Vology Charts Path From Reseller to Growing MSP

Vology has come a long way since the days when it was was Network Liquidators, a Tampa, Fla.-based reseller that built a reputation since 2002 as “the used Cisco guys.”

But by the end of the decade, the firm’s management decided they had to pivot beyond selling used IT products if they hoped to stay relevant amid the transformation sweeping the industry.

“The business is changing,” CEO and founder Barry Shevlin recalled about the conversations back then.

Shevlin and his team determined the answer was managed services. They rebranded the company as Vology, Inc., and set out to raise money.

Recapitalized, Vology emphasized bringing on technical employees and began selling managed services. Currently, more than 200 of the company’s 400 employees occupy technical roles.

Vology made other moves as well.

In 2012, they bought Bayshore Technologies, a Tampa Bay virtualization firm with a tiny managed services business.

Two years later, they cut a deal with value added reseller Govplace, to purchase its state, local and education (SLED) business, which included a large managed services deal to store data belonging to the County of Orange in Southern California.

In February of 2015, Vology bought managed services firm Offsite Technologies, and five months later – in its biggest acquisition – acquired VITAL Network Services, an international provider of network services.

Today, Vology provides a wide range of IT managed services to a variety of organizations, most ranging in size from 200 to 5,000 employees.

Last year, the company responded to more than 12 million managed services events involving 45,000 end points. The company uses an event correlation platform called VIPER, handling 120,000 actionable tickets through redundant network operations centers in Tampa and Pennsauken, N.J.

“Our size, our scale, our deep bench … we’re kind of uniquely positioned to service these midmarket customers,” Shevlin said. “That’s really what were designed to go after.”

Revenue grew from $70 million in 2010, to a projected $200 million this year, while the percentage generated from managed services increased from nothing to 25 percent during that same time.

Shevlin is particularly pleased that the scaling has come nearly equally from acquisition and organic growth.

“That’s a really nice balance,” he said.

Vology’s strategy calls for the company to derive half of its income from managed services by 2020.

To get there, Shevlin said, “our plan is to do more of the same.”

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