Converge Technology Solutions Corp. [TSXV:CTS]: The Alchemy of Enterprise IT Transformation

Rampant technological innovations in the areas of cloud, big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) tend to provide the impetus for enterprises to innovate their legacy business models and lead the market. However, to enjoy the fruits of innovation, businesses have their work cut out for them. Many companies have little expertise in leveraging container technologies in the cloud for robust IT performance. Moreover, they lack a clear roadmap to achieve high returns on their data analytics and cloud investments. Developers, in addition, are finding it difficult to build secure AI-based applications due to the lack of understanding of guidelines and policies, especially in regulatory-intensive industries such as healthcare and finance. Consequently, firms feel they are forced to choose between innovation and security. They want their IT to perform seamlessly across multiple environments (on-premise, virtualization, containers, and cloud), minus the operational complexities associated with such hybrid infrastructure.

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. [TSXV:CTS] can help firms sail through these troubled waters of hybrid cloud, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, and advanced analytics.

Having acquired 12 regional IT solution providers and value-added resellers (VARs) in just three years since its founding, 9 of which are IBM-centric, Converge has established itself as a provider of state-of-the-art hybrid IT solutions, leveraging IBM products, and providing private managed services ranging from infrastructure management to business process operations. “Our portfolio of solution providers has the necessary certifications and expert resources with hands-on experience that modern companies need to satiate their IT requirements,” says Greg Berard, president of Converge. In addition, the seasoned leadership team and client-focused work culture have helped them excel as the wellspring of ideas, innovation, and enablement. Unsurprisingly, Converge has been recognized as one of the most valuable IBM partners for hybrid cloud in North America.

“Our portfolio of solution providers has the necessary certifications and expert resources with hands-on experience that modern companies need to satiate their IT requirements”

At the core of Converge’s success is its ability to provide a foundational IT infrastructure that acts as the launchpad for companies to go full throttle with their holistic transformation initiatives. The company provides clients with IT resiliency and flexibility to choose the platform of choice to host their workload. Ultimately, clients can operate their business with greater efficiency and win more loyal customers.

Making the Most of Current Opportunities

Today, enterprise customers and cloud vendors alike are rallying behind sophisticated hybrid cloud environments managed through Linux, containers, and Kubernetes. Against this backdrop, IBM has hit the bullseye by acquiring Red Hat, a company that made open source technologies attractive and easily consumable for enterprise users. And the recent development of IBM Cloud Paks puts firms’ cloud and digital transformation journey in the fast lane. “As our practice areas perfectly align with IBM’s practice areas, the renewed robustness and flexibility in the IT giant’s solutions portfolio enhances our ability to serve clients far better than ever before,” says David Luftig, president, Northeast Region, Converge.

For Converge, IBM’s Red Hat move puts the spotlight on the three core offerings: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Red Hat Ansible, and Red Hat OpenShift. And the company has the right ammunition to deliver apt solutions to its growing clientele.

Converge can leverage RHEL to help clients migrate their workloads to the hybrid cloud environment before enabling them with containers.

The company guides clients on having their RHEL install base running on the platform of their choice, be it IBM Power Systems or other compute platforms, based on their requirements.

As our practice areas perfectly align with IBM’s practice areas, the renewed robustness and flexibility in the IT giant’s solutions portfolio enhances our ability to serve clients far better than ever before

While the cloud brings resiliency and modernization, containers have brought game-changing improvement to enterprise IT with their ability to improve the portability of workloads, making them adaptable to public and private cloud. In addition, open source-based Kubernetes simplifies container implementation through automation. With its expertise in open source and proprietary products, Converge is aptly positioned to help clients with these transformative activities. To make matters easy for its clients in running business operations, Converge leverages Ansible, an open source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool that allows enterprise users to manage both on-premise and cloud deployments in a hybrid environment. “Through numerous workshops and events across the country, we have demonstrated to our clients the business use case of automating workloads,” Berard adds.

In recognition of the investments made in areas including application development, delivery and integration services, Converge has been a Red Hat Apex Partner since the program’s inception.

As a Red Hat APEX partner, Converge works with OpenShift, which is emerging as the default choice for hybrid cloud. With OpenShift, enterprises can steer clear of issues such as lack of agile and DevOps expertise and leverage containers and Kubernetes to orchestrate microservices and drive automation across the application development and delivery lifecycle. Therefore, clients can save on resources and time spent on imaging, testing, and maintaining apps as the teams no longer need to release security patches frequently. “Especially for our clients using pure IBM solutions, we are offering them the ability to leverage OpenShift to run IBM technologies in a containerized format on any cloud platform,” says Berard.

