M&A

Ryan Denehy

January 25, 2021 by

Ryan is a serial entrepreneur, investor and hands-on advisor who has started three companies, and is now the founder and CEO of Electric, a IT solutions company with more than 20,000 end users and 400 customers. He started his first venture-backed company, a digital ad network called Banquet and his second company, Swarm, a retail analytics company for SMBs, a few years later. Both began with a services-based model but over time transitioned to managed services and eventually pure software, and both had successful exits to publicly traded companies (USA TODAY/Gannett and Groupon). That journey has given Ryan broad experience in all aspects of revenue strategy and proven his ability to craft a vision, build the team, and get the job done.

What do you love about leading and growing people-based businesses?

People-centric approaches (versus software) give founders an edge when it comes to speed. A smart services team can form a hypothesis, create a solution, bring it to market, and iterate and improve it, and within weeks have a seven-figure commercial business unit up and running. That is significantly different than what happens with software-driven companies, and is a unique competitive advantage if managed correctly.

You founded and successfully grew businesses focused on managed services, including Electric AI and SWARM Mobile. What is the biggest mistake companies make when expanding into managed services?

The hardest thing about expanding into productized services is figuring out the division of labor in the value chain. It’s easy to chase big dollars and do it all, but sometimes (well, often) less is more. At SWARM, we ultimately decided to focus our efforts on integration and software and pushed a lot of the commodity field work to channel partners. At Electric, we’ve been really clear about what our humans should do versus someone else’s. This focus has been key to scaling.

What advice would you give founders as they move from the initial start up phase into scale mode?

The best advice I can give is to look at your business objectives 12-18 months from now, and then look at the team that you have today. How confident are you that each leader can own their part of that new number and get the job done in 12 months (not today)? The biggest danger with a scaling business is hitting a wall and it’s entirely avoidable if you look far enough into the future and assess your team on tomorrow rather than today.

Jean Manaud

January 24, 2021 by

Jean is an entrepreneur who specializes in people-based businesses. He has two decades of experience in management consulting and IT, and most recently led international operations across 42 countries for Mercer’s Digital Solutions division, a fast growing area within the multinational management consulting firm. Among his founding credits is everBe, one of the first Workday and Servicenow consulting firms in Europe focused on digital transformation for HR and Finance, which he sold to Mercer.

Why are you so passionate about helping people based businesses?

People have always been the essence of what makes a company unique. Within service businesses, people represent 100% of the soul, the DNA and the execution. When it comes to bringing a company’s vision and mission to life, it all comes down to how people form a diversified and complementary group to apply their expertise, drive innovation, and obsess together about client satisfaction.

You founded everBe, a France-based business transformation consultancy that was ranked by Inc. as one of the fastest growing businesses in Europe before being acquired by Mercer. What advice would you give to founders on scaling a services business in Europe?

Like Asia, Europe is made up of many diverse countries and cultures that happen to share a continent, yet I’ve observed many companies mistakenly treat Europe like one big country. Companies need to plan country by country when expanding into Europe, making sure their leadership and go-to-market strategy is deeply aligned with the country’s culture, ecosystem and competitive landscape. Hire local people who understand the local culture and take the time upfront to do it right. Otherwise you run the risk of appearing culturally tone deaf, which is hard to recover from later.

What are some common mistakes that companies make in their international expansion plans?

I often see organizations try to expand internationally when they’re not truly prepared to operate across different countries. They may not have the processes, systems, governance, operations, or level of investment needed to run effectively across geographic borders. Culturally, they don’t operate as one team where needed, don’t hire local leaders who reflect their employees, and don’t decide upfront what can be managed by country vs. from the center. Also, leaders need to realize achieving a critical mass and commercial presence in a new country doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and investment.

Julie Barker

January 23, 2021 by

Julie has been entrenched in talent strategy, recruiting and people operations for technology and IT consulting businesses for 15 years. Her focus on helping leaders and managers build world-class teams and a culture that fosters and inspires those teams, has made her an invaluable part of many companies’ growth story. She has helped companies navigate growth at nearly every stage, from scaling sub 30 employee start-ups to supporting large global organizations of more than 100,000 employees. Prior to founding her own talent consulting business, she was the VP of Talent at Zylo and Senior Director of Recruiting and Talent at Appirio. Julie also chairs the Indianapolis chapter of DisruptHR, an information exchange designed to energize, inform and empower HR professionals.

Why are you so passionate about helping people-based businesses?

