Bridgepointe: $600 Billion IT Consulting Market Up for Grabs

BRIDGEPOINTE TECH SUMMIT — Bridgepointe Technologies and its community of partners logged record sales bookings in the last two quarters and are seeking to expand their share of the IT consulting market.

The California-based technology advisory firm shared data pointing to organic and inorganic growth in the last 12 months. Bridgepointe’s business has grown 150% organically, not counting revenue it has added through M&A, according to company leaders.

Bridgepointe leaders in a Monday keynote presentation at their annual summit in Palm Springs, California, shared that Bridgepointe has added about 170 employees since the Charlesbank partnership. The company has also added 50 new suppliers in the last year, co-founder and CEO Scott Evars told the audience.

The 21-year-old company formed an agreement at the beginning of 2022 with middle market private equity company Charlesbank Capital Partners for more than $100 million in funding.

Bridgepointe leaders said the partnership gave them a chance to scale Bridgepointe’s boutique business model, while rewarding the partners who have helped them achieve success and widen their wallet share.

Bridgepointe’s Scott Evars

“We had gone 20 years of really not trying to amplify our message and get it out there,” Evar told an audience of employees, IT strategists and suppliers.

The message of the technology advisor channel is reaching a wider audience. Charlesbank has joined a number of investors that have put funding into technology advisors (TAs) and tech services distributors (TSDs). In addition, other IT companies and channel partners are eyeing the space.

Tough Competition in IT Consulting Market

Bridgepointe Technologies’ Brian Miller

“Competition is fierce. Every IT consultant, every VAR, system integrator, virtual CIO, AV vendor, commercial real estate person – you name it – is trying to figure out how to monetize this if they haven’t already,” Bridgepointe co-founder and chief revenue officer Brian Miller said. “But I’ll take that. We’ll take that all day. Our job at Bridgepointe is to create a differentiated experience for you, the sellers, as well as the suppliers, so you can leave here and go to bed every night knowing you’ve partnered up with the best group of people in this industry to help your customers and maximize the amount of money we make.”

Bridgepointe runs a hybrid model that touches both technology suppliers and end customers. Its “IT strategists” might be known elsewhere as agents, who sell as-a-service technology offerings to customers and operate exclusively with Bridgepointe for support and supplier contracts. Many of these strategists interface with customers under the Bridgepointe brand, or a “powered by Bridgepointe” brand.

Bridgepointe’s Tim Allen

Bridgepointe executive vice president of sales Tim Allen cited Statistica Research‘s estimation that the U.S. IT consulting market has exceeded $600 billion. And Bridgepointe, as well as many of its peers, intends to take market share from large consultancies.

“A big part of that $600 billion is being glommed by Accenture, Capgemini and [Ernst & Young] for just telling people how to evaluate the suppliers — how to evaluate their options,” Allen said.

Company Growth

Bridgepointe’s employee base has expanded significantly, both organically and inorganically. Approximately 140 have come through acquisitions of companies such as RealCom, Cannon Group and PPT Solutions. Bridgepointe added another 30-some people organically, including BridgepointeCX channel leader Jamaal Savwoir and chief operations officer Michael Sterl.

Miller noted that about 150 of the new employees work in a customer-facing capacity. That fits solidly within Bridgepointe’s strategy and identity, which is to surround sellers with support.

“A big part of the reason why we’re all here today is, winning with a team is a lot easier than losing by yourself. We’ve done more four-legged, six legged, eight-legged sales calls than [have] most companies that are in this business,” Miller said.

Bridgepointe Tech Summit

Evars said 425 people are attending the annual conference in the desert. (Channel Futures is there.) This week, the company will reveal more details about its Signal portal and the features therein. Executives said they hope strategists in attendance will develop their cross-selling capabilities and learn more about advanced technologies like customer experience (CX), security and artificial intelligence (AI).