Creating an IT budget early in the and construction process enables the Stakeholders to establish rough orders of magnitude on how much everything will cost. These costs are based on initial perceived guiding principles, decisions, and assumptions. When developing a budget, Netrix first has conversations with key Stakeholders to discover and understand your business, the technology leveraged within the workflow on a daily basis, adopted business recovery options, and future plans for the business. These discussions are less focused on business goals and more on what needs to change in order to better support the business operation while confirming the evolving guiding principles.
Certain themes have been observed to be common across relocations and new office build outs: the desire to attract new, often younger, talent, as one of a multi-prong growth tactic to support an organization’s growth strategy. For example, when a company has a large group of employees that are expected to be retiring in the next five to ten years, they find themselves needing to attract new talent. This younger demographic has grown up with technology, such as mobile devices like the iPhone®, firmly establishing expectations that technology should be easy to use, video conferencing is as easy as FaceTime®, and messaging each other is the initial default mode of communication rather than a call or face-to-face communication. This level of experience, as a result of the amazing advent of consumer level technology, is expected to be upheld in the office environment. As a result, the opportunity is upon the Stakeholders to consider how the organization will enable technology consumption within the new workplace. These discussions are distilled further to formulate what the technology design intent needs to be. Budgeting early enables Stakeholders to consider and debate over technology concepts, which help develop the initial guiding principles affecting the project, from the technology perspective.
The Gap Between Construction and Technology
Construction and architecture firms have long used a method of “Design with Intent” concept, which is constrained by the way projects are bid out. This concept uses a set(s) of drawings with written specifications and narratives that define the performance criteria of the solutions. The set of drawings substantiate construction specifics like locations, elevations, coordinated alignment of products, approved product sets, etc. The constraint is specific to the construction bidding process that enables multiple bidders to submit several solutions that do not have full responsibility for the success of the project, as a whole. While this long-standing method does have minimal impact with physical placement of devices such as bricks, glass, and wood – having multiple disparate systems by different installation contractors do not work well with technology. Integration of technology requires compatibility to integrate and it is highly common now to have fire systems to talk with the building automation system, an audiovisual system to interact with environmental lighting, sound masking, and electro-mechanical shading systems. The commonality with these systems is the converged network that supports this integration. As a result, the usual bidding method doesn’t permit truly getting the “right” solution, because you’re going to get a solution that works based on the performance specification, however, the specification is only as good as the person who wrote it. The usual bid specification never gets into the interaction between the various systems, and technology is so interdependent that you cannot say “I’m going to buy a Mercedes engine, and put it into a Chevy Volt,” for example. You can try to make it work, but it just doesn’t. We have seen multiple times, Stakeholders going way over budget just trying to make disparate systems integrate together. Teaming up with Netrix from the beginning of the design process prevents an organization from having to just accept a bid with generic specifications written by design firms. Such firms lack multiple manufacturer solution installations and managed services expertise, which Netrix has. In this case, Stakeholders can be assured that if integration is needed, all IT elements will be able to talk to each other, as designed.
Technical specifications have to be very specific, explicit to the products and parts that are used, and they have to be vetted and tested through some form of proof of concept or by the installed experience of the designer. Firms that do generic specifications, unfortunately, do not do installation work. Without knowing the installation side, they are going to assume that because the manufacturer says so – that it will work. What isn’t always considered are the incompatibilities that arise with different types of technology integration. Since Netrix is involved with the installation side, these incompatibilities are considered and accurately incorporated into the budget. We understand what level of integration is needed and the provided coverage needed in order to support the business function. Our process, using the guiding principles as the basis of the project, successfully incorporates system-specific requirements to define directions and assumptions, that permit us to develop detailed and accurate IT budgets at each stage of the project.
Who Owns IT Budgeting?
