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VARBusiness 500 Profiles: The Cream of the CropProfile trio of the No. 1 company, fastest grower and list newcomer By Carolyn A. April, Rick Whiting & Michele Pepe, VARBusiness
2. FASTEST GROWER: PRESIDIO It's all about the network for Presidio Networked Solutions (VARBusiness 500 No. 72). More specifically, it's about the deep technical expertise needed to design, develop and deploy networks. IT managers may fret about their databases, transaction processing systems and desktop software. "But those applications are only as good as the efficiency and security of the network they run on," says Joel Schleicher, CEO of Presidio. That focus--and a few acquisitions--fueled Presidio's 222 percent revenue growth in 2006, making it the fastest-growing independent solution provider on this year's VARBusiness 500 list. (MetaSolv, which recorded 259 percent growth in 2006, was acquired by Oracle in December for $219 million.) Greenbelt, Md.-based Presidio is the sum of many parts. Last year, it acquired Solarcom, a Norcross, Ga.-based solution provider that also operated Solarcom Capital, a finance and leasing business, and Atlantix Global, a purchaser, refurbisher and reseller of used IT equipment. Earlier, Presidio, then known as Integrated Solutions, bought solution providers Networked Information Systems and Ficomp. Today, Presidio Networked Solutions is the largest component of the Presidio Inc. parent company and includes its network and system design and implementation services. Solarcom Capital and Atlantix Global run as subsidiaries.
As Schleicher describes it, the company is "a Cisco-centric provider of infrastructure solutions to the enterprise," complemented by technology from IBM, Sun, Hewlett-Packard and other IT vendors. Presidio's growth is being driven by demand for unified communications, VoIP and converged voice/data solutions, as well as by sales of network storage, security and wireless systems. More recently, the company has expanded into system hosting and monitoring services. Even without the acquisitions, the company's core business has grown 18 percent each year for the past five years, Schleicher says. Some 40 percent of the company's employees are engineers who excel in developing and deploying "highly complex solutions," according to Schleicher. But with everyone trying to recruit such experienced engineers, "the big problem is finding enough," he says. In order for Presidio to hit its growth targets during the next three years, the company must increase its workforce by 50 percent, he says. For more information visit VARBusiness online
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