With applications for the 2023 CRN Fast50 now open, we are looking back at some of the highest ranked Fast50 companies from last year's awards. Today, we profile Arinco.
2021’s fastest growing IT channel company Arinco continued its hot streak of revenue growth into 2022 by finishing in CRN Fast50’s top ten for the second year in a row.
Late last year, CRN spoke to Arinco co-founders and principal consultants Chris Padgett and David Lee, who spoke about what led to the company’s 151 percent increase in revenue in the 2021 to 2022 financial year to land it in fifth place in the CRN Fast50 2022.
They said that the Microsoft partner’s growth was largely spurred by the company’s introduction of a new managed services capability, as well as being able to bring in business and technical talent, despite the tight labour market.
“We began as a professional services business, but we’ve added a managed services capability to what we deliver to our clients, further attaching our managed services agreement to our professional services delivery, and vice versa,” Padgett said.
“We’ve also expanded our team around those two practices, and specifically building out our data and security experience and expertise.
Pushing "Co-Ops"
Lee said the move to managed services came after finding a gap in the market for Arinco's brand of “modern managed services”, Arinco Co-Ops, which uses DevOps, automation and expertise as the foundation.
“As you start adopting more cloud technologies, and moving towards being more cloud native, we believe the way that customers engage with their service partners needs to change,” Lee said.
“Since our inception, we’ve been talking about how to manage and operationalise all the work that we've been doing, and we saw time and time again that customers are really struggling to manage their environments efficiently," - David Lee, Arinco
“It’s all about that service for customers that need it, and that’s what we’re here for to help fill that gap they might have, and even in the way we deliver it needs to be focused on being efficient for cloud-native technologies.”
Padgett also credited Arinco’s “first-class” relationship with the company’s sole vendor partner Microsoft, and for investing in that partnership.
Cloud momentum
Arinco is a relatively new player in the Australian IT channel scene, founded by Padgett and Lee in 2019, along with Nicki Bowers and Brendan Carius. All four were all once part of pioneering cloud integrator Kloud.
The company initially focused on cloud technologies and the use of artificial intelligence to help customers improve their businesses, before expanding its capabilities. That expansion resulted in Arinco finishing first in the 2021 CRN Fast50 after only three years in business.
That momentum continued last year. “The demand has stayed strong in terms of organisations, particularly those that know that they need to digitally transform, need to optimise, or need to govern and secure their cloud-based platform,” Lee said late last year.
“Demand is strong and we’ve been able to build on top of our own foundations to make sure we have sustainable growth.”
The company also expanded its geographical presence, opening its New South Wales office at the start of 2021 and hiring talent based in Queensland and Perth.
“COVID-19 has kind of allowed us, or made us expand and extend into other cities around Australia, and that's been good in terms of continuing to bring in and build on that experience and expertise that is across Australia,” Padgett said late last year.
During the 2021 to 2022 financial year, healthcare clients were strong contributors for Arinco’s growth, particularly with an uptick around providing services like cloud, data and security.
Retail was also a big focus as customers ramped up their digitisation efforts, as well as government clients.
Looking ahead, the team said that they planned to stick with an “enable, modernise, innovate” model.
“We want to continue innovating and modernising,” Lee said. "It's more of the same, but we're also looking at what else we can do to help customers and our new core capabilities and initiatives. We've built a strong, great, solid business, and we really see the next evolution of layering more innovation on top of those foundations.”
Enter your IT business in the 2023 CRN Fast50 now. Applications close 5pm Friday 8th September 2023.
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