IT budgets come in a few forms. Capital, refresh, and business-as-usual may be owned by the CFO, CIO, and CFO, respectively, or in some combination thereof. It has been observed when the CFO owns the IT budget; the lack of tech-savviness requires the assignment of a technology lead to join the Stakeholders. This lead becomes a primary counterpart to the Netrix Lead IT Architect or Senior Principal Consultant. Netrix’s proposed options would funnel through the technology lead who in turn would provide recommendations to the organization’s project steering committee for decision-making and budget approvals, as defined within the organization’s hierarchy governance model. All decisions are recommended be documented in an Architect’s Log throughout the journey, maintained by Stakeholders. This is important because when changes are logged, Stakeholders may audit previous decisions as needed, should the approved guiding principles become challenged. It is important that decisions are made with the mindset and goals for the future, while under the constraints of where a project is at today.
We have seen how IT budgeting early in a real estate engagement has enabled our Clients the opportunity to leverage changes and the ability to establish technology roadmaps that affect two to three years beyond the real estate event. Netrix starts this process early in order to assist our Clients in obtaining an idea of where and how much the costs of a project are going to be. Should additional parties be added to the mix of consultants, as an example, such as a branding team, we are able to adjust the budget accordingly based on additional design ideas beyond those already defined, as an example those associated with collaboration spaces. It is important to include a technology expert such as Netrix, to lead the IT integration side of your office planning and budgeting. Contact us today to learn more about how we can assist with your next relocation or build out IT budget.
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Ashish has been part of the organization since 2000, starting with Structure Technologies which merged with Netrix in 2012. During the 20+ years, Ashish has worked in various areas of the organization, from Engineering, Project Management, Sales Engineering, and Technical Architect and Team Management to Product Management and Product Development. Ashish has expertise in Unified Communications and Contact Center and started the development of TetraVX Products at Netrix. As a Technical Fellow,
Ashish brings deep technical expertise, an understanding of business operations, and a customer perspective to help Netrix implement new systems, products, and services. Currently, Ashish leads the Product Development organization to develop secure, scalable and easy-to-use products.
Ashish has a Computer Science degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has Product Manager, Product Leader, and Product Executive certificates from The Product School.
Ashish lives in the Dallas, TX area with his wife and two children. He and his family enjoy vacations involving nature, learning about different cultures, watching movies, and going to the Dallas Mavs games.
Don is the SVP, Global Professional Services (Delivery) at Netrix Global. He has more than 20 years of experience building, managing, and growing professional and managed services businesses.
Don joined Netrix Global in 2013 as a Partner, driving significant growth in the Microsoft Alliance nationally and professional services delivery business. In 2020, Don led the M&A growth strategy and execution, which included the acquisition of five businesses and one divesture. In 2022, Don was asked by the board to take a leadership position over the global professional services business and lead growth, transformation and development of the teams and services while completing the integrations and value delivery of all acquired companies into one global organization.
Don’s earlier career included working as a technical consultant with specializations in infrastructure, collaboration, and messaging platforms. In 2001, Don joined Project Leadership Associates as a consultant and over twelve years focused on growing the Microsoft Strategic Alliance and professional services organization. While growing and leading in his various roles at Netrix, Don returned to school as an avid continuous learner to complete his bachelor’s degree in data Analytics in 2018 from Rasmussen University.
Creativity and focused action drive results.
Sarah has over 25 years of experience in marketing and strategy consulting, primarily in the B2B SaaS data protection and cybersecurity domains. Her experience ranges from working with companies as small as 4 employees to large enterprises. She specializes in building and scaling marketing and channel teams for growth and integrating acquired companies for rapid impact.
Prior to Netrix, Sarah derived success from her expertise with multichannel go-to-market strategies across complex global markets for companies including Sungard Availability Services, RSA, FireMon, and Dell EMC. Through leadership roles in product marketing, channel marketing, demand generation, market intelligence, and strategic communications, Sarah has honed a multidisciplinary marketing approach that enables her to consistently exceed KPI objectives and growth targets.
Sarah has also established an industry-focused perspective through consulting work in the areas of healthcare tech, database services, and career assessment tools. Sarah holds a Master of Science in Marketing with a concentration in Market Analytics, an MBA, and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Bentley University. She is an ICCS® certified career consultant, guest lecturer, and certified personal trainer.
Take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers.
