Hybrid Work Services Boost Aqueduct Technologies To ‘Record Year’

‘The big trends that we’ve seen this year is customers are starting to swing the pendulum back in what their hybrid work strategy is,’ Aqueduct Technologies CEO Manak Ahluwalia tells CRN.

Fast-growing Aqueduct Technologies expects “another record year” in 2022 as businesses invest in creating a long-term hybrid work strategy, with Aqueduct Technologies moving its headquarters to showcase its collaboration technologies to customers in person.

“The big trends that we’ve seen this year is customers are starting to swing the pendulum back in what their hybrid work strategy is. I don’t think many are fully remote anymore,” Aqueduct Technologies CEO Manak Ahluwalia told CRN. “They’re solidifying on some type of a hybrid strategy, which requires an on-premises and cloud strategy. We’re starting to see a lot of investments pick up there. They’re realizing that they’re having major challenges with retention and hiring of resources. Then ultimately, where they want to put those resources.”

As a top Cisco partner in the Northeast that made CRN’s 2022 Managed Service Provider 500 list, the Waltham, Mass.-based networking collaboration specialist is driving sales this year via life-cycle services and solutions like Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

[Related: Gartner Top 10 Tech Trends For 2023: Metaverse, AI, Cloud]

With new vendor integrations with collaboration leaders Cisco, Zoom and Microsoft, Aqueduct is providing key solutions to businesses seeking to establish a new hybrid work strategy.

“How do you bring in business partners and how do you bring in that home employee into those type of environments? And how does it work seamlessly across different platforms? We’re seeing a lot of those requests pick up,” said Ahluwalia. “We’re going to be in a good position to highlight a lot of those use cases for our customers.”

New Headquarters And Collaboration Technology Showcases

Founded in 2011, Aqueduct Technologies is moving its headquarters to Canton, Mass., in early 2023 with plans to create technology showcase areas where customers and vendors can see on-site demos and the latest collaboration technologies.

Jack Kaiser, senior vice president of sales for Aqueduct Technologies, said the showcase rooms will help the company differentiate itself from its channel competition.

“Some partners and customers have divested real estate resources. That has given us now a forum to bring those parties into our office where we’ll be able to showcase our collaboration technologies,” said Kaiser.

Another sales driver this year for Aqueduct Technologies is providing life-cycle services for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

“Customers want to go cradle to grave on architecture and design, but then also on operational support and management. They sign three- to five-year contracts just so they know they’ve got that portion of their business all set,” said Ahluwalia. “That’s been a huge growth engine for us. … We’ll have another record year this year.”

High Hopes For Collaboration Services Sales In 2023

As companies start to bring more people back into the office, videoconferencing and collaboration technology is still being used all the time.

“Even people who come into the office are still using video even if they’re communicating with somebody down the hall,” said Kaiser. “There’s a lot of hops and there’s a lot of latency. So as they’re trying to get people back into the office, they need better technology because they want people to have a very good experience in the office just like they do at home.”

One big issue businesses are facing in 2023 is hiring good networking, security, collaboration and data center-type engineers, Kaiser said.

“As we’ve pivoted to more as-a-service and more recurring revenue, I think that makes us more necessary and more needed now,” he said.

In terms of vision for 2023 and beyond, Aqueduct Technologies’CEO said his company might look at a potential acquisition.

“We’re looking at inorganic growth now to drive some additional levels of competency or market penetration. So we were pretty bullish about the next couple of years,” said Ahluwalia.

“We continue to go upmarket, and our deal sizes are getting larger,” he said. “The more services we’re providing, the more important we are from a strategic partner perspective for those customers.”