Coaching for systems integrator founders
Built for the SI founder competing with the global consultancies.
You deliver the same SAP, Microsoft, ServiceNow or data programs as the firms with ten thousand consultants, often better, usually for less. And you still lose on logo, lose on price, and lose your best people to them. Loading Growth coaches founders of systems integration firms from 1 to 200 staff on how to win anyway.
The SI problem is not capability. It is economics and visibility.
A global SI can lose money on your account for two years to win the enterprise relationship. You cannot. So you have to win differently.
Mid sized systems integrators share a pattern. Revenue comes through one or two vendor relationships. Utilisation swings with the program calendar. Subcontractors fill the gaps at day rates that eat the margin. The founder is the rainmaker, the escalation point and the delivery assurance in one person. And the market, outside the clients who already know the firm, cannot tell it apart from twenty others on the partner directory.
None of that is fixed by working harder or hiring one more salesperson. It is fixed by working the Nine Keys in the right order: the EBIT Dial first, so the firm funds its own growth; then Growing IP and Growing Market, so the firm is the obvious choice in one niche; then Growing Leaders, so the founder can step out of the sandpit.
The levers that matter most for an SI
Contractor day cost below half the charge out rate
Subcontractors are an SI reality. They are also where margin disappears. A hard rule on day cost against charge out, and a bench plan that converts the repeat contractors, usually lifts gross margin five points on its own.
Client and channel concentration below 30 percent
One client, or one vendor channel, above 30 percent of revenue is a risk a buyer prices down hard. The Loading Services levers add a direct pipeline beside the partner one: a Top 100 account list, a network map of twenty warm contacts, a weekly rhythm that does not stop when delivery is busy.
Productised accelerators on top of the platform
The SIs that command premium rates own something the vendor does not ship: an industry template, a migration accelerator, a managed service around the platform. Growing IP is how you find yours in five years of engagement history and package it.
A value proposition with a number in it
Not "SAP implementation partner" but "we cut month end close from twelve days to three for mid market manufacturers". The number is drawn from real delivery, and it is what a CIO repeats to the board.
A leadership layer that owns delivery
When the founder is the escalation point on every program, the firm is capped at the founder’s hours and the global SI knows it. Written roles, guardrails and a delivery leader who can make the call turn a founder dependent SI into a sellable one.
Rates raised in the last eighteen months
SI rate cards drift for years because the vendor sets the tone and the founder fears the conversation. A published card by grade, a written rationale and a discount ceiling recover more EBIT than any new service line.
Where AI fits for a systems integrator
AI does not replace your consultants. It changes what a ten person SI can credibly deliver, and it rewards the firms whose IP is written down.
Every vendor you partner with is shipping AI into the platform. The question for an SI founder is not whether to have an AI offer but whether the firm’s own method is organised enough to be accelerated. Firms with a productised playbook, a versioned IP library and clear delivery roles are turning AI into margin and new fixed price offers. Firms where the method lives in senior heads are watching the global SIs do it first. Growing IP comes before the AI conversation for a reason.
SI founders who have done the work
His insights on positioning and value driven sales messaging have been crucial in closing bigger deals, faster, and at improved margins.
His guidance and support have been instrumental in the development and implementation of key strategies that have significantly improved our company’s performance.
Ian helped two technical founders think like owners.
Questions SI founders ask
- Do you understand the vendor ecosystems we work in?
- Yes. Ian spent 28 years in IT professional services, much of it inside the SAP ecosystem, and has coached SI founders working with SAP, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Oracle and Workday. The partner dynamics, co sell motions and certification economics are familiar ground.
- We are a 25 person SI competing with Accenture and Deloitte for the same programs. Is that realistic?
- It is realistic in a defined niche and unrealistic across the board. The firms that win against the global SIs choose one industry or one problem, productise their delivery so the client buys a proven outcome, and become visibly the specialist. Everest is built around making that choice and executing it.
- Most of our pipeline comes through the vendor. Is that a problem?
- It is a concentration risk, the same as one client being 40 percent of revenue. The fix is not to abandon the partner channel but to add a direct motion: your own Top 100 accounts, your own thought leadership and your own referral map, so the vendor becomes one source of three.
- How do you handle fixed price and outcome based work?
- As a Growing IP and Loading Rates question. Fixed price work is profitable when the scope is a productised offer with a playbook behind it, and a margin leak when every engagement is scoped from scratch. We work on which of your engagements qualify, how to price them, and the guardrails for the rest.
- Our seniors are brilliant technically and hopeless commercially. Can that change?
- In most cases, yes, once the firm gives them written roles, a career framework, visibility of the numbers and guardrails for decisions. The Role Reset Framework and the Growing A Team levers exist for exactly this transition from technical lead to owner mindset.
Find out which Key the global SIs are beating you on.
Six minutes on the scorecard, then a 45 minute conversation with someone who has sat on your side of the table.