Sirius Acquires Champion Solutions Group, Doubling Its Microsoft Business

Champion Solutions Group CEO Chris Pyle will become president of the MessageOps business and its flagship product, Inscape, within Sirius. Inscape is a cloud monitoring and management tool built for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure customers that now boasts more than 1 million users.

Sirius Computer Solutions has acquired Champion Solutions Group in a deal that brings its surging MessageOps practice to one of the largest solution providers in the country.

Sirius President and CEO Joe Mertens told CRN that the deal for Boca Raton, Fla.-based Champion Solutions Group, which closed Nov. 30, also expands Sirius’ reach into Florida and the Southeast. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Champion Solutions Group’s MessageOps unit and its cloud management tools will be key to Sirius’ plans to grow recurring revenue, Mertens said.

“The reality is it will roughly double our overall Microsoft solutions practice,” he said. “That’s an important part of the whole revenue stream and has become an important part of our overall revenue stream. So we will continue to focus on growing services, and recurring revenue is important for us.”

Champion Solutions Group CEO Chris Pyle will become president of the MessageOps business and its flagship product, Inscape, within Sirius. Inscape is a cloud monitoring and management tool built for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure customers that now boasts more than 1 million users. Solution providers use Inscape to better manage their Microsoft 365 customers, Pyle said.

“Getting that monthly recurring revenue is something that everybody wants,” Pyle told CRN. “Getting deeper into the Microsoft cloud is important, but overall I also believe that the unique intellectual property that we have built, Inscape, is a differentiator and it makes us more sticky with our clients and the partners who we work with.”

The move also gives Champion Solutions Group as a company and its employees more opportunities and a broader career path, Pyle said.

San Antonio-based Sirius was founded in 1980 and has more than 2,600 employees with 5,500 certifications in offices across the U.S. Sirius is No. 21 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500 list behind Xerox spinoff Conduent. The acquisition of Champion Solutions Group, No. 188 on the Solution Provider 500, did not change its ranking.

“I think there were several reasons why this marriage makes sense,” Pyle said. “One, it was a great cultural fit for our organization. It gave our people an opportunity to grow their careers. I feel like it put us in a better competitive position. Having over 600 manufacturers that we can sell and represent to our customer base is a massive opportunity for our clients and our employees. With such a large organization, the ability for our employees to have upward mobility and advance their careers is there if they want to.”

For Pyle, it marks the end of 32 years as the CEO ofChampion Solutions Group and the beginning of a new chapter with Sirius.

“We‘re really excited about the broad breadth of services and solutions and the deep technical bench that they have,” he said. “And then at the same time, the value that they’re putting on our people, that is just amazing, truly. It’s a really good thing, so I’m very excited about it.”

This is Sirius’ ninth acquisition since 2014. Its previous acquisitions include Brightlight Consulting; Avnet’s digital solution services, Varrow; Force 3; thinkASG, Continuum Security Solutions; Forsythe; and Advanced Systems Group.