ManTech International
The trouble with successful companies is that they keep outgrowing their internal systems. ManTech International Corp., for example, is one of the U.S. government's leading providers of innovative technologies and solutions for mission-critical national security programs supporting the Intelligence Community; the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Justice, the Space Community and other U.S. federal government customers. With revenues of approximately $1 billion and 6,000 employees, the company operates in the United States and 41 countries worldwide. ManTech was recently named to Red Herring magazine's TOP 100 Small Cap Tech Company list for its "innovative technology and smart business models.""Our company was growing tremendously," says ManTech IT Director Ash Mehta. "In recent years we've acquired and integrated six companies, and organic growth has been significant. To accommodate this growth we kept making incremental upgrades to our internal systems, putting in more CPUs, adding disk storage, and increasing memory. An expanding worldwide operation was increasing demand for higher availability, just as maintenance requirements were increasing."
A total solution
It was time for an upgrade, but, as appropriate in a company that prides itself on its engineering prowess, ManTech wanted to proceed methodically and with due diligence. Mehta wanted a total solution, not a sales pitch.
For help putting together the research that would reveal the best technology for his needs, Mehta turned to Logicalis Director of Business Development, Mid-Atlantic, Al Lepeau. Mehta knew from previous experience that Logicalis is committed to its customers and would help him find the best technology regardless of vendor. It also helped that Lepeau and his technologist partner Joe Long understood ManTech's needs and were familiar with its market.
"One of the very solid things Logicalis provided us was pre-sales support," Mehta says. "I was impressed with the technical ability of Joe Long, who worked with my tech staff to come up with a good solution. We knew the technical approach we wanted to take, but since there were several elements of the architecture under consideration, we were facing a considerable investment in time to do the research. Logicalis did the research for us and came back to us with the best solutions. That was a very big plus for us. We didn't have to go outside to research products. They were able to bring product options to us."
Once ManTech and Logicalis decided on Unix servers from Hewlett Packard, Lepeau used his skills as a number cruncher–he has a BA in accounting and an MBA in finance–to draft a package that allowed Mehta to meet his budget goals.
Pleasant surprise
"I was very pleasantly surprised," Mehta recalls. Not only did the cost of the upgrade fit his budget, but, he adds, "We increased our capacity for development three fold, and increased server performance by more than 50 percent. The old system used to have to be down to perform maintenance tasks. The new system is never down. For the last four months we have achieved 100 percent availability." Mehta adds, "My staff's stress level has also been reduced significantly."
Creating a financial package that gives his customers a "pleasant surprise" is business as usual for Logicalis' Lepeau. "I don't have a single customer who is not looking to get good value out of their IT investment," he says. "If the customer wins, we win."
Mehta would agree. "Working with Logicalis makes us feel very comfortable," he says. "I hear from my senior engineer all the time that he can pick up the phone and call them and they don't mind spending the time, whether we are purchasing something right then or not. They are a trusted advisor we can call whenever we need to."
