NWN Carousel Completes Integration, Debuts ‘Intelligent Office’ Solution

Following NWN’s acquisition of fellow solution provider powerhouse Carousel Industries in May, CEO Jim Sullivan tells CRN that ‘it’s a pretty significant amount of progress in four months—to have the companies come together, integrate and re-launch, and then have all these compelling offerings.’

NWN Carousel, the cloud communications solution provider powerhouse created through NWN Corp.’s acquisition of Carousel Industries in May, has completed the integration of the two companies in just four months and is already finding accelerated growth as a combined entity, CEO Jim Sullivan told CRN.

Waltham, Mass.-based NWN Carousel is bringing “the best of breed of both companies” to the market at a time of increased demand for cloud communications to meet hybrid work needs, Sullivan said.

[Related: NWN Carousel CEO Jim Sullivan On The ‘Huge Advantage’ Of Scaling Up In Cloud Communications]

Among the moves that NWN Carousel has made as a combined entity so far include launching a sixth solution area, Intelligent Offices and Visual Collaboration, as well as bringing aboard new vendor partners including Dell Technologies and doubling down on collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Teams.

The company’s six solution areas are now in Unified Communications; Contact Center; Security; Intelligent Offices and Visual Collaboration; Integrated Devices; and Advanced Technology Solutions.

The company is also rolling out the NWN-developed Experience Management Platform (EMP)—which provides advanced analytics, reporting and alerts about a customer’s environment—to customers that historically had worked with Carousel.

“The company is now integrated and combined, with these six offerings [now available]. And every offering has added more technology, and every offering is now combined and managed by the EMP,” Sullivan said in an interview with CRN. “So it’s a pretty significant amount of progress in four months—to have the companies come together, integrate and re-launch, and then have all these compelling offerings.”

The financial terms of the acquisition of Exeter, R.I.-based Carousel were not disclosed. Private equity firm New State Capital Partners, which has owned a majority stake in NWN since 2015, backed the acquisition.

Both companies had already ranked among the largest solution providers in North America, with Carousel on its own holding the No. 59 spot on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2021 and NWN ranking at No. 80 on the list.

As a combined entity, NWN Carousel has a $1 billion run rate for 2021 and more than 7,000 customers in North America, with 350 new customers added just since the acquisition, the company said.

Key vendor partners that historically worked with NWN include Cisco and HP Inc., while Carousel has brought strong partnerships with vendors including Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft.

NWN Carousel is leveraging Carousel’s strong Microsoft practice in solution areas including unified communications and contact center, Sullivan said. The focus there is on the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform, including Teams calling capabilities, he said.

“Microsoft now is a big part of the new combined offering,” Sullivan said.

For the Intelligent Offices and Visual Collaboration offering, Sullivan said, NWN Carousel is tapping into a “really successful practice” that Carousel has had for years in the area of next-generation collaboration technologies such as collaboration displays and other intelligent conference room devices

“Our teams really have embraced that right away,” he said.

For the Integrated Devices offering, NWN Carousel has decided to add Dell as a partner in order to offer a second device vendor option to customers, in addition to continuing the strong partnership with HP Inc., Sullivan said.

In terms of security, Cisco and Palo Alto Networks are two of the key vendors that NWN Carousel is working with, he said.

“For us, it’s security services and technologies around unified communications, contact center, network, the device endpoint. It’s not a standalone security practice. It’s really focused around those application areas, so that we can manage them end to end for the customer,” Sullivan said.

For the company’s Experience Management Platform, the rollout to customers that historically worked with Carousel will continue in the coming months. Meanwhile, the EMP has been updated with new functionality and capabilities, and now has the ability to manage more products and devices than in the past, according to Sullivan.

Ultimately, NWN Carousel has moved rapidly to come together in order to offer customers a wider number of best-of-breed technologies focused on enabling enhanced hybrid and remote work deployments, Sullivan said.

All in all, “I could not be more excited about how quickly we did this at a really high-quality level,” he said.