Jay brings more than 25 years of client-facing consulting experience to Netrix. Jay started in information technology with two manufacturing companies before moving into consulting in 1997. Jay began consulting as a delivery engineer covering all aspects of integration and design around desktop operating systems starting with Windows 95 to Windows 10. Jay also focuses on working with law firms to help them with their digital transformation.
Jay joined Netrix in 2015 to start the End User Compute practice as Windows 10 was about to be released. Within two years of starting that practice, Netrix became Microsoft’s Windows 10 Partner of the Year. Jay now has moved from engineering to a sales leadership role overseeing all aspects of the Microsoft relationship. Jay holds a Bachelor of Computer Information Systems Degree from Devry University. He is happy to be a proud parent of a young son and has married his wife, Manali, for over 20 years. Jay and his family like to travel, cook, and watch basketball and movies.
The best way to attract top talent is to learn how to retain top talent.
Michael has over 20 years of experience in talent acquisition working with both start-up companies and Fortune 500 corporations. Throughout his career, Michael has demonstrated a strong commitment to finding and attracting top talent and has a proven track record of delivering outstanding results in a variety of roles and industries.
Michael started his career in Talent Acquisition as a headhunter with an external recruiting agency. He brought those skills to the corporate side working with IBM, HP/HPE, Nutanix and OVH US. He is known for his ability to create and maintain strong relationships with hiring managers, HR teams, and other key stakeholders, and is committed to delivering a seamless and positive candidate experience.
Michael has a B.S. in Finance and Business Administration from the University of South Florida. He is a devoted Washington Capitals’ fan. He loves entertaining guests on his patio with his craft cocktails, wine, charcuterie, and cheese boards.
Jim joins Netrix Global with over 20 years of experience in B2B technology marketing. Jim’s success in delivering revenue growth and measurable outcomes through strategic development, customer journey orchestration, brand management, and revenue marketing is credited to his fervor for ensuring both his customers and his team’s success.
Before joining Netrix, Jim held various marketing and strategy positions at start-ups and global 500 companies, most recently leading marketing and strategy initiatives at Entrust and Thales. He is a strong advocate of using cybersecurity and cloud computing technologies to create a competitive edge and enhance business outcomes. His goal is to help clients maximize the benefits of these technologies. Jim is often invited to speak at industry events where he shares his expertise and insights.
Jim has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California.
Vladimir Gotsev has over 25 years of experience in Information Technology, serving in various roles since joining the team in 2005. As a leader he championed several professional services practices throughout the years. He led the managed services practice and security practice from the ground up and launched many service offerings and partnerships at Netrix.
Vlad led the transition to the Netrix Professional Services practice in 2021. Throughout his career Vlad’s passion and focus has been to help customers define and execute their digital transformation strategy while maximizing business value.
Vlad currently leads the professional services delivery organization focusing on Security, Cloud, Applications, Data and AI/ML, Collaboration, and everything in between.
Vlad holds a Masters’s degree in telecommunications and holds several expert-level IT certifications. He is a proud father of two boys. In his spare time, he is enthusiastic about traveling the world.
Grow people to grow revenue, not the other way around.
Joshua Hoffman joins Netrix as Chief Revenue Officer, where he is focused on growth, sales, partner channels and customer experience in order to further extend Netrix Global as a trusted technical partner. Josh brings a wealth of global experiences from various revenue-focused executive leadership positions at companies that include Dell, Avaya, Palo Alto Networks, Poly, and Datto. Josh has been widely recognized for delivering exceptional growth in results, company culture and professional development.
Josh holds a BBA magna cum laude from St. Edward’s University and has participated as a mentor and program leader in the MBA program at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. He has had multiple engagements with the state and federal government, as well as charitable organizations, as a presenter and influencer for key legislative initiatives and has served with distinction as a volunteer First Responder across the state of Texas.
Work hard, play hard, enjoy the journey.
Russ’ 28 year background in technology spans from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 giants such as Oracle. He has a wealth of experience leading teams, delivering value to shareholders, driving technological advancement, and scaling organizations—and he has been invited to speak on these topics by major news media outlets and at leading industry conferences.
