DLT Solutions' Emphasis On Software And Services Rakes In $857.1 Million In Revenue For 2013

Despite a cutback in federal IT spending, DLT Solutions' focus on software and services has earned the government IT solution provider $857.1 million in revenue for 2013.

2013 was a tough year for federal government contractors, said Rick Marcotte, president and CEO of DLT Solutions.

"2013 was a challenge because of the fiscal environment impacted by sequestration; it's what I would call political, collateral damage, and the partial government shutdown didn't help the cause," said Marcotte. "On the federal side, the market is projected to shrink at 1.9 percent, and we most certainly do not expect to shrink."

For 2014, the Herndon, Va.-based VAR's push to reinforce relationships with its emerging key vendors, SolarWinds, AWS and Informatica, and an expansion to state, local and higher education, will continue to bring positive growth, said Marcotte.

"Our best days are ahead. Our objective is to grow faster than the underlying markets that we serve and take share from our competitors. I expect more growth from our state and local business because those markets are heading northward for 2014 and projected to do so in 2015," he said.

While it is no longer lucrative for traditional VARs to solely deal with hardware, Marcotte believes DLT Solutions' concentration on software has benefited the company tremendously.

"What's fortunate for us is that we work on the software side, and software is what enables the government to be efficient," said Marcotte. "Instead of having to rely on switches, servers and routers, our value proposition is to sell and install software systems and applications to help the government run better."

VARs that continuously turn to more managed services is what will keep them afloat, said Marcotte.

"It's a smart strategic move to do so," said Marcotte. "As a traditional VAR, we also understand that in order to grow the business and maintain our long-term viability, we have to expand the value that we bring to our customers.

"We have to be more selective in terms of managed services when it comes to the public sector," said Marcotte. "We are doubling down on cloud computing and working with AWS, Google and selling more professional services like Quick Start, virtual deployment, training and [others] to fulfill our clients' needs."

DLT Solutions currently concentrates on five anchor vendors for 80 percent of its business: Autodesk, Dell Software, Red Hat, Oracle and Symantec. The addition of emerging key vendors such as AWS, SolarWinds and Informatica also will allow the company to thrive, said Marcotte.

"Unlike the approach where the VAR has this massive catalog of vendors and SKUs, we tend to be a very focused VAR with a best-of-breed portfolio of key vendors," said Marcotte. "These are the core vendors of tomorrow, and our objective is to nurture them."

According to Marcotte, there is a lot of misinformation and confusion with public, private and hybrid cloud in the public sector. DLT Solutions has set up a public advisory council to fortify and educate those in the government, said Marcotte.

"It's unbelievable how much hype and the lack of education that has been done with cloud and its definition in the public sector," said Marcotte. "We are trying to take an approach where we become the cloud navigator for [them], and that's a different approach rather than just selling them stuff."

For the rest of 2014, DLT Solutions will take strategic initiatives to nurture vendor partners, augment its product portfolio with services, and further dive into enabling state and local government, said Marcotte.

"We are aggressive as a VAR in demand generation, being efficient on our renewals, adding contracts and cross-selling with our vendors, and we are going to continue to get even better," said Marcotte.

PUBLISHED APRIL 9, 2014