Courtesy of Wildlife Direct
Too many years ago, I grew an IT service organization from $10 to 100M in revenue. We did not resell hardware, rather chose to focus on vertical expertise and software (JD Edwards) and partnered with IBM. We held an illustrious position of being one of IBM’s premier partners, but yet felt the shifting sands. So much so, the four partners (myself included), bickered as to the direction of the company. At the time, my favorite phrase was “the elephant will have a picnic wherever it wants to.” That reference was towards IBM entering the IT services, now known as the IGS. Over the next few years, in addition to EDS and IGS, we saw Perot and Accenture and others enter this market.
It was supposed to be the death of the local service provider (aka VAR).
It wasn’t.
What can we glean from this, given the growth of Cloud Providers?
Opportunity to have a conversation, and re-invent.