CompassMSP CEO ‘Aggressively’ Chasing SMBs With Tarrytech Buy

‘Every time we bring on a company, we’re bringing on strong, great operational MSPs, and we take what they do well and make that part of the rest of the organization,’ says Ari Santiago, CEO of CompassMSP.

CompassMSP CEO Ari Santiago says his company’s acquisition of Tarrytech Computer Consultants last week is part of CompassMSP’s strategy of “aggressively” driving its small to medium-sized (SMB) market reach on the East Coast.

“Our differentiation from our competitors is we’re extremely focused on the market segment that we’re working in, which is mostly on SMB managed services,” said Santiago, who became CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based CompassMSP in February, in an interview with CRN.
The new CEO said CompassMSP is “aggressively moving forward” in the SMB space with huge opportunities to help businesses with cybersecurity issues and aligning their infrastructure with their business needs.

Tarrytown, New York-based Tarrytech has been serving the New York metropolitan area for about 20 years offering consultant and managed services around business continuity planning, virtualization, disaster recovery and cloud solutions.

“Tarrytech is totally aligned with the types of clients that we serve and the methods that we serve them. It’s really expanding our expertise in that same kind of marketplace,” said Santiago. “We really liked their leadership team. We thought the business was really strong [and had] dynamic customer base, consistent organic growth and a strong technical team. … When it comes to secure, stable and business-impacting infrastructure, we got your back.”

[Related: Compass MSP Acquires IT Direct, Gets CEO In The Process]

CompassMSP’s acquisition of Tarrytech comes just a few months following the company’s acquisition of Hartford, Conn.-based IT Direct, which marked CompassMSP’s eleventh acquisition to date. Santiago was previously CEO and founder of IT Direct, taking over the CEO reins at CompassMSP when it was acquired.

Santiago believes CompassMSP’s processes will help Tarrytech and their customers get a better and more effective service. It’s also looking to integrate the company’s consultancy expertise.

“Every time we bring on a company, we’re bringing on strong, great operational MSPs and we take what they do well and make that part of the rest of the organization,” he said. Then [we] take the stuff we do well and help them, so it really becomes a symbiotic relationship.”

The Tarrytech office will operate within CompassMSP’s Northeast region and will enhance CompassMSP’s ability to serve clients in the tri-state area. Tarrytech, which will operate under the name Tarrytech: A CompassMSP Company, will bring along about 25 employees under the acquisition.

“We are proud of the tremendous growth of Tarrytech since 2003,” Jamie Kudla, general manager of Tarrytech. “As we approached our 20-year milestone, it became clear that our next big step in growth was to join a larger community of committed and experienced IT professionals. We are very pleased to become part of CompassMSP.”

Outside of New York, CompassMSP has offices in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.