MSPmentor 100: Ergos Technology Acquired for Growth

Ergos Technology, ranked No. 33 in the MSPmentor 100, focuses on helping SMBs outsource IT as much as possible, from cloud offerings to voice and data. But how has the company performed since the third-annual MSPmentor 100 report debuted in February 2010? I spoke to CEO Steve Winter about Ergos Technology’s recent sale to an investment firm, plus the company’s future strategy

Ergos hit a peak in 2008 and business has flattened out a bit since that time, admits Winter, but the company reinvested in itself. The company purchased and transformed a warehouse into a brand new call center in 2009, and so 2010 represents an effort to reach new heights.

The need for the new call center came out of Ergos building their own cloud, and that was part of a plan… “so we have a cloud to go with our managed services business and hosted phone solutions.”

“We’re getting more into the hosted applications and phone solutions,” Winter continued, detailing how he was trying to get customers out of the IT business. He said there was some natural attrition at Ergos, but they were hiring, though they’re  “staying around 50 employees.”

Interestingly, Ergos was sold about 2 months ago, to Zakhem Investments, but Winter says he’s staying on to run the business for the “foreseeable future for sure.”

Winter says Egros continues to attract larger clients than in years’ past, but he concedes there’s still some customer attrition because of mergers, acquisitions and the economy in general.

When he’s not calling the shots at Egros, Winter is seeking business tips through books like “The 4-hour work week.” When I asked about key takeaways from the book, Winter laughed and replied:

This is part of our weekly look at MSPmentor 100 companies. The annual MSPmentor 100 report, published each February, identifies the world’s leading MSPs. Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS,Facebook, Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.