Prior to being appointed CEO at Netrix Global, Russ was a member of the company’s Board of Directors in conjunction with a successful run as CEO of Infrascale, a cloud-based data protection, backup, and disaster recovery solution provider. Russ served as President and CEO of the U.S. business of OVHcloud, a cloud computing company based in France, where he oversaw the acquisition and integration of vCloud Air from VMware in 2017. Before OVHcloud, Russ was a member of the Executive Leadership Team at GoDaddy, following the company’s 2013 acquisition of Media Temple , where he had served as President and COO. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Science Center of Northern Virginia and the Advisory Board at Virtru.
Russ graduated with a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from James Madison University, where he remains an active alumnus and Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Madison Center for Civic Engagement.
Embrace change, new ideas, and reward performance.
Dean Gels brings over 20 years of corporate finance and leadership experience as CFO to Netrix Global. He joins the team from his most recent role as CFO for LRN. His work history extends to several high-growth tech companies, including MSA Security, OVHcloud, Borderfree, and RBC Capital Markets.
Earlier in his career, Dean was the VP of Corporate Development at Borderfree (NASDAQ: BRDR) managing the sale of the business to Pitney Bowes for $489 million. Prior to that, he was a Technology Investment Banker at RBC Capital Markets completed more than 40 deals, amounting to $17 billion in aggregate transaction value.
Dean proudly served as an infantry officer in the United States Army in the Pacific theater during his 5-year commitment. Dean holds an MBA from Boston University and a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Lindsay Haun has over 18 years of proven achievements providing big picture leadership and strategic planning and innovation in customer support and operations within global, customer-focused technology organizations. As a support focused professional with hands-on experience, she brings strong leadership and business process improvements.
Prior to joining Netrix, Lindsay was a key player, holding various roles, at technical companies including MySpace, Media Temple, Uber, OVHCloud US, and Infrascale. Lindsay specializes in, and has had proven success with, improving the experience for customers and those that work directly with customers. At Netrix, Lindsay is responsible for spearheading support operations within our MSP organization to ensure our processes are streamlined, customer-centric, and scalable.
Lindsay is a proud Mom to a spirited toddler, a pop culture trivia enthusiast, and a self-described Star Wars nerd.
Greg Price is an executive with 25 years of experience serving the healthcare and information technology spaces. He has in-depth expertise in Executive Leadership, IT strategy, solution assessment, enterprise integration, application development, business intelligence, revenue cycle management, and electronic medical records in behavioral health, pain management and addiction settings. Greg has extensive knowledge in US and International business operations, with a specific focus on the India and the Philippines markets. In these specific regions, he has managed entities from inception to operations with more than 200 people.
Prior to leading the Healthcare Practice at Netrix, Greg was the CEO of Price Consulting, Inc., the creator of the Substance Abuse and Medication Management System (SAMMS). SAMMS is an EMR for behavioral health, pain management and addiction clinics. SAMMS is in use in 250+ clinics in 37 states and serves over 60,000 patients each day. SAMMS clients include clinics, hospitals, county health departments, correctional facilities, large clinic groups, and both state and federal government agencies.
Eric has over 20 years of experience in IT operations and managed support industry. He provides operational leadership over all Netrix Managed IT Services businesses. Eric is ITIL Foundation certified and focuses on delivering an industry-leading customer support experience, driving process improvement, and implementing best practices. His most meaningful accomplishment has been the ability to foster an environment of continuous improvement, learning, and career growth for the employees he leads at Netrix.
Before joining Netrix, Eric managed an internal IT service desk and NOC support operation for a large Fortune 500 company headquartered in Philadelphia. He oversaw the daily operations of a high-performing support team that managed over 75,000 contacts per month.
Eric attended Kutztown University, where he studied Business Administration and Management. He holds certifications in ITIL Version 3 Foundation Certification (EXIN), Management & Leadership (Dale Carnegie), and Gartner Customer Relationship Management (Gartner). Eric resides outside of Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, Maren, two children, Will and Sam, and Dublin, the family dog. He comes from a large family, and they all make it a point to unite always to celebrate their birthdays and major holidays together.
