Ahead Investing In Cybersecurity, Talent In Go-To-Market Strategy

‘Our aim is to be more valuable to our clients tomorrow than we are today,’ says Rich Falcone, president of Ahead. ‘If we can achieve that, growth will naturally follow.’

Nearly six months after Ahead acquired CDI, the combined company is ready to drive significant value for customers and reshape its go-to-market strategy.

“Now that the integration is rounding to its end, it’s time to really turn our focus outward and [explain] what that integration means for our customers with our combined service catalog now that those are united,” Rich Falcone, president of Ahead, told CRN.

In February, Chicago-based Ahead bought New York-based CDI, creating a $3.7 billion global digital transformation solution provider.

Jason Kalvesmaki, executive vice president of specialty sales at Ahead, No. 30 on CRN’s 2024 Solution Provider 500 list, said the company has seen a “tremendous response” from customers and partners about being able to bring an abundance of value to the market in a consolidated way to help transform and provide great outcomes for customers.

“We’re getting good feedback in the market, and we’re really bullish on the combined service catalog,” he said. “Not to get ahead of ourselves, but a lot of the thesis of specialty sales in the next-gen go-to-market is consolidating that value in an efficient way to drive outcomes and services.”

Going forward, Ahead plans to focus heavily on security and observability, with significant investments in those areas.

“When you talk about solutions like cybersecurity, observability, intelligent operations, developer and data platforms … really the advanced solutions in the marketplace, I think each company got it half right,” Falcone said.

"Security is a major focus for us this year, given its critical importance in the current market," Kalvesmaki added. "We are also investing in enhancing our capabilities in intelligent operations and managed services."

While the companies are not entering new geographic regions, they are enhancing their scale and service capabilities.

"We’re not focusing on new regions but are leveraging our combined scale to better serve our existing markets," Falcone said.

The company is also making a multimillion-dollar investment in talent with a focus on sales and engineering.

“This is one of the largest investments in our history, reflecting our commitment to bringing exceptional value to our clients,” Falcone said.

Sales talent will be put through comprehensive training through Ahead’s Sales University as well.

“We give them a lot of senior sales and sales executive support, leadership and mentorship,” Kalvesmaki said. “That’s one of the things that we really lean into: transparency across the chain of command.”

Ahead is also making strides in AI, integrating advanced technologies to enhance service offerings.

“AI is a rapidly evolving field, and we’re actively engaging with clients to build custom solutions,” Kalvesmaki said. "From consulting engagements to custom-built infrastructure, our goal is to support clients in deploying and managing AI effectively.”

From AI, cybersecurity to investing in talent, Ahead’s vision is based on the importance of continual improvement and maintaining value for customers.

"Our aim is to be more valuable to our clients tomorrow than we are today," Falcone said. "If we can achieve that, growth will naturally follow."