MSP 501 Profile: Middleground Technologies Reaps Cloud Benefits

Company Name: Middleground Technologies
MSP 501 Rank: 91
Co-Founder and CEO: Sagar Pandya

Primary Services:

• IT Services
• VoIP
• Help Desk
• Data Backup
• Web Design

Twitter: @middlegroundit

Buying into cloud technology helped propel Middleground Technologies into the 2020 MSP 501.

The Illinois-based MSP landed 91st on our prestigious list of managed services providers. Sagar Pandya, who co-founded the MSP in 2008, said cloud helped the MSP deploy infrastructure more quickly and scale as a result.

“Cloud technology has evolved so well that many businesses can now take advantage of better security, faster processing power, lowered monthly costs and the ability to scale quickly based on business need,” Pandya told Channel Futures.

Middleground Technologies’ Sagar Pandya

Pandya spoke about Middleground, cloud and the MSP channel in an interview with Channel Futures.

Channel Futures: What do you love about the IT channel? What do you hate about it?

Sagar Pandya: The IT channel has some very innovative and forward-thinking ideas and is such an important part of our daily lives. The daily grind is a big responsibility to keep all businesses running at peak performance. However, it is often a thankless job and the amount of effort to do IT correctly often goes unnoticed, because most of the work is behind the scenes. When a major problem is solved hours later, the business returns to normal while the IT team has to recover from the chaos that occurred to get to the solution. It would be so great for more advocacy and education in this channel to help companies make the right choices in terms of their technology, and also give IT companies more confidence from their clients.

As technology continues to evolve, a deeper understanding of the importance of IT and the role it plays in business growth from the boardroom all the way down will be the driving force for the future.

CF: What was the single biggest technology or business decision that drove your company’s growth in 2019? How did it do so?

SP: Cloud was the biggest technology that drove growth for us in 2019, because it gave us the ability to deploy infrastructure faster and at scale for our customers with very little capex. When we started this IT business over 10 years ago, the infrastructure model was to purchase equipment that was housed inside of an office space, only to be poorly managed and maintained. Every few years required a system upgrade and downtime for the business. Fast-forward to 2019, and cloud technology has evolved so well that many businesses can now take advantage of better security, faster processing power, lowered monthly costs and the ability to scale quickly based on business need. This has been a game changer in how work is being done today to support a now remote workforce and potential removal of office spaces altogether.

Looking into the future, Middleground will leverage the power of the cloud to deliver capable and cost-effective infrastructure to businesses to continue to keep them competitive and secure, with a workforce that will be connecting from all areas of the world on all types of devices.

CF: If applicable, why are you a business owner instead of working for someone else? What is the allure of entrepreneurship to you?

SP: Working for someone else and helping them achieve their dream is still an amazing way to build something with very minimal risk and still great reward. It gives you the ability to really sharpen your skills and become a master of your craft without having to worry about all of the little details that go with business ownership. And when things change, it gives you a chance to reset and make a shift to another organization to start building their dream instead. But creating your own journey, being responsible for all the risks and rewards and meeting great people along the way to join you is an indescribable feeling.

Having complete control of your destiny, making decisions without major influence, and pushing your own personal boundaries to see what can be achieved is something that very few can manage and handle. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but for the ones crazy enough to do it, the rewards can be very fulfilling, even outside of all of the chaos that comes with it.