James has been a part of Netrix since 2006. During that time James has worked in different facets of the organization that includes, Direct selling, Sales leadership, Channel and Strategic Partnerships. James has been part of the Operating Committee for the Netrix Collaboration group known as TetraVX. James is a graduate of Arizona State University.
James is the proud father of two sons. In his downtime, he enjoys adventure traveling, golf, and fishing.
Ryan brings over 20 years in the professional and managed services field focused on Microsoft solution selling. Ryan joined Netrix in 2013 from Project Leadership Associates. Today he leads a team of sales engineers working with customers so they understand how transforming to the cloud can be effective in helping them meet business goals and resolve pain points.
Ryan holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science from Purdue University.
Ryan and his wife Lee are proud parents of three children, a Great Dane dog named Moose and are avid boaters.
Mike has 25 plus years of client-facing IT consulting experience with Netrix. Mike has been with Netrix for ten years in multiple sales leadership roles and leverages his knowledge in developing, deploying, and executing sales models and Go-to-Market for Mid-Market and Enterprise segments. Mike has extensive experience working with clients to understand their current state, future state, hurdles to success, and ultimately how to bridge the divide to exceed their goals. Mike leads the Account Management Mid-Market team working with existing clients to execute their digital transformation.
Mike holds a degree in Political Science and Business Communications from the University of Kansas. Mike is a proud father of two. He is actively involved with endurance racing, from 17 Ironman total distance finishes to summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Justin Rapacz has over 25 years of experience in Information Technology, with many of those years spent at Netrix serving in various roles since joining the team in 1998. Leading several professional services practices throughout the years, Justin made the transition to leading the Netrix Managed Services practice in 2016.
With a deep technical foundation, Justin’s focus in managed services has been on delivering both technical and business value to his customers. Today Justin leads the recurring services delivery organization servicing the end-user to the hybrid data center and everything in between.
Justin has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from DeVry Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is the father of two boys and enjoys travel, technology, pinball, and cooking.
Adam brings over 17 years of experience in IT operations, cloud infrastructure, security, and compliance management to Netrix. As a leader, he has established, scaled, and run global IT teams that excel in providing world-class service to the organizations they serve. Experienced in both startups and established companies, Adam has a demonstrated track record for transforming IT teams to deliver and exceed mission-critical business objectives.
Prior to Netrix, Adam managed global IT operations organizations at VMWare, OVHcloud US, and AWS.
Adam is a proud husband and father of two boys. In his downtime, he enjoys personal fitness, cooking, and fishing.
Brian joins Netrix with 27 years of experience in strategy, vision-setting, planning, and execution. He has built brand experiences for millions of users and managed critical Fortune 100 customer relationships by scaling product, marketing, and operational organizations that put customers first. Before Netrix, Brian served as the COO at Infrascale, Head of R&D for Virtru, and General Manager for OVHcloud US.
Brian’s success stems from working for technology industry giants, including HP, Palm, eBay, AT&T, YP, and GoDaddy – as well as startups. As the Chief Operating Officer at Netrix, he strives to meet customer needs and achieve company goals. He manages both the customer-product interaction functions — including product management, product development, infrastructure operations – as well as internal functions of enterprise systems and IT. Brian is an advocate for efficient processes, effective use of resources, delighted customers, happy employees, exceptional results, and unrestrained creativity.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Michigan and a Master of Business Administration from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He is a proud pug owner, a Peloton enthusiast, a home-improvement junkie, and sings with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.
Carolyn has over 20 years of experience driving employee engagement and aligning talent strategies to meet business objectives. Her collaborative approach has built cultures of initiative, ownership, and results for organizations undergoing rapid change and growth.
Before joining Netrix, Carolyn led people strategy at technology companies such as Infrascale and OVH US. She also spent several years with CGI, a global technology and services provider, leading a team of 20 HR professionals supporting 6,500 employees worldwide, responsible for talent strategies, workforce development, and employee engagement.
Carolyn has a BA in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario and holds her SHRM-SCP and SPHR certifications. She is an avid hockey fan and loves anything chocolate!