMC level two certified. um passing the certification uh is a real gamecher for our customers and the especially in the regulated manufacturing vertical.
Uh a lot of um regulated manufacturing customers came to us through the TechMD acquisition which was one of the reasons we were really excited about it. Listen MSPs auditing and and and um being able to guide the customer uh and coach the customer through compliance is is going to be something that's really really important. But a partner that's passed a level two audit knows exactly what evidence auditors are going to be expecting and how to build a defensible sustainable posture for those customers.
And so now they can really rely on us uh and the benefit from some battle tested playbooks, audit ready documentation, skilled resources, and then very clear operational guard rails that that really stand up to to real world scrutiny in a space like this. And we have a fairly comprehensive approach to to it through our CMC managed services, our our managed security services and our cloud services which are sort of this threeprong sort of approach that we bring to servicing our CMMC customers.
And it's going to become increasingly more relevant especially when you have DoD contracts. It's a requirement. And so having an organization that can handle those contracts and can provide that level two certification to compete for those contracts is going to be extremely important. Compliance is no longer just a one-time milestone anymore. It's an ongoing operating model that is really going to continue to demand lots of vigilance um and uh and and evidence of of readiness.
And we're able to provide that now as a qualified level two certified CMMC company. >> Yeah. And even for customers that are curious about what it is that we're doing in the compliance side, I have to give props to Brian Lucky, our CIO. uh they developed a tool for us called the trust center uh that we recently rolled out and even customers that are curious about us they're not our clients they can navigate to the trust center of our website docuign mutual NDA on that website and they can get access to our addistation documentation for not only CMMC but ISO HIPPA PCI all of the compliance and certification levels that we have because it's important to our customers right as they're starting a journey with us.
They want to know that we really take this area of our business extremely seriously and we do. So, we just ended up like rolling that out like officially prime time at the end of the 2025 calendar year uh in anticipation that we have customers that want to really understand more about our CMMC offerings uh and uh certification. So, we're excited about that as well. Like we we're leveraging that with our customers across the stacks to say, "Hey, go check us out." like this is this is how important this is to us and it resonates with their clients because they have to be as well.
They use it as they go out and get contracts and things of that nature. They need to be working with a partner that takes compliance just as serious as their customers do. You know, having those conversations with our customers that says here's how what it is that we do makes you more relevant in the market as well is very important as part of our journey with our clients. And because of that our team's also uh because of CMMC our team our integrous team's also trained and very familiar with across the border the Canadian center for cyber security and then uh even the Canadian program for the the rest of the US government at supply chain.
So we're we're able to help in in a lot more than just you know the the standard DoD contracts and supplier. >> Exciting stuff. Well for those listening who would like to learn more about working with Integress, where can they go? Yeah, you can navigate to our website at integrisit.com. You can link to some of the offerings in our portfolio. You can link to our trust center there as well. Uh you can see some case studies on things that we're doing with our customers to throw them, you know, everything one-stop shop there.
You can get a hold of us there as well and uh find out how it is that we're servicing our customers and the relevancy we have in the market. And we've even partnered with Intellig GRC which is uh a premier governance risk compliance platform that helps our customers anyone in that space streamline compliance. It's trusted by a lot of CMMC thirdparty assessment organization the C3PAOS for for great assessments. Um so we we've we've partnered with them.
So there's just these added layers that really bring a lot of credibility to the the key features of our CMMC managed services offerings. Oh, well, I'm so excited to hopefully have you back to complete the trifecta in the near future, gentlemen, to talk to Integress once again, but congratulations on all of your success in 25. Good luck in 2026. And of course, to both of you in your new positions, good luck as well. But thank you both so much for your time today. >> It's been a it's been a pleasure. >> Thank you, Penny.
It's great talking to you again. Hope to talk to you again real soon. >> Thanks so much to Glenn and Kyle for joining me today. And thank you as always for watching or listening. You can check out every episode of Channel Insider Partner POV at channelinsider.com or watch us on YouTube at youtube.com/chaninsider_news and trends. You can also listen to us as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow wherever possible so you never miss an episode.
Come connect with Channel Insider on LinkedIn and X or come connect with me, Katie Bavoso. Once again, I'm Katie Bavoso and I'll see you next time.
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