Futuristic Applications Driven by Analytics and Security

Converge’s unique strategy of acquiring the top-performing companies in the IBM ecosystem has fetched great dividends in the area of advanced analytics as well. Its highly skilled teams made up of experienced technology and cybersecurity experts, business consultants, and industry thought leaders drive significant value. The teams have deep experience in building applications based on machine learning and AI. They follow an agile framework and industry best standards while remaining nimble to guide clients through digital transformation. Looking under the hood, Converge utilizes natural language processing, conversational user interfaces, voice interaction, image recognition, and text analytics to address real world business problems.

Over the last two years, Converge has worked closely with its clients, brainstorming with them to turn ideas into innovation, helping them move away from their traditional infrastructure and build modern platforms to stay one step ahead of the market competition.

During the interactions, Converge spends significant time understanding their business requirements and how they carry out operations. Organizations that follow manual and archaic ways of managing operations can benefit from able solutions delivered by a firm with a history of success, like the Converge family of companies. Converge helps modernize applications and workloads using AI and machine learning and deploys those solutions to the cloud. Additionally, the company aids clients in attaining insights internally for growing the business. “These solutions put our clients a cut above their competition in terms of business functionality and customer service provided to their customers,” says Luftig.

Filling the Gaps in Enterprise IT

Part of Converge’s strategy is to help companies chart a roadmap for the future and be competitive. Going by the current trends, digital enablement has become more than just a buzzword. And the latest COVID-19 outbreak has taken that ‘digital desire’ several notches up. The pandemic has put digital transformation programs on steroids in today’s ‘remote everything’ world. Most companies are scurrying to redefine their business strategies and accommodate new plans to allow employees to work from home and continue to serve their customers in an uninterrupted manner. Stepping up to the challenge, Converge has taken an approach of consolidation in a world marked with demand for simple integrations and configuration management with products from different vendors. Each industry has specific requirements and Converge is making sure their applications and environments are production-ready to support clients’ businesses. “As more people are working remotely, there will be challenges in network and data security. This has prompted many firms to approach us to fill the gaps from these IT performance and security perspectives,” says Luftig. The innovative IT solutions and services provider helps firms react to risk-based alerts and uncover hidden insights and take action from a central location for foolproof security.

The company also has managed services and virtual desktop offerings that clients can leverage to optimize their operations. They can either run their IBM Power Systems instances on Converge’s cloud or IBM’s cloud. Additionally, Converge can support IBM software on-premise or help them migrate to the cloud.

As IBM expands beyond hardware and looks to a software-driven strategy, Converge, through its managed services, stands rock-solid to help companies that have invested significantly in IBM’s traditional technology products. The firm has the resources and the know-how to support clients in the areas of enterprise system architecture, storage and information management, business continuity, and disaster recovery.

“Our technical depth and breadth have been recognized by vendors, like IBM, who come to us for our skills to help them deliver better customer engagement and help train their employees in specialty areas,” says Vanita Patel, vice president of IBM Sales, Converge. “This is because of our focus on honing the skills and the culture that our technical resources are emboldened with.” From the leadership perspective, the company is positioned firmly to support clients and vendors with its technical expertise, sales know-how, and engagement strategy.

Having made its presence felt across North America, Converge is focused on catering to the IT needs of a broader clientele through its portfolio of firms. “We aim to be our clients’ most trusted technology partner on their journey while enhancing our cloud capabilities,” concludes Berard.

Company
Converge Technology Solutions Corp. [TSXV:CTS]

Headquarters
Toronto, Canada

Management
Greg Berard, President and David Luftig, President, Northeast Region and Vanita Patel, Vice President of IBM Sales

Description
Converge Technology Solutions Corp. enables medium and large enterprises to achieve their business goals by helping them with the hybrid cloud, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, and advanced analytics. Having acquired 12 regional IT solution providers and value-added resellers (VARs) in just three years since its founding, 9 of which are IBM-centric, Converge has established itself as a provider of state-of-the-art hybrid IT solutions, leveraging IBM products, and providing private managed services ranging from infrastructure management to business process operations. At the core of Converge’s success is its ability to provide a foundational IT infrastructure that acts as the launchpad for companies to go full throttle with their holistic transformation initiatives.