RKON Technologies Expands Transformative Security Services With Bridge Security Acquisition

‘Clients aren't struggling with a lack of technology options. They're struggling with ROI, adoption, management, new outsourcing models, all of these things. And the changing landscaping of ransomware and security hacking. The landscape has changed. We see clients struggling in a way that they haven't struggled before. So we’re bringing on Bridge to accelerate and add maturity and acceleration to that approach,’ says RKON CEO Jeff Mullarkey.

Cybersecurity MSP RKON Technologies Tuesday said it has acquired Bridge Security Advisors, a solution provider focused on cloud security, governance risk and compliance (GRC), and identity and access management.

The acquisition, for which no dollar value was provided, aims to beef up the security offerings RKON provides its enterprise clients, especially as they go through their own mergers and acquisitions, said Jeff Mullarkey, CEO of Chicago-based RKON.

“Every time businesses go through some transformational moment, the underlying challenge is often around security,” Mullarkey (pictured above) told CRN. “How do we do this securely? There’s that fear of adoption and how you gain the speed of value you walk into transformational change with a security background. We learned very early that no matter what we did, we needed to lead with security. That was really the tip of the spear for helping organizations prepare for change, regardless of what that change is.”

As RKON over the years provided enterprise security, along the way, some of its large clients started carving out and doing M&A activity, Mullarkey said.

“So we ended up focusing a lot of our time and energy with all the M&A work that's been going on, especially in the last 10 years,” he said. “We developed a practice around right-sizing a portion of our service offering towards the private equity market to serve that. Not only does that serve our enterprise clients, but that's one of the highest growth markets there is in the last 18 months.”

RKON sees that market is somewhat underserved from a transformational security standpoint.

“Clients aren't struggling with a lack of technology options,” he said. “They're struggling with ROI, adoption, management, new outsourcing models, all of these things. And the changing landscaping of ransomware and security hacking. The landscape has changed. We see clients struggling in a way that they haven't struggled before. So we’re bringing on Bridge to accelerate and add maturity and acceleration to that approach.”

Bridge gives RKON a proven, vetted, fantastic group of individuals that have a great track record in helping enterprises get their arms around change from an operational and ROI standpoint, Mullarkey said.

“We still see 30 [percent] or 40 percent of IT spend around security ending up being shelved and wasted money,” he said. “We think the Bridge team can bring that to the table, focusing on GRC (governance, risk, and compliance), IAM (identity and access management), and ZTNA (zero trust network access).”

Bridge brings both expanded security capacity and unrivaled senior security professionals to RKON, Mullarkey said.

RKON grew up with a legacy of transformation and since 1998 added, really this boutique, large system integral integrator feel that really provides a close touch to companies’ transformation, said Brian Jeffords, chief revenue officer at Bridge Security Advisors.

“As RKON transformed into a technology service provider, providing the same capabilities as a large systems integrator, it has done so on a more boutique level that can provide curated services or well as vendor-agnostic consulting services,” Jeffords (pictured below) told CRN. “And I think what's important to understand about RKON is that can continually hone in and dress mid-level enterprise.”

That is important because, while governance, risk, and compliance has always been important to the largest enterprises, smaller enterprises are now being held to the same standards as the Fortune 1000, regardless of what vendors they ruse and what regulatory frameworks they follow, Jeffords said.

“By acquiring Bridge, RKON becomes a senior cybersecurity pure play consultant with knowledge of all mainstream technologies, integrations, and best practices that help make sure these midsized enterprises are secure. Security in the past was always an add-on, but is now integrated in every technology. So it's up to a consulting practice or someone that understands the market to try to maximize the ROI of their technology with security and implement the right tools to maintain compliance as well as reduce the risk of ransomware.”

Bridge has always brought a vendor-agnostic approach to security, and approach which is not always easy to develop, particularly when starting out, Mullarkey said.

“We walk in with the best solution, and regardless of whether vendors like it, that's what we’re helping our clients through,” he said. That is a very unique approach. It’s hard to hold that line, and hard to find organizations that that have that same philosophy, which was one reason why RKON was so interested in Bridge. Bridge had built an amazingly successful business with that objective viewpoint. In fact, that was one of the lead reasons a lot of their clients worked so closely with them.”

RKON, which previously did not have a history of making acquisitions, learned about Bridge via one of its board members, Pamela Fusco, the former chief information security officer of Splunk, Mullarkey said.

“We invited her to join our board about eight months ago, and she was kind enough to accept,” he said. “She's been instrumental in helping us grow, and we had talked to her about how we wanted to accelerate the pace of our growth and that we're looking for like-minded organizations to join us,” he said. “She told us she had the perfect organization in mind whose methodology could be plugged into RKON and that has a very good high-growth trajectory and business expansion plan. We could plug them in and really capitalize on the volume we bring to the table and the expertise they bring to the table. Classic one plus one equals three. So she introduced us, and here we are today.”

Both RKON and Bridge are profitable companies, but Mullarkey and Jeffords declined to disclose specific numbers.

RKON in February received a private equity investment from Post Capital as a way to help accelerate and scale growth while adding new services and capabilities, Mullarkey said. That includes more acquisitions in the future, although none are currently in the works, he said.