Emtec: Culture, Acquisitions, and Co-innovation as the Upstream Future for Midmarket Firms
Munir Mandviwalla, Larry Dignan, Laurel Miller, Bertrand Guillotin
Abstract
In 2022, Emtec Inc., an information technology and digital services firm located in Florida, was at a critical juncture. The company had seen immense success as a hardware reseller and managed services provider to government agencies and midmarket companies in the US. But Dinesh Desai, the founder and former chief executive officer, was concerned about decreasing profit margins and intensifying competition in the current reseller and managed services business. Low barriers to entry were adding new entrants and competition on pricing as well as affecting the ability to acquire and keep talent. Furthermore, the pace of technological change influencing newer offerings such as cloud and custom development was creating significant uncertainty. For Desai, the question came down to the following: Stay the course and build upon established services or pivot to a different mix of offerings? The pressure to chart a new path was very important, given the uncertainty about the future and the cutthroat price-based competition in the market.