Solution Provider OnX Hires Services Guru As CEO To Turbocharge Data Center Transformation

A longtime technology executive who helped Unisys, Xerox and CSC transform from legacy product to services-focused companies will attempt the same feat at OnX Enterprise Solutions.

The Thornhill, Ontario-based company -- No. 46 on the CRN Solution Provider 500 -- announced Tuesday that 22-year IT industry veteran Tom Signorello will serve as its new CEO, effective immediately. Signorello was most recent senior vice president and managing director, North America, for Diebold, a legacy ATM manufacturer and installer looking to push into managed services.

Signorello told CRN that he looks to aggressively grow OnX's services capability around cloud, security and the data center by strengthening the structure, governance and ease of doing business with OnX's services organization.

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Complete services account for 33 to 40 percent of OnX's total business today, and Signorello expects to grow that practice "exponentially" by pushing into the data center.

"We [already] have some clients our competitors would die for, and I bring a lot of contacts into OnX from my 20 years of experience in the outsourcing space," Signorello told CRN, noting his deep knowledge and expertise in the infrastructure and application services spaces.

Specifically, Signorello said OnX has a lot to gain from attacking the $100 billion North American data center outsourcing and managed services market. Signorello said he's looking to expand OnX's vendor partnership in the data center and system integration space to take the company to the next level.

Signorello plans to take the next three to four months fine-tuning the structure of OnX's services businesses to gear it up for growth; examining the company's systems, pricing, processing, technology and sales culture to optimize enablement; and focusing the company's finite resources, investment and capital on the markets and technologies where OnX's more than 600 employees can make the biggest impact.

"We cannot be everything to everyone," Signorello said.

Signorello started Monday. He replaced Michael Cox, who retired at the end of April after serving as CEO for three years. Dave Hansen, OnX's chairman of the board, served as interim CEO while the board looked for Cox's permanent replacement.

From a structural standpoint, Signorello said legacy product companies need to pivot from leveraging longstanding relationships to provide insight and solutions that would be valuable to clients. Product companies are most bureaucratic and tend to direct sales from headquarters, Signorello said, while services companies need to put a lot more responsibility on the backs of their field-based sales forces.

From an enablement standpoint, services-driven companies need to ensure their customer relationship management (CRM), internal asset and logistics systems are scalable and leveragable, Signorello said. And from a focus standpoint, Signorello said OnX can't waste resources chasing many deals across the outsourcing spectrum, and should instead stay true to its data center enterprise roots.

And with ease of business driving 60 percent of services-based buying decisions, Signorello said OnX needs to make structural tweaks to go to market more quickly.

OnX is well-positioned from a profitability standpoint, and therefore doesn't have any plans for workforce reductions. Signorello also said he's happy with OnX's existing leadership team, and doesn't have any open executive-level positions to fill.

OnX's North American business is pretty evenly split between the United States and Canada, Signorello said. The privately-held company's Canadian arm enjoyed 19 percent year-over-year sales growth for the fiscal year ending April 30, thanks to adding new clients and tailoring its delivery of technology solutions, according to a press release.

During Signorello's 2011-to-2014 tenure at Unisys, he oversaw the company's application services, global managed services and North American practices. He was also at Unisys from 2008 to 2010, overseeing enterprise outsourcing solutions for accounts in the East region.

Signorello led Xerox's $710 million global government managed services practice in 2010 and 2011. And from 1994 to 2008, he led CSC's global outsourcing group and aerospace and defense groups, rising to the rank of vice president and general manager.

He believes those roles helped prepare him for his new job.