CRN Exclusive: Trace3 Says It Tripled Profits By Embracing Big Data, IoT

Across-the-board gains in its core business segments of cloud, big data and the Internet of Things led to a record year in sales and continued growth for Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider Trace3, the company told CRN.

Trace3 -- No. 68 on CRN’s 2015 Solution Provider 500 list -- said it shattered management's expectations for 2015 by growing sales nearly 20 percent, to $500 million, and delivering a whopping 300 percent jump in net income over 2014.

Trace3 said it continued to build traction in its emerging technology offerings and high-margin consulting practices in cloud, big data and IoT. This growth represents "significant traction" for the company's vision to become a strategic service provider, helping customers leverage the latest new technology to solve critical business problems.

[Related: Solution Provider Trace3 Rides Cloud, Big Data For Monster Growth]

CEO Tyler Beecher foresees more growth in 2016. In an interview with CRN, he said he would be "disappointed" if Trace3 didn’t hit the $600 million mark this year.

The company also said it added 150 net new clients in 2015, taking its customer base to more than 2,000. And that growth means more staffing this year, Beecher told CRN. With a staff of about 300, plus some 150 contractors, he foresees a 10 percent increase in his payroll.

The growth "really is across the board," Beecher said, fueled by a program aimed at helping chief information officers transform their businesses by giving them access to the future of technology in a way that's customized to their individual needs, with the help of venture capitalists. Since the program was launched in 2012, it has grown to include more than 150 CIOs from among Global 2000 companies and has expanded to many of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

Another Trace3 service offering has enabled IT leaders and their executive peers to become more closely aligned and engaged, providing a stronger foundation from which they can launch transformation initiatives.

Those engagements, Beecher told CRN, help Trace3 gain the trust of CIOs, especially those who want to be able to relay future technological innovations to their chief executive officers and boards of directors.

"If they don't show the business what's possible, someone else will," Beecher said.

It also points up the need for many CIOs -- in some cases, a desire on their part -- to become trusted business leaders, and advisers to other C-level executives on the business potential of IT.

"When we listen to these leadership groups," Beecher told CRN, "it's not that they're dying to lead, but most of them realize that they're being thrust into that position."

What Trace3 aims to do, in part, is "almost help [CIOs] to be brazen," helping them describe the technology, then overcome internal political obstacles and "really start to transform the business," Beecher said.

Trace3's focus on IoT -- which the company said bleeds into all its other technology practices -- allowed the solution provider to capture Cisco’s Innovation Partner of the Year honors in 2014.

"I know that what we have built is rock solid," Beecher said.