Becoming Logically – One MSP's 20-Year Journey To The Future

Twenty years ago, Winxnet was born in Portland, ME as an IT services firm. In the years since, we never strayed from our focus on helping small and midsized businesses (SMBs) leverage technology to achieve their business goals.

That focus enabled us to grow from a small New England company to a national leader in the Managed IT Service Provider (MSP) industry. We expanded beyond the northeast, we merged with K&R Network Solutions, we relentlessly innovated our unique systems management tools, we focused on operational excellence, we built an amazing engineering and service delivery team, and we honed our commitment to do the right thing for our customers, always.

On April 8, we took a giant step into the future and rebranded the combined Winxnet and K&R Network Solutions as Logically. For the first time in two decades, I am no longer the CEO of Winxnet. Today, I am the proud CEO of Logically. The same great company, with the same great people, a national footprint, and an exciting vision of the future of the MSP industry. So why the change, and what does it say about the industry and what it means for us?

Let’s start by talking about the industry. I’ve had the good fortune of being part of the IT Industry during a transformational era some say is as significant as the industrial revolution. IT has fundamentally changed the way business operates. IT has enabled titanic improvements in collaboration, productivity, customer engagement, supply chain management, customer service, and overall business effectiveness. Applications, infrastructure, services, and capabilities once available only to Fortune 500 companies are now available to companies of all sizes. The evolution of the internet, the cloud, smartphones, web services, and applications have made it possible for SMBs to “level the playing field” and compete at extraordinary levels.

But while these business systems and technologies are now affordable to SMBs, access is limited by a shortage of skilled experts to design, implement, and manage them. Today’s IT systems require people with skills in cloud, cybersecurity, networking, applications, and data management — skills that are in short supply. Moreover, since the range of underlying technologies has become so broad, no one person has all the skills needed. How can organizations access the required skills?

That’s where Logically and our vision of the MSP industry comes in. The Small Business Administration says there are 28.8 million small businesses in the US, representing 99.7 percent of all businesses. Small businesses employ half of the private U.S. workforce.

SMBs face a perplexing array of challenges and opportunities. About half of all SMBs fail within the first five years. It’s our belief that effectively deploying information technology is a key to SMB success. But with the increased complexity of IT combined with a shortage of workers skilled in the latest technologies, SMBs have trouble accessing the IT talent they need. This challenge is what is behind our vision and rebranding.

Our vision is to enable SMBs to achieve their business objectives through information technology. To do that, organizations need a trusted IT ally. They need access to a wide and deep bench of IT talent with expertise in emerging and critical technologies such as cloud, cybersecurity, mobility, and how the modern workplace operates. They need automation in order to deliver reliability and operational excellence at an affordable price.

Our new name, Logically, reflects these needs. “Logic” represents our technical acumen and automation. “Ally” represents our commitment to be our customer’s “trusted IT ally.”

So, a new name reflecting our vision is great, but more importantly, how do we deliver our brand promise? We deliver by providing a team of IT experts that have the full range of modern skills. Logically enables organizations to create an instant world-class IT team. Imagine that! Whether a company wants to outsource their entire IT team or augment their existing IT team with skilled resources and management tools, Logically has a solution.

The breadth and depth of our expertise, coupled with our care teams that drive operational excellence, our OpLogic Intelligent MSP platform,  and our company values established over the past 20 years, enable us to be our customer’s trusted IT ally.

Another part of being a trusted ally is being easy to do business with. As technology has become more complex, MSP offerings have evolved in parallel. In our opinion, offerings across the industry have become too hard to understand and too hard to compare. So, we’re out to change that and make it simple for SMBs to evaluate and buy managed services.

We’ve done two big things to help. First, we have rolled out a set of five managed service offerings that provide options for business leaders wanting to outsource all of their IT, and for IT leaders wanting to augment their existing teams. Additionally, we created an MSP Buyer’s Guide to help organizations evaluate managed service providers. It’s an incredible resource that can help organization’s make better informed decisions.

So, these are the trends and customer needs that are driving our MSP journey. We’ve stepped into our third decade in business with renewed passion for helping our customers, and a new name.

About The Author

Chris Claudio cofounded Winxnet, Inc. in 1999 and provided leadership and strategic direction as the Chief Executive Officer. In April 2019 Winxnet and K&R Network Solutions, Inc. completes a merger to form Logically, a coast-to-coast managed IT services company. Chris is primarily responsible for corporate direction, business development, and growth strategies for Logically with a broader vision of assembling a team which shares his values of customer service, excellence, and integrity.