People are at the crux of any business. They are not only the majority of a company’s costs, but also its greatest source of sustainable competitive advantage. In services organizations, you get to work with so many smart, talented people who bring real value to their clients every day, and see first-hand the impact that their work has on a business. Being a part of that journey, and crafting the programs and processes that support these individuals as they build amazing careers, is incredibly rewarding.

You have worked with a number of founders and leaders throughout your career and through your work with DisruptHR. What do you think is one of the biggest talent-related challenges that founders face early in their growth journeys?

One of the biggest challenges company’s face early on is laying the foundation for an inspiring culture and making that foundation scale. Many early teams are built on leaders who have worked together before and have a shared vision, but how do you grow beyond that to something that everyone is a part of? CEOs and founders need to have a talent partner from the beginning who can help drive strategy from a people perspective and provide balance with other executives who are charged with driving revenue and customer growth.

What advice would you give to founders looking to establish a leadership development program?

Leaders directly impact how your team members view the company and that impacts the business more than you realize. Be intentional about developing your leaders, and craft a leadership program that matches your values. Don’t try to copy someone else’s successful program that has been fine tuned for their business strategy.

What advice would you give founders looking to scale their business and team quickly?

Give hiring the time and attention it needs. Hiring is a lot more than filling open reqs. It’s about creating a destination where people want to join and stay. Bring on leaders who are passionate about building teams and who are always recruiting, not just when there is an open role. If you’re intentional about your recruiting strategy – how to hire to your values, what’s unique about your company and how you will scale the process over time – you will be in the driver’s seat.

Gary Rinedollar

January 23, 2021 by

Gary started his career in computer science coding weapon systems, but quickly discovered his passion lay outside a lab. For 30+ years, Gary ping ponged between sales and building alliances because he loves working on different sides of the same coin. He’s led sales, business development and M&A at companies from HP, Oracle, and Sun to Amberpoint and Appirio, and is now an advisor to organizations looking to scale their businesses, and build effective partner and go-to-market strategies.

Why are you so passionate about helping people-based businesses?

The most promising technology in the world can’t be brought to life without smart people behind it. They are the ones who create the real value, and that’s what excites me. I also love being more closely aligned with the customer’s business objectives. I’ve worked for hardware, software and services companies over the years, and the conversations in services companies are completely different. In hardware, conversations revolve around how fast are your chips, when will you ship it, install it, get it up and running. In software, they revolve around features and functions. In services, the conversations steer more towards “why are we doing this and how can we make customers happier?” They compete on the value they provide, not the bits and bytes.

You’ve helped guide more than a dozen technology and services companies on their business development, alliances, and channel strategy. Why are these elements such a critical part of any company’s growth strategy?

Partnerships and alliances are the fuel that drives company growth. Partnerships and alliances can help in so many areas, whether that’s growing revenue by attracting new customers or broadening a company’s offerings, or expanding brand awareness and market presence, or rounding out areas of perceived weakness. Partnering is also a good way to speed your time to market if you choose to go that path rather than build on your own. Your channel strategy should consider each of these areas, and depending on what stage you’re in or your end goal, you turn the dials in different areas.

What is the biggest mistake companies make when building their channel strategy?

Going for quantity, not quality, when forming alliances. Too many organizations use partnerships to look larger or more established, or to convey a sense of momentum, when in fact they are typically lightweight with no strategic value. This is dangerous because it creates disillusion with employees about the value of partners, and confusion about which partners should be prioritized or invested in. When it comes to alliances, aim for quality over quantity, and take the time to understand and communicate how they integrate into the business, whether that’s with the sales team, product teams or shared marketing.

When is the right time in a company’s journey to hire an alliance lead?

It depends on what your go-to-market strategy is. For example, do you want to broaden distribution? Do you want to acquire capabilities or expand internationally, or even get acquired yourself? If your strategy is to say OEM your technology through channel partners, you’ll likely want to hire an alliance executive early. If you’re going to market tightly aligned with your partners’ sales channel, you’ll want a senior person to manage those relationships. However, if it’s more about expanding your brand presence or handling partner events and requests, someone more junior might be able to handle those things.

Alan Veeck

January 22, 2021 by

Alan might have a PhD in chemistry, but he’s equally adept at understanding the properties of high performing sales, operations and executive teams. He is currently at Prime Vector, a services company he founded in the process automation industry, where he works directly with clients to improve operations using technologies like AI and RPA. Alan has spent the majority of his career running sales teams for large procurement services businesses, and has been part of early leadership teams at two startups with successful exits. He’s also been a management consultant, and a partner in an early-stage venture capital firm.

