Bootstrapping A 130 Million VAR In The Midwest: Ahead CEO Dan Adamany (Part 7)

Sramana: Essentially you started as a VAR company and have added high level strategic consulting on top of a VAR company. Now you have to find a way to make those two business models work together.

Dan Adamany: We are starting to marry these models. We have been growing so fast that, while I know we are making money, the true opportunities and efficiencies remain unknown. As we have developed and delivered consulting offerings, I made a huge investment in people up front. I am still digging out of the hole on the consulting side. Overall our margins are not going up on product sales, we are just selling more of the solution. Instead of selling a piece, we are selling the entire solution. That can drive down our margin, but we are selling more, which compensates to some extent. It is an evolving business model. The industry is evolving, and there are not many companies out there that do the high end, front end consulting that want to sell product.

Sramana: In your experience of navigating 2007 to 2011 and change in the industry that took place during this time, who in your customer base stands out as thought leaders in cloud computing?

Dan Adamany: Tribune, a local company, is displaying some impressive thought leadership. Thompson Reuters is pushing the envelope. ThyssenKrupp is doing some very interesting things as well. Those are the companies that come to my mind off the top of my head.

Sramana: We do a series on cloud computing, and we have had a lot of impressive people join that series, including the CIOs of Intel, IBM, Deloitte, VMware, and EMC. Whenever I am talking to anyone in the industry I ask them who they think are exhibiting thought leadership in the industry.

Dan Adamany: That is interesting. It is funny because some people like us and some people don’t. We go through this as we are trying to do use case studies. I think from the media angle it is an interesting question to ask. What I think is interesting is how crucial these projects and strategies are for these companies in question. I know for the projects we work on we are signing NDAs because the various approaches can lead to very real competitive advantages for our clients.

Sramana: It has been very interesting talking with you, and it has been a very interesting story. I look forward to following the continued success of your company.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping A 130 Million VAR In The Midwest: Ahead CEO Dan Adamany
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