Taking IT to 11

As we turn the page on our tenth and most successful year yet, before we embark upon our eleventh year in business, it is important to take a moment to stop and reflect about where we have been, how we got here and where C3 is going.

Where We’ve Been

This, to say the least, has been a long and interesting road. When Kevin Lucier and I first started the company in 2008, we had a vision with telecom focus and dreams of being a master agent for high bandwidth services and cable providers. Our plan was to provide as many vendor options as possible for our clients, and we would never, ever, cross the demark inside the network. Well, so much for that business model!
Needless to say, the call of the cloud was too much to resist. We took a leap of faith and crossed the demark with the addition of James Lucier and his extensive background in IT Services and Support. Then we convinced Jason Tierney to let us acquire his established MSP BeyondIT Consulting and join the team here at C3. These were the some of the smartest decisions we’ve ever made! An early validation of this move came in 2014 when C3 was recognized with a Microsoft SMB Cloud Partner of the Year Award for the Mid-Atlantic. Since then, we have matured as a company and earned a reputation as a true partner to our clients.

Where We Are

Today, we are firmly established as a leading Microsoft partner to the small, mid-market, and corporate market segment. We have well over 10,000 seats under management and several Gold competencies, plus a well-established and growing managed services practice. Our dedication and experience in the government contractor market resulted in being selected as one of only six partners that can sell Office 365 GCC High licenses in the AOSG Program. Last year, we received the 2018 Fast 50 award from the Virginia Chamber, which are awarded to the 50 fastest growing companies in the state.

Where We’re Going

We have just completed one of our most successful years in business and we don’t plan on stopping – in fact, our motto this year is that we’re “taking it to 11.” As far as we’ve come, we’re just tapping into our potential. Increased awareness of cyber risk and the solutions to mitigate those challenges are materializing in new regulations and compliance regimes across our industry. The NIST Cyber Framework is becoming a catalyst for good cyber hygiene which we have embraced as a guiding light for your services. We believe these are good things as they give clients a framework to evaluate investment decisions and establish common standards to work towards.
In the next few weeks, we will formally expand our MSP to include security services and capabilities designed with compliance in mind. These services will be built around the NIST Cyber Risk Framework with the vision of getting as close as possible to a turn-key compliant solution. Our strategy is to dramatically expand our services and be the leading technology provider to small and mid-market federal contractors. This focus will set a great reference point to further improve the solutions we provide to all our clients.

…And Most Importantly

Financial and professional success are great, but most leaders will tell you that the relationships are the things that make the difference. We can’t agree more – simply put, C3 would not be where we are without the tremendous team that delivers on our commitment to our clients every day. Every business has strategic goals and revenue targets, market analysis and milestones. But when we talk about what we are most proud of, it is the collection of people that we have brought together, not just for a common professional purpose, but to develop a family. We like to say that we don’t hire, we adopt – and our family continues to grow. As Henry Ford famously said, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, but working together is success.” Our C3 family is responsible for our success and we can’t wait to see what is in store for the future.

Thank you to everyone – our clients, our partners, our friends, our family and the C3 team – who have made this past decade possible and will be integral to helping us take it to 11!