Most of the company’s business has been and will remain with U.S.-based companies, but Carousel will continue its global expansion. Hebert expects the service side of its business to “explode” in the near future and for the long term.
“Clients want us to customize solutions that are scalable for them, and we can get there faster than our competitors,” he says. “Our business has begun a consistent shift towards recurring revenue through service contracts,” says Gardner. “This has been a huge focus and where we will continue to push. We feel this is where our future success will come from. Shifting the majority of our business to services is how we’ll sustain recurring revenues.”
Atrion “helps us with the Cisco relationship,” says Marsh. “Customers want us to minimize vendors. They also had a very passionate belief around services. They’ve been talking for a long time about the traits of good leaders.”
Focus on Certification and Training
One of Atrion’s strengths under Hebert has been its leadership and apprenticeship programs. The apprenticeship program helped bring many Atrion employees up the corporate ladder, while the leadership program is open not only to those in the integration world but those looking to hone or develop their leadership skills in a variety of professions.
“There’s an opportunity for all of our employees on both sides [Carousel and Atrion] to grow,” says Hebert. “That starts with them growing professionally. I’ve always been motivated to help people think about their careers in new ways.” These offerings were among the most appealing aspects of Atrion when Gardner and the Carousel team were considering the acquisition.
“We’ll be bringing some of their processes across the company as a whole,” he says. “We can never do enough training. Our employees want more. It’s important to have trained and certified technicians to bring the very latest to our clients. We have started to communicate this, because we believe it’s important to our clients and prospects.”
Hebert expects to see the apprenticeship program that was built to help newcomers to the company and/or the industry modified to help those with five to 10 years in the company take the next steps in their careers.
“Clients are looking for IT experts and more well-rounded individuals,” says Hebert.
As big as Carousel Industries has grown since the days when it shared a phone line with a deli, Gardner believes the second 25 years in the company’s history will be even better.
“There are a lot of good people and there’s been a lot of hard work to get us where we are today,” he says.
Marsh takes Gardner’s sentiments a step further. “There’s not an opportunity or a client we shouldn’t be working with,” he says. “It’s getting impossible for these companies to manage the technology themselves. The challenge comes in scaling this nationally. We’re much more unique than a traditional IT services company.”
