The leaders of Procure IT are looking to form a new type of technology advisor that centers the sourcing model around data.

Four companies have merged together to create Procure IT, which seeks to bring together data-focused partner firms with its own proprietary platforms. Four former RapidScale executives – Randy Jeter, Andrew Laughter, William Hiatt and Dylan Bouterse – are leading the company as managing partners, in addition to Jordan Solender.

The company is targeting a future midmarket private equity group for an event in the next 12-24 months. In the meantime, Procure IT is building a platform for management of the customer life cycle, as well as the management of vendor spend and risk. In addition, the partner is building a customer-facing education platform, with the stated intent of coaching IT leaders and IT buyers.

Procure IT’s Randy Jeter

For Jeter, who co-founded RapidScale more than 10 years ago and served briefly as ARG’s chief strategy officer, Procure IT reflects the thesis he has been sharing for a long time about the technology advisory channel. Namely, that the agent of the future will offer more concrete data insights to customers about the vendors they’re sourcing.

“There was a net need to go deeper and further into putting a wrapper around procurement. All of these agents sell a sourcing service and consult it, but it’s my belief that you need to go deeper into risk management and into performance management,” Jeter told Channel Futures.

M&A

Procure IT has 25 employees, and Jeter said the company will likely reach 50 by the end of 2023. That headcount growth will come in part from acquisitions of other agents, VARs and MSPs, executives told Channel Futures.

The company began with the merger of four companies: Premiere Worldwide, a California-based agency Jeter acquired in 2011 before he moved to RapidScale; Andrew Laughter’s Krewe Advisory Group; Dallas-based solutions provider Mercury Communications Services;  and Maryland-based agency Premier Technology Advisors.

The merger came at a time when many partner firms, especially residual commission-based technology advisors (agents), are getting offers from strategic buyers. Upstack, Bluewave Technology Group, One Source Communications, Amplix and Bridgepointe Technologies are just a few of the companies offering to buy agents’ businesses.

Procure IT’s Jordan Soldender

“The technology advisory space is maturing and consolidating, and there are many opportunities for partners to exit or be part of a roll-up,” Premier Technology Advisors CEO Jordan Solender said. “Instead, Procure IT offered my company, Premier Technology Advisors, the opportunity to create a blueprint for the next-generation technology advisory company, which delivers customer-focused, data-driven sourcing and management under one umbrella.”

The company has already raised funds through “high-net-worth investors” and debt capital, it said.

Procure IT’s leaders frame the company’s strategy around three pillars: advisors/consultants, engineers/architects and a software platform.

Bringing In Data

Jeter clarified that the concept of IT and vendor management does not refer IT does not refer to traditional managed IT services. The suppliers will continue to provide that layer. However, Jeter said Procure IT’s CX platform will help IT decision makers make more informed purchases and leverage data about their technology after the purchase to use tactically with their C-suite.

The platform will include APIs from a variety of sources. For example, Jeter said the platform will connect the Bloomberg to provide financial information on publicly traded suppliers. And for privately traded companies, Procure IT will leverage ZoomInfo.

“Each customer’s financial reporting is going to speak to the vendors they have. If I choose a vendor, how do I know the vendor is going to be around? That’s the stuff that board and IT decision makers want,” Jeter said. “We’re going to bring financial insights to the fingertips associated to every decision maker for what companies are going for. Are you choosing a company that’s financially sound, or are you not? Is it a risk-based company, or is it not?”

Jeter said the reliance on data for sourcing recommendations contrasts with the way many partners …

… refer technology solutions to customers: how vendors compensate them.

“A lot of agents are choosing to take a company somewhere because they get a SPIFF. That has to be taken out of this entire space. That is not a data-driven decision,” Jeter said.

Jeter said that at the same time, many IT leaders will lock into a contract with a consultant and listen to whatever that consultant tells them, without seeing the bigger picture.

“[The agent] might seem biased or while the other one’s [the consultant] always looking for new projects. Neither one today I believe is aligned for the customer experience. If you can get to data-driven outcomes, then you can look at a large subset of data and make informed decisions,” Jeter said.

The platform will also include a project management system and an ROI calculator. Moreover, it’s taking in customer information from Salesforce, including trouble ticketing systems.

In addition, Procure IT plans to collaborate with technology expense management (TEM) providers, Tangoe, Calero and Brightfin.

“We’re in the process of contracting with them. We don’t care what platform a company wants to use, because we don’t want to pinch them out of using one platform. They might have one or two if they’re a large entity,” Jeter said.

Customer Platform

Procure IT is also investing to build a customer-facing educational website. Jeter said the platform will serve to educate IT decision makers about different technologies and vendor solutions, much in the way the TSDs run “universities” for partners.

“We want to take that and bring that to the customers. We want to take the platform value and start to do video content, and start to bridge what I would say is a customer need for education and information. And the provider wants us to bring the two of those together. They want to be close to the customers,” he said.

Jeter added that Procure IT will eventually establish more of its own relationships with suppliers directly. He said the firm will eventually run the majority of its contracts direct with suppliers as opposed to through a TSD.

Procure IT reports that it works with more than 3,000 businesses across the U.S., ranging from SMB to enterprise. The company bases its headquarters in Carollton, Texas, and maintains offices in California, Florida and Maryland.

Mercury’s Greg Osler

Mercury Communication Services president Greg Osler said he feels comfortable entrusting Procure IT with his customers.

“Owning a communications business for more than 43 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to the amazing evolution of technology. Technology is the fastest-changing industry in the world,” Keeping pace is a challenge for all businesses, but one that Procure IT understands and is tackling with the three-pronged approach of people, processes and systems to help our clients make better business technology decisions today and well into the future.”