In the United States, MSPs are almost as busy buying each other as they are building new services.
Now our friends north of the border are getting into the action. Just this week TUC (not to be confused with tuke), picked up the assets that comprise Millennium Care, a service desk firm.
TUC claims to be the biggest MSP in Canada, and is now a tad larger having just added an around the clock service center handling in excess of 30,000 end users, thanks to Millennium.
And the headcount has hit the 150-plus market, as well.
Like TUC, Millennium targeted mid-range companies, and since it served the Canadian market, its service desk was multi-lingual.
TUC sees the deal as changing the fundamental nature of the company. “We look at this new ability as a transformational acquisition, one that enables us to deliver service desk and managed services to companies from 10 to 10,000 employees—I call it our Salesforce moment! This is a strategic move fusing the automation and proactivity of managed services with the ‘always on’ responsiveness, scale and process of an enterprise service desk, resulting in the most comprehensive service of any MSP in North America,” said Mark Scott, President and CEO of TUC. “As with each newly acquired entity, our number one goal is to raise the service level bar for customers by making our service more proactive, automated, responsive and personalized—24x7. Last, but definitely not least, we are extremely excited about our expansion plans for our PEI operations.”
Like many aggressive American MSPs, TUC has already been growing by buying up others. For instance, TUC bought Nitro IT business solutions, an Ottawa-based MSP, as well as Protek and TechSupport.ca, two more MSPS.
One thing Millennium brings to the table are relationships with Tier 1 outsourcers, partnerships TUC can now exploit. “The acquisition enables TUC to greatly expand its service catalogue to mid-enterprise customers and long-standing channel partners with Tier 1 Outsourcing companies across North America,” added Ravi Subramanian, President and CEO of Millennium Care. “The combination of TUC and Millennium Care provides customers with the power of both global and local. Additionally, Millennium Care brings with it the in-depth knowledge of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)—the international standard that very few MSPs have attained.”
Lukewarm Canadian IT Market
After the brutal economic conditions we are all still surviving, any growth is good. So Canadian IT firms we guess should be happy with the TechNavio prediction that the Canadian IT market will grow at 3.4% CAGR through 2015. “One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the government's support for IT initiatives. The IT market in Canada has also witnessed a rise in mergers and acquisitions. However, the shortage of talent and skills could pose a challenge to the growth of this market,” TechNavio found.
Edited by
Ryan Sartor