Why are you so passionate about helping people-based businesses?

I enjoy the thrill of building high-performing teams composed of the right people with the best skill stacks to match the roles a company needs to sustainably grow. I draw energy from teams that are passionate about growth, and love being a part of their growth engine.

What are the one or two most important considerations in the early stages of building a managed services offering?

I am a firm believer that establishing pricing and margin discipline is the most important aspect of building a strong business in the managed services industry. Too many startups underprice their offerings believing they need to be aggressive to gain market traction, only to regret that decision later when they are struggling against poor margins that affect everything from the ability to hire a high-quality team to getting a meaningful exit. A close second to pricing is building an outstanding culture where team members want to work. The second is much harder to do than the first.

What advice do you have for sales leaders who are transitioning from deal focus to account focus?

It is important to recognize that the mindset and motivation of “farmers” is quite different from “hunters”. Take, for example, incentive structures and performance measures. Hunters typically respond better to commission structures and are quite accustomed to sales targets. Farmers often don’t think of themselves as “sales”, and in my experience, tend to perform better with recognition/bonus incentives and directional growth goals instead of daunting sales targets, as well as inside sales support to grow their accounts.

Most managed services companies get frontline hunter sales right as the model is much simpler (more science than art), but they fail to figure out farmer account management to optimize revenue growth, client satisfaction, and team member engagement. Yet most managed services companies have almost as much, or more, revenue growth from farming current clients as from hunting new clients, so I always recommend doing the hard work to optimize farmer performance because it can become such a powerful engine to grow recurring revenue.

What advice do you have for a startup company when they lose their biggest customer?

The minute you sign your first “biggest customer” you need to think that you will likely lose them at some point, which means the race is on to diversify your customer base so the loss of your biggest customer will not tank your business. You also need to understand that the products/services your biggest customer is buying may not be what the rest of the market is buying, so invest in new, different products/services according to what the market is speaking to you. Finally, remember the adage that you are better when things seem at their worst, and less good when things seem at their best. If you have focused on building a sustainable business regardless of your largest customer, you likely can survive this downturn with determination, hard work, and focus.

Jeff Kaplan

January 12, 2021 by

Jeff is a professional services veteran with more than three decades in strategic marketing and research. After working as a research and benchmarking lead at firms like IDC, Dataquest and META group, Jeff joined INS as head of strategic marketing, which was then acquired by Lucent. He founded THINKstrategies in 2001 to focus on the business implications of on-demand services before the cloud was even formed. Since then he has become a go-to expert for companies on sourcing, for vendors on go-to-market strategies, and for venture capital on investment decisions. He thrives on helping professional services firms capitalize on new market opportunities by clearly communicating their differentiators.

What do you love about helping and guiding people-based businesses?

Services businesses play a critical role in helping customers get the most out of their technology investments and innovations, and it’s rewarding to empower and enable those businesses. I’ve worked with a number of consultancies that were originally formed to simply help clients deploy “off-the-shelf” software solutions, and helped them achieve greater growth and sustainability by more fully integrating those solutions into their clients’ organizational processes. When they see the impact they can have on their clients’ business operations and quality of life, it gives them a huge sense of pride.

What has changed the most in the services space in the last few years?

What’s changed is the recognition that cloud and subscription-based services are not only a viable alternative to traditional on-premise products, but that they are strategic solutions that are essential to meeting today’s escalating business challenges. As a result, the most successful professional services firms are those that are not only proficient in deploying cloud-based solutions, but are also skilled at using them to improve how they operate and interact with clients.

Why do you think the Third Wave of cloud computing is an even bigger opportunity for services businesses than the first two waves?

The Third Wave of cloud computing applies the technological innovations and new operating models that evolved from departmental (first-wave) and enterprise-centric (second-wave) applications to inter-enterprise business processes (e.g. multimodal e-commerce, real-time supply chain). And as the pandemic has dramatically shown, the next wave of cloud deployment must be at a global scale while reaching all of us remotely, no matter where we live and work. Putting these processes together requires a combination of specialized, technical skills and support to manage cloud solutions from multiple independent software vendors and cloud providers — skills and support that customers will need from trusted partners with proven capabilities. Because of the strategic nature of these business processes, the third wave of cloud consultancies will also require a higher level of expertise in areas such as cybersecurity, AI and automation to help their clients achieve greater efficiency, security and competitive advantage.