For the innovative ways it drove growth while maintaining the customer experience, Pavion was named a 2023 Excellence in Business award winner in the Strategic Transformation category.
When Pavion (formerly CTSI) started noticing changes in demand on the horizon, the company knew it needed to stay ahead of where customers were headed.
To accomplish this, says Alan Rosenkoff, Pavion’s chief marketing officer, the goal was to rise to a new level of breadth and depth within services by:
- Expanding the company’s geographic footprint to deliver global account support
- Building interoperable solutions and deeper technical competencies across business units by consolidating services within the traditional pillars of fire, security, integration, and IT
And it wanted to accelerate this growth in the midst of a global pandemic and supply chain crisis—without losing the ability or motivation to optimize the customer experience through critical transformation, as it had noticed many other integrators do when after experiencing sudden growth.
To keep up with customer demand, Pavion focused on four transformation strategies.
1. Acquisitions
To increase client availability in more locations, Pavion added 11 new businesses into he fold beginning in 2020. To complete these acquisition transactions in under 60 days, Pavion also hired a vice president of mergers and acquisitions. Finally, to successfully integrate businesses during the acquisition process while optimizing IT integration and synergies, the company hired a chief strategy and integration officer as well.
2. Enhancing the Customer Experience
The company believes that its real-time team growth accelerates the incorporation of best-in-breed talent, expertise, and specialized team coordination so it can be hands-on with clients—wherever they are.
“