IT Services Game-Changer: Corsica Buys MSP Superstar Symplexity

“This adds another All Star IT services provider to our platform with security services and a proven digital transformation team with software development capabilities and advanced business applications support for our clients,” said Corsica Technologies CEO Dale Walls.

Corsica Technologies continued its “all star” IT services acquisition blitz with the purchase of Midwest managed and security services powerhouse Symplexity.

The addition of Fort Wayne, Ind. Symplexity brings Corsica Technologies - which is building out a nationwide next generation IT services company in secondary markets - a highly-respected digital transformation team with Microsoft application development capabilities, an additional security operations center (SOC), a network operations center (NOC), and additional VMware and Cisco technical talent to drive deeper into enterprise accounts.

[Related: Corsica Launches 'All Star' MSP Acquisition Blitz By Buying EDTS, EDTS Cyber]

“This adds another all star IT services provider to our platform with security services and a proven digital transformation team with software development capabilities and advanced business applications support for our clients,” said Corsica Technologies CEO Dale Walls. “From day one this has been about building out the all star team. This rounds out our services platform with a digital transformation team and brings us another really strong leader. It means our clients can count on us as the one trusted partner that can do it all with IT services, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.”

With the addition of Symplexity, Corsica – headquartered in Centreville, Md. - now has 30,000 systems under contract with 200 employees, three state of the art network operations centers and two SOCs with incident response teams. The deal also propels Corsica -- which has a big presence in the Mid-Atlantic States and the South -- into the Midwest market.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The addition of the Symplexity digital transformation team is a “huge” win for Corsica Technologies, said Walls. “The digital transformation team with dedicated software development talent and DevOps capabilities is a big addition to our offerings,” said Walls. “This is going to help our clients take better advantage of the benefits of the cloud with Microsoft SharePoint, Power BI, and Dynamics 365.”

Symplexity CEO Brian Harmison (pictured above) – the driving force behind the Symplexity digital transformation offensive – will now lead the Corsica Digital Transformation practice which includes DevOps, application development, and IT automation.

“Brian is awesome,” said Walls. “He has the proven leadership capabilities and software engineering mindset to make it happen. He is already helping with our own automation efficiencies.”

One of the crown jewels of the acquisition, in fact, is a Harmison inspired homegrown Symplexity client portal that will provide all of Corisca’s customers with a single pane of glass with details on their full IT environment including security, network and system configurations. “It’s a full consolidated customer friendly view of the IT environment,” said Walls.

Harmison, the driving force behind the 25-year-old Symplexity’s own customer experience-based digital transformation, said the portal has had a transformative impact on client engagement with a 50 percent increase in additional recurring revenue managed services subscriptions.

Among the fastest growing services with the portal experience is Symplexity security service subscriptions. In fact, 65 percent of Symplexity customers now contract for security services as a result of the client portal experience.

“A lot of MSPs say my customers won’t pay for security services,” said Harmison. “They won’t pay for it because they don’t know what they are missing. What our portal provides is a view into the organizational security posture with a proprietary algorithm that includes overall security hygiene. That gives customers an up to the date view of those security factors at a high level so they can see their progress. It shows what they are paying for and the journey that we are on together.”

The client portal experience is the most dramatic example of Symplexity’s own digital transformation. That resonates with customers who are looking for an IT services partner who can help them with their own digital transformation, said Harmison.

“What is unique is we transformed our own business and the portal is the proof of that” he said. “What we are doing is applying the same process we used on ourselves- being agile, iterative and providing value right away without the customer having to throw millions of dollars at it.”

Harmison said the opportunity to bring the digital transformation experience to a larger customer base is a dream come true. “That’s my passion,” he said. “Finding Corsica which is in the building digital transformation stage and having alignment of values was key. I have so much respect for Dale and his vision. It was a natural fit from the beginning.”

The digital transformation opportunity for midmarket customers is off the charts, said Harmison. “I’ve had to make those investments in my own business and have seen the returns,” he said. “So it’s an exciting for me to bring the practical experience to this. I have been there and know the challenges. What we do is work together with customers to find the best solutions that fit them – not just a cookie cutter approach.”

Harmison said he is looking forward to helping Corsica set the gold standard for technology leadership. “That’s the exciting piece for me,” he said. “I feel like as Corsica we can offer it all across a wide variety of organization sizes. This opens the door for us to continue to expand and be the place that these kinds of markets and customers can count on.”

Walls, for his part, said the Symplexity addition and the full court, build out of the Corsica services organization is having an invigorating effect across the company.“We have an entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “We are building a platform with a continuous improvement mindset. We are always hungry to find out what we can do better. That is the magic of the people we have got here. We are all hungry to get better and more efficient each and every day.”

As for the future, Walls said the acquisition blitz continues with the aim of doing at least two deals next year and possibly one more this year. “We are not fooling around,” he said. “We are moving as fast as we can. Our clients are looking to us for IT leadership. It takes a partner to lead them through what they can do with IT. We work with businesses to understand what their goals are and what their pain points are with data and applications. We are solving those problems.”