February 15th, 2012
In the News
Two MSP Buyouts Reveal Divergent Trends
All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta, likewise bought regional MSP Service Assurance. The two deals look similar from a technology and service area perspective, but differ in the end goal.
February 15, 2012
In the News
All Covered Acquires Memphis-Based MSP Service Assurance
The addition of Memphis, Tenn.-based Service Assurance will enable All Covered to expand its presence by incorporating a broad and talented group of professionals as well as a diverse client list.
February 14, 2012
In the News
Memphis-based Service Assurance acquired by Konica Minolta division
After more than two decades as a locally owned enterprise, Memphis-based Service Assurance has been acquired by Foster City, Calif.-based All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA.
10/18/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of Memphis-based Service Assurance
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Continues to Expand Presence in Key Growth Market
10/19/2011
In the News
ColdCypress acquired by All Covered
This week the IT consulting firm ColdCypress was acquired by a California division of the printing and imaging giant Konica Minolta.
10/18/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of ColdCypress
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Expands Presence in Northeast
9/27/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of Vertical IT Solutions in Florida
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Expands Presence in the Southeast
9/14/2011
In the News
All Covered Acquires LAN Associates, PMV Technologies
Managed services firm All Covered has made two more solution provider acquisitions, buying LAN Associates of Ramsey of New York and PMV Technologies of Detroit.
9/13/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Division Buys PMV Technologies
With the addition of PMV Technologies, All Covered enters the Detroit market, with a broad and talented group of people along with a diverse list of local clients.
9/13/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of PMV Technologies in Michigan
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Expands Presence in Midwest States
9/1/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of LAN Associates in New York
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. Significantly Increases Presence In Key Market
6/27/2011
In the News
The 10 worst cloud outages (and what we can learn from them)
Sending your IT business to the cloud comes with risk, as those affected by these 10 colossal cloud outages can attest to.
6/17/2011
In the News
All Covered is #30 in Talkin' Cloud's Top 50 Cloud Companies
All Covered is #30 on Talkin' Cloud's Top 50 of the world's top VARs, managed services providers (MSPs), cloud brokers, cloud aggregators and cloud services providers working within the cloud.
5/25/2011
In the News
IT channel mergers on the rise
The net effect for IT solution provider management teams is that they should reassess their business value propositions carefully as the industry moves into the second half of 2011.
5/20/2011
In the News
All Covered Acquires Chicago MSP TechCare
Nearly six months after being acquired by Konica Minolta, national managed service provider All Covered has restarted its own acquisition strategy by purchasing Techcare, a Chicago-based MSP.
5/20/2011
In the News
Managed Services Acquisition: All Covered Buys Techcare
All Covered, a Konica Minolta division, acquired Techcare, a managed services provider (MSP) and MSPmentor 100 company in Chicago, Ill.
5/19/2011
Announcement
All Covered Acquires Managed IT Services Practice of Techcare LLC in Chicago
Division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. Significantly Increases Presence In Key Market
2/8/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Expands Its Service Offerings in the US Through All Covered Acquisition
All Covered should allow Konica Minolta to further penetrate the fragmented SMB market, which is huge and difficult for OEMs to service properly.
1/8/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Acquires Managed IT Services Provider All Covered
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. announced on January 6 that it has acquired All Covered, a provider of managed IT services to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
1/7/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Acquires MSP All Covered
Imaging giant accelerates its move into services with the purchase of the SMB managed IT provider.
1/7/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Acquires All Covered, Inc.
Yesterday Konica Minolta Business Solutions US announced the company had acquired All Covered Inc., a national provider of Managed IT Services to small and medium sized businesses.
1/6/2011
In the News
Managed Services Acquisition: Konica Minolta Buys All Covered
Konica Minolta Business Solutions has acquired All Covered, the managed services provider. Also, Konica Minolta and All Covered plan to buy more MSPs.
1/6/2011
In the News
Konica Minolta Acquires MSP All Covered
Konica Minolta Business Solutions is acquiring All Covered, one of CRN's 40 Most Innovative MSPs to help it evolve from managed print to managed IT solutions.
1/6/2011
Press Release
Konica Minolta Acquires All Covered, Inc.
Acquisition Positions Konica Minolta as a Leading Managed IT Services Provider
December 17, 2010
In the News
"MSPmentor 100: All Covered Grows to Cover Even More"
No. 20 on the MSPmentor 100 list, All Covered has been busy growing organically and through acquisitions, and is focusing much of its efforts on cloud services.
October 25, 2010
In the News
"Managed Services Acquisition: All Covered Buys Alteritech"
"All Covered, a nationwide managed services provider, has acquired Alteritech in a play to reinforce its presence in Washington DC and Baltimore."
October 22, 2010
Announcement
"All Covered expands presence in Washington, D.C."
Alteritech joins All Covered, adding more employees and small to medium-sized business clients.
October 21, 2010
In the News
"All Covered CEO Sees Massive MSP Shakeout"
"The MSP market is poised to undergo a shakeout that could wipe out 35 percent of the 10,000 MSPs in the country over the next three years."
October 7, 2010
Revenue - Good Revenue vs. Bad Revenue
It's clear that all MSP's are not created equal. We all know it's about "contracted" monthly recurring revenue, BUT are block hours different than remote monitoring and management that is different than onsite support with no tools to manage environments (break/fix).
You better believe it - the margins are incredibly different - it's the utilization of people and tools versus just people. It gives us the ability to scale across a city, region and country. Sending people onsite, albeit important to the customers we service, is costly and not sustainable. That's why when looking at acquisition targets - not all revenue is created is equal. There is absolutely a premium on solid, good margin recurring revenue, but be careful what it's made up of.
September 27, 2010
In the News
"Consolidation Churning Up the Channel"
"Many solution provider companies are looking to make acquisitions, but companies should approach consolidation with caution."
September 27, 2010
In the News
"The Credit Crunch: Has Financing Returned?"
"Solution providers say the economy turned a corner this year in one regard: Credit began to open up again, and many VARs say it's much easier to secure a loan or line of credit."
"The SMB market is getting better this year," said Todd Croteau, CEO of All Covered. "But in a normal economy, we'd see more companies increasing their services with us because they'd be growing and hiring more people. But we're still nowhere near the normal services level because businesses are still fearful of what's to come."
September 24, 2010
In the News
"When Fast Growth's Not Enough"
"This is the tale of two successful, fast-growing solution providers that, confronted with harsh economic conditions, came together in a fragmented and chaotic market. It may also be a sign of things to come."
September 23, 2010
In the News
"What's Your Exit Strategy?"
"Some VARs are two sales away from shutting their doors; others are running a break-even business. Have you assessed the worth of your business lately and what makes it attractive if you should decide to sell?"
August 24, 2010
"Question... Why is selling in the SMB market so challenging?"
Dear SMB Owner,
Question... Why is selling in the SMB market so challenging?
It's one of those questions we hear all the time along with - "I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall, EVERY DAY". We've all been through the hiring of overpaid sales people that chase bad business and can't close without multiple people supporting the sales cycle all for a $1,250 per month customer. From my perspective it boils down to who we are selling to...The business owner who doesn't have time for the sales pitch and quite frankly doesn't care. It tends to be an owner to owner sale, so in most cases you are hiring a sales rep to find opportunities that take your cycles to close - that's bad math...
Making it even harder are the following stats from The Wall Street Journal - 8/18/10
"At Small Firms, Job Cuts Run Deep"
- Most private sector job cuts came from businesses with fewer than 50 employees in Q409
- Small firms employ 29% of all workers
- Accounted for 62% of all job losses
- Accounted for 54% of all hiring
- Credit is still tight
247wallst.com - 8/19/10
- Banks are not encouraged by federal government to do more lending to these firms. No risk mitigation.
- No current program to give tax credits to hire
The bottom line is that growing a small MSP in today's economic conditions is difficult. It takes time to sell even the smallest of deals and those small customers probably cost you just as much, if not more, in overall support once they are onboarded as customer. So the question is how you grow your business. What we've seen at All Covered is that our acquisition strategy provides the local MSP owner a strategy to grow its business and at the same time have a realistic exit strategy. So why not hear what we have to say?
June 7, 2010
"Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?"
If you are at all like me, and are part of a small company selling to other small companies, then you know the pain and challenges of trying to grow a business in an economically unstable environment, where $50 a month is looked at as closely as $10,000 per month and where those businesses view IT as just another maintenance item in QuickBooks.
We did it all. We hired sales people, fired sales people, tried to partner with other companies, tried to extend to other markets, and even tried to become experts in specific technologies. At the end of the day, we all struggle with creating a business that can scale. I could personally sell to business owners and we could support a finite number of local customers with very good success rates, but to truly grow, it took me time with Tim Mott, All Covered's CEO, to really understand what scale meant and how it could be utilized in the marketplace that we are ALL COVERING.
As an MBA, I certainly understand economies of scale, but when I finally saw what becoming part of a larger and deeper company, in terms of technical resources, sales resources, finances and so on, could do for my employees, customers and me personally, it all clicked. As Glenn Mathis, our VP of Mergers and Acquisitions, says, "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts."
We were able to offer things to employees we never thought possible-- growth potential, training opportunities, and most importantly, peace of mind. We could now offer our customers greater service quality because of the centralized support group and, at the same time, greater strategic management capabilities with local Relationship Management (yes, it is the most important role at All Covered) and local technical resources that can be dispatched or scheduled 24/7. From a sales and marketing perspective, the ability to leverage a "real" marketing team that understands how to use Google Ads, build a real website and can actually be an extension of the sales team, has been a huge asset as well. It has all given us the ability to grow when otherwise we might not have been able.
Although pundits out there are suggesting that the economy is turning, I don't necessarily agree. The small and medium-sized businesses that we are supporting and selling into are still finding it difficult to pull the trigger on spending on IT. They want to, but if it's the difference between this and college tuition for little Joey or vacation to the Cape over the summer, you can bet what's getting paid for first. They will wait for something to break and then deal with it.
The market that we all are a part of is extremely fragmented and there are so many small consulting companies trying to service the same client base. Industry standards are largely missing, whether it is on common reporting metrics (industry standard utilization vs. effective utilization, direct cost, indirect cost, revenue per consultant, etc.), views on what is or isn't a true managed service offering or a common definition of cloud computing in the SMB space. Even valuation models are so very different. Some are based on EBITDA, others on a revenue multiples, and others still a combination of the two.
The bottom line is that this space is so fragmented that consolidation is inevitable, and some might say crucial, to start developing more consistent industry standards and best practices. The question is who do you want to consolidate with?
Are we better off on our own as individual organizations, or are we better off moving forward together as a bigger unit? As this blog post's title asks, "Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?"
As part of the whole, the ability to absorb the good times and the bad times is a heck of lot greater. Consolidation is happening, and for no other reason than to have our dreams of becoming a large regional, national or global player in the space we serve become a reality.
