CDI Bets Big On Salesforce, ServiceNow With Candoris Buy

‘I don’t know another solution provider that is both ServiceNow- and Salesforce-certified. And I don’t know if there are any. It’s pretty powerful to have a Salesforce and elite ServiceNow partner layered on two data center services business,’ says CDI President and CEO Rich Falcone.

IT solution provider Computer Design & Integration Tuesday said it has acquired fellow solution provider Candoris as a way to double down on customers’ increasing digital transformation requirements by bringing Salesforce and ServiceNow expertise into a single organization.

Computer Design & Integration, better known as CDI, has been building a next-generation solution provider with a digital transformation practice started four years ago, said Rich Falcone, president and CEO of the New York-based solution provider, No. 61 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500.

CDI is a ServiceNow and a Dell Titanium partner, while Candoris is an elite-level Salesforce and a Dell Titanium partner, Falcone told CRN.

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“I don’t know another solution provider that is both ServiceNow- and Salesforce-certified,” he said. “And I don’t know if there are any. It’s pretty powerful to have an elite Salesforce and elite ServiceNow partner layered on two data center services business.”

The acquisition also lets CDI scale its Dell Titanium business and adds advanced security offerings such as penetration testing and management to help customers avoid the impacts of ransomware, he said.

Candoris, which for the time being will likely be known as “Candoris, a CDI company” given CDI’s experience with prior acquisitions, is like CDI in that it has both a digital sales team and a data center sales team, Falcone said. Going forward, both companies’ teams will sell the entire CDI portfolio.

Stephan Van Der Ploog, president and chief accountability officer for Candoris, said his company has been focused on the 10-state area around Pennsylvania.

“But when it comes to the digital side of the business, we are in 42 states, all handled remotely,” Van Der Ploog told CRN.

Even so, the acquisition is centered around the corporate cultures of the two companies, Falcone said.

“This is not a geo-centric acquisition,” he said. “We’ll sell to someone on the moon.”

Falcone declined to disclose the value of the acquisition. “It was just the right price,” he said.

“Both parties came out grateful,” Van Der Ploog said.

For Candoris, the decision to get acquired was one of several options for the company, which has been growing fast since it was founded and was looking to move to the next stage in growth, Van Der Ploog said.

“With a 10-year company supporting 100 families, we could grow organically,” he said. “We were trying to do that, but that means a decision between profit and hiring. We could take on an investor. Or we could acquire or be acquired. But the first three options take time. By getting acquired, we get the same result overnight.”

For Candoris, the acquisition is important for its employees, Van Der Ploog said.

“The big issue is career path,” he said. “With CDI, the employees now have new opportunities.”

Neither CDI nor Candoris used outside advisers in determining the value of the acquisition.

“It was just Stephan and I and our teams,” he said. “In all five transactions we’ve done, we did not have a single adviser. Obviously, there were lawyers on both sides.”

As a leader of a company, Van Der Ploog said he was constantly evaluating the market not just from a dollar value but in terms of the trends.

“With advisers, acquisition conversations take longer,” he said. “We realize that, if things go well, we’ll both be sitting on the same side of the table. Company culture is important, and it’s easier to address if we talk one to one.”

Falcone said he is not looking to acquire multiple companies just to grow.

“That’s a fool’s errand,” he said. “I am looking for additive value to customers where it makes sense. But I don’t wake up in the morning and think this is what I need to do.”

The roots of the acquisition started on a conference call, Falcone said.

“I was on a conference call with Stephan,” he said. “He sounded like an intelligent guy. And like a 23-year-old sales rep, I just got on a cold call and talked with him.”

For CDI, Candoris is its fifth acquisition.

The company in February acquired Kintyre Solutions, a systems integrator with practices focused on cloud-native application development, observability and investigation platforms, cloud optimization and various security engineering technologies.

CDI in January acquired High Availability as a way to help scale both companies’ IT capabilities.

The company in September 2020 acquired P5 Solutions to give it a major expansion in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia areas.

CDI in July 2020 also acquired Plan B Technologies for its virtualization expertise.

Despite all the acquisitions, CDI has had a good track record in keeping employees, Falcone said.

“We’ve had less than 1 percent unplanned attrition,” he said. “That’s four people out of 467 people. We don’t want to lose anyone, but I’m proud of our record.”