Microsoft MSP Falco soars with Dicker Data's wind beneath its wings

14th December 2023 4 minute read

Acquiring a business is like buying your first house — you seldom know what you’ll find once you move in.

So, it was for Byron Da Silva last year when his Sydney-based IT services provider, Falco Technology Solutions, bought a Melbourne managed services provider (MSP).

Falco specialised in managed services and cloud on the Microsoft stack and, as an emerging services provider spreading its wings interstate, it had a full book of work to keep its consultants busy at home.

The Melbourne acquisition was a burning platform that demanded immediate action, but it was outside Falco’s capacity to address immediately.

“Unknown to us, a lot of the customers were on-premise with end-of-life hardware, and they needed to do something,” said Da Silva.

“The obvious solution was to push them to Azure virtual desktop in the cloud but there were 10 clients that needed to be migrated at the same time.”

Building a winning team to quench a burning platform

Da Silva turned to Dicker Data Azure practice lead, Daniel Janicki, who introduced him to Microsoft’s Azure Migration and Modernisation Program (Partner-Led AMM). This program unlocked funding and via Dicker Data connected Falco to a certified execution partner, Linktech Australia.

“I'm apprehensive of outsourcing work so it took a bit of [convincing] to come to the party,” said Da Silva. “But after that first meeting, we built confidence in the AMM program and a relationship with Linktech Australia. I have no regrets.”

Linktech Australia are a specialist Microsoft consultancy partner with deep Microsoft Azure skills. Although it executes projects for its end users, as an AMM-certified partner it keeps at arm’s length with ironclad guarantees, said Linktech Australia General Manager, Regina Melamed.

“Linktech Australia is an Advanced Specialisation Migration and Modernisation Partner for Microsoft; we've done a lot of these projects and we do them day in and day out,” Melamed said.

“We guide [partners] like Byron and help them look impressive and highly skilled to their customers. But we don't meet their customer at any point — unless they want us to.”

And while process and technology are essential elements in a successful cloud transformation engagement, Dicker Data’s Janicki said it’s the human factor that powered Falco’s outstanding success.

“I was on that initial kick-off [call] and what really showed was the professionalism of AMM partner Linktech Australia. They understood exactly what was going on; they have a lot of knowledge, and they introduced a dedicated project manager [providing] continual updates,” said Janicki.

“The people involved were a massive factor in Byron’s success.”

Da Silva said that, while AMM provided the hands, Falco had to be the face and voice the end-customer saw and heard.

“We don't want our customers involved with a third party; we take that all on board and project manage it. That was extremely important and valuable,” he said.

“What made this so easy was the communication from Linktech Australia. We always knew where everyone stood. It's just been an easy process.”

Fast and easy AMM onboarding heralds fresh opportunities

Forrester research found that teaming with Microsoft led to a three-year return on investment for US Azure partners of 155 per cent and a near doubling of projects completed (from 30 to 51). Revenues leaped from $US10.8 million to $US33.7 million on average in those partners sampled while they enjoyed an eight-fold lift in follow-on services through activities such as strategy and assessment sessions, and a leap to 45 per cent gross margin.

But finding cash and skills in-house inhibits many smaller Australian partners from levelling up to growth opportunities, forever locking them in low gear.

It was the funding from Microsoft’s Partner-Lead AMM that fuelled the relationship for Falco, providing rapid approval for the qualifying partner.

Linktech’s Melamed said AMM approval usually happened in less than 5 minutes with no further red tape. Linktech Australia wrapped its own protective guarantees around the engagement to reassure Falco there would be no channel conflict.

And of vital importance for many hamstrung partners, AMM was provided at no cost to them.

For instance, the first project undertaken within this partnership matrix between Falco and Linktech Australia and mediated by Dicker Data required up to four full-time staff over four to six weeks.

Dicker Data’s ‘AMMP Up Your Azure Practice’ launched in February has already led many partners through early onboarding to speed their Azure business. The process as followed:

1. Assessment – Partner nominated their end-customer to Dicker Data, who reflected it to Microsoft, which returned an ‘Azure Express’ report to plan the migration.

2. Migration and Modernisation – Partner nominated the end-customer to Dicker Data for migration funding, which engaged Linktech to complete the work.

3. Acceptance and ongoing management – Upon successful delivery, the originating partner provided ongoing service, support and billing of the end-customer.

“It is pleasing to hear partners say, ‘I’ve got new opportunities; I want to register more of these deals’,” said Dicker Data’s Janicki.

“It is so easy to move through this process, especially with the project management piece provided by Linktech, which was a massive stand-out for me. So that was the perfect outcome.”

Sky’s the limit for Falco as it shoots for business growth

Emboldened by initial success, Da Silva was keen to roll out the next 10 big projects that will translate to higher revenues in the next financial year. And he estimated Azure saved his customer $250,000 over forward budgets in hardware costs alone.

“Before, we wouldn’t turn down the smaller customers because they’re easy to do. But bigger customers of 100–200 users are extremely involved and complicated; we would put on the back-burner and not chase them,” said Da Silva.

But with Dicker Data’s AMM program powered by Linktech Australia in its corner, Falco can address “very larger, more valuable customers — and that could definitely give us that 25 per cent bump in revenue”, he said.

The increased cashflow also helps Da Silva expand the range of the fledgling Falco.

“And this experience has given me the ability to look at acquisitions that I otherwise wouldn't have considered because now I know I can serve those customers with the partnership of Dicker Data and the AMM program.”