Renodis, Amid M&A Surge, Eyes 5G Opportunities, Partner Convergence

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“It’s just an entirely different channel and quite honestly, a lot more sexy from a product operating standpoint, because of where 5G is going, versus where your traditional circuits are going,” he said.

Private 5G and the Partner

Beason said 5G presents a particularly large opportunity in the area of private and public campus networks. Renodis has started testing out solutions with some hefty campuses, he said. Many of those clients run deep R&D that involves many IoT devices. The private 5G campus environment lets them flexibly access the bandwidth they need.

Private 5G networks generated plenty of headlines in the enterprise computing world. However, in many cases the  Verizons and AT&Ts of the world are landing those customers through direct deals or through a large systems integrator. Agents often lack the required familiarity with hardware providers like Cradlepoint that enable these networks. Moreover, many agents don’t want to dive into a space where recurring commissions aren’t the norm.

But the RCN and RTech acquisitions change that for Renodis, Beason said. He said that legacy VARs have struggled to sell telco, while agents don’t have the hardware. The acquisition represents an inevitable convergence between those two, he said. And convergence might play out most clearly in the wireless arena.

“We understand the Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T 5G piece. The hardware component is somewhat foreign to us, but it’s not foreign to RCN. So we got the expertise overnight by doing the transaction,” Beason said.

New Opportunities with ERC

Most recently Renodis acquired 32-year-old Eric Ryan Corporation. The company functions as the fourth largest employer in the town of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. Beason described the employees as “good, seasoned, tenured and hardworking,” and an indication of good culture.

Beason also said ERC brought multiple new angles to the table for Renodis. On one hand, ERC had developed a strong base of hospitality customers.

“Out of my 900 clients, I’ve got one hospitality client. So it really gets us into hospitality in a big way. Hospitality clients have a little different needs than enterprise, but they’re extremely good clients,” he said.

ERC also has been been helping customers save money in the areas of utilities and energy, in addition to telecom. And that utility component resonated strongly with Beason.

“That utilities piece, albeit a little bit more restrictive from an offering standpoint than we’re used to on the telecom side, delivers a tremendous amount of value to clients with getting energy at a better price. These are all things that we understand on the telecom side,” he said.

Telarus at its latest summit brought ERC’s chief operating officer Rebecca Hink on stage to honor the company for its investment in its agency practice. While ERC had historically provided telecom expense management, it had stayed away from sourcing. Hink advocated strongly within the team to add the advisory services about 10 years ago.

“She was 100% right. It really drove a lot more value to clients,” Beason said.

In addition, the acquisition benefits Eric Ryan by bringing in Renodis’ operational abilities.

“We’ve invested heavily in that. We think day one we’re going to be able to enable their business to drive to the same efficiencies that that we’ve had the fortune to do at Renodis,” Beason said.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Beason said Renodis’ vision has remained the same in its 20 years. But growing the business proved a constant challenge to live in the moment.

“There’s no education you can get to do this,” Beason said. “I treated every day like it was a brand new slate. Yeah, yesterday might have been a bad day, but today is a new slate and a different day. Keep walking up the mountain one foot after the next.”