CRN Exclusive: Solution Provider ATSG Beefs Up Executive Team, Aims For Huge Growth

Axispoint Technology Solutions Group, which has focused heavily on systems integration work since its founding in the mid-1990s, has beefed up its executive team as it pushes an aggressive growth strategy through a services-based future.

Anthony D'Ambrosi, a veteran technology executive who most recently served as president of Bell Techlogix, has been named president of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.-based Axispoint – No. 397 on CRN's Solution Provider 500. The current president and CEO, Frank Scanga, who founded the firm, will remain CEO.

The company, a Microsoft Certified and Cisco Silver Certified partner, announced the change to CRN on the same day it was breaking the news to its 75 employees and roughly 30 contractors.

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The change at the top is just one of several to come as the company looks to expand its reach beyond its New York City-area base and pursue an organic revenue growth goal of at least 25 percent over the next four years, and more through acquisitions, the two executives told CRN.

First, the company will shorten its name to just its acronym, ATSG, and increase its investment in its website and content marketing. To push it along its growth path, the company will also seek outside capital investment.

Axispoint has expanded beyond its systems integration roots with additional offerings around the data center, mobile solutions and cloud, featuring a private cloud offering, rediCloud. And just last month, the company announced the acquisition of Quality Technology Solutions (QTS), a Microsoft Azure partner based in Parsippany, N.J., that Axispoint says will help it broaden its cloud offerings as most businesses embrace a hybrid cloud strategy. The acquisition will help Axispoint take greater advantage of Microsoft and Cisco's alliance around hybrid cloud.

"We're going to be going deep into that alliance, particularly around the implementation of the Azure stack on Cisco Unified Computing for private cloud operations," said D'Ambrosi. "We think there's a real play in that space for us."

Scanga said he realized a few years ago that his company needed to evolve if it was to grow.

"We wanted to grow at a faster pace," Scanga said. "Being a pure systems integration firm … was really not going to afford [the company] the scale that we wanted to get to."

D'Ambrosi was president of Bell Techlogix - No. 210 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 (it was No. 267 in 2016; No. 251 in 2015) – from 2012 until the fall of 2016. Bell specializes in managed services and consulting, while D'Ambrosi has deep experience in IT outsourcing. After he left Bell, he was introduced to Scanga through a mutual acquaintance and became a strategic advisor. "It seemed like a great fit," D'Ambrosi told CRN.

But over the last couple of months, he added, "the conversations had accelerated into one of 'How can we come together even more closely,' especially around some of the things that we wanted to do" on the finance and investment side?

In a statement, Scanga added about D'Ambrosi: "His skills and experience will bring tremendous benefits to our clients, employees and shareholders. I'm confident Anthony will ensure that ATSG continues to be at the forefront in the marketplace and I look forward to actively collaborating with Anthony in his new role.’

D'Ambrosi said Axispoint has a "deep and rich footprint" in the healthcare industry, as well as the retail and consumer packaged goods verticals, along with professional services. Its client list includes New York Presbyterian Hospital and Boston-based Partners HealthCare, as well as retail chain Macy's and the City of New York.

Scanga said the splitting of top-executive duties will "allow Anthony and I to divide and conquer in different aspects" of company operations. D'Ambrosi will run sales and marketing and pursue the additional capital from the investment community, where he says he has good connections. Scanga, meanwhile, will spend more time with clients, especially those he has brought in over the last two decades.

"This is all part of an aggressive agenda we have to really take the company forward as a tech-enabled MSP," D'Ambrosi said. It's "kind of coming out anew on the backs of all the things the company has done already."