Amplix Acquires Net7, Deepens Life Cycle Services
It's Amplix's first acquisition after its founding three-agent merger.
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For president and CEO Chris Checksfield and the Net7 team, Amplix was very much a known entity.
Amplix CEO Joe Destefano explained in a recent interview with Channel Futures that the three original teams that merged to make Amplix knew each other well. He attributed this to a collaborative New England culture in which agents competed against direct sales and other partners, but not against other agents.
That has been true for Net7 and Checksfield. He said Destefano, formerly CEO of ROI Communications, has mentored him over the years. Checksfield said his team has also enjoyed positive relationships with Blue Front Technology Group and allConnex, the other two agencies that merged with ROI to make Amplix.
Checksfield said Destefano’s mentorship has proven invaluable.
“I was always very surprised and impressed at how forthcoming Joe was with information around best practices, because at a very high level you could look at us as competitors,” Checksfield told Channel Futures. “But really, when I was having these conversations with Joe, it felt like we were part of something bigger. We were part of a family trying to get out there and differentiate ourselves.”
Amplix president Dan Gill pointed to new personnel as a key outcome of the acquisition. The entire Net7 team will join Amplix.
Gill said there’s highly valuable talent at Net7. He pointed to Cary Stallings, who has been functioning as Net7’s technology consultant.
“There’s a ton of really good sales and account management talent that is really additive to our team and allows us to expand the support we can provide,” Gill said.
For Checksfield and Net7, retaining all employees means that very little (if anything) will change for Net7 customers.
“The teams aren’t going to change. The talent isn’t going to change. The account management isn’t going to change and the customer’s day-to-day point of contact isn’t going to change. What is going to change is that we’re going to go from 10-person organization to a team of 50 with what I deem as the most talented folks in our industry, especially if you look at the Northeast,” Checksfield said.
Gill also pointed to Net7’s Total Care account and project management division. The module offers customers paid services around implementation and post-sale technology management and optimization.
Checksfield said he and Stallings established the practice after they had established their client base.
“Eventually, when we took on enough customers, it became very apparent that the value that we were giving to customers was something they were willing to pay for, as long as it gave them a heightened level of support both pre-sales and post-sales during implementation,” he said.
Ultimately a “very high percentage” of customers choose to use Total Care, rather than just sourcing services from Net7.
But despite the success of the practice, the offering had room to grow.
“When you peeled back the onion, we had the vision and the productized, conceptual nature of Total Care,” he said. “What we lacked was the ability to throw resources and a platform in front of it.”
Enter Amplix, with funding from Gemspring that can help Total Care scale. Moreover, Amplix’s Baseline IT platform can provide a single pane of glass (and gobs of data) to turn Total Care into a full platform.
Gill said Total Care accelerates what Amplix was doing around post-sales account management.
“I would say it accelerates a revenue stream,” Gill said. “We had some business in the TMS practice, just not as elegantly productized and as deep a penetration. So it is definitely additive to our revenue stream. It really accelerates what was kind of a burgeoning revenue stream into something more realized.”
Gill said customers have shown demand for services beyond sourcing.
“They needed that true extension of their team that’s there on a day-to-day basis, maybe even some extended hours. The ability to help them track tickets and resolutions and SLA credits and more formal decisions around running RFP processes and things that are a bit deeper than what an advisor would would normally do,” Gill said.
Stallings and Checksfield’s new roles take them out of the executive seats, although they will still contribute to Amplix’s strategy.
Checksfield said the change allows Stalling to focus on sales engineering for Amplix’ largest and toughest projects without diluting time with HR and hiring tasks as he did before.
Checksfield, on the other hand, will focus on landing new customers without the burden of administrative tasks.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone better at customer acquisition in our space, and being able to bring big logos in the door and grow them in,” Gill said.
Many financial options exist for agents looking to sell their businesses, but Checksfield said Amplix stood out for a number of reasons.
First, he described Amplix as a company “run by operators.”
“When we looked across the the options, we were a little bit anxious around someone who was going to do some financial engineering or try to create a business based on EBITDA aquisition. We were much more interested in a company that was going to create something valuable not just for the shareholders, but for the organization, employees as well as the customers,” he said.
He also pointed the back office of ROI Communications.
“Everybody knew that ROI maintained and operated the best back office in the business. It was something that was always very attractive to Net7 as a competitor,” he said.
Moreover, he praised the leadership pedigree of Joe Destefano.
“There’s nobody in this industry that I would rather work for and work with to build a brand that we’re going to build an Amplix,” Checksfield told Channel Futures. “What he has done is second to nobody, and what the combined organization is capable of, is something that I’m more excited about than than I have been in a long time.”
Many financial options exist for agents looking to sell their businesses, but Checksfield said Amplix stood out for a number of reasons.
First, he described Amplix as a company “run by operators.”
“When we looked across the the options, we were a little bit anxious around someone who was going to do some financial engineering or try to create a business based on EBITDA aquisition. We were much more interested in a company that was going to create something valuable not just for the shareholders, but for the organization, employees as well as the customers,” he said.
He also pointed the back office of ROI Communications.
“Everybody knew that ROI maintained and operated the best back office in the business. It was something that was always very attractive to Net7 as a competitor,” he said.
Moreover, he praised the leadership pedigree of Joe Destefano.
“There’s nobody in this industry that I would rather work for and work with to build a brand that we’re going to build an Amplix,” Checksfield told Channel Futures. “What he has done is second to nobody, and what the combined organization is capable of, is something that I’m more excited about than than I have been in a long time.”
New England-based technology advisor Amplix has purchased Net7, bringing on a company and a team that will bolster private equity-backed Amplix’s account management services.
Net7 is a nine-year-old company that consists of two entities — Net7 Solutions and Net7 Total Care. Amplix didn’t say how much it’s paying for Net7. The deal pairs Net7 with an Amplix leadership team its owners know well, as well as funding to scale. For Amplix, the acquisition adds technical and sales talent as well as a sophisticated technology life cycle management practice called Net7 Total Care.
ROI’s Joe Destefano
“We’re excited to welcome the Net7 team to the Amplix family,” Amplix CEO Joe Destefano said. “The company’s strong sales talent, technical leadership and customer-first approach complement Amplix’s service offering and culture. Net7’s Total Care practice will enhance the Amplix platform and help to further differentiate the life cycle experience and data capabilities we provide. We look forward to collaborating with the Net7 team to optimize Amplix’s reach and further accelerate the company’s growth.”
Backgrounds
Amplix burst onto the scene in mid-December as the combination of three Massachusetts-based agencies: ROI Communications, Blue Front Technology Group and allConnex. Private equity firm Gemspring Capital is backing the joint company.
Net7, headquartered in Wrentham, Massachusetts, launched in 2013, spearheaded by Windstream alums Chris Checksfield and Cary Stallings. Checksfield, Net7’s president and CEO, said the company has turned into one of the channel’s fastest growing agencies. It has focused on large enterprise customers, sourcing and managing all manner of cloud, IT and telecommunication services.
Amplix’s Chris Checksfield
As a result of the deal, Checksfield and Stalling will settle into customer acquisition and sales engineering roles, respectively. Moreover, both will help shape Amplix’s overall vision.
Amplix’s Dan Gill
“These guys have built a really compelling business. They’ve done innovative things, and they’ve been truly successful,” Amplix president Dan Gill told Channel Futures. “So we’ve got the roles that they’re excited to play, but they’re going to play an important role in strategy going forward.”
In the slideshow above, Checksfield and Gill explain why Amplix and Net7 fit well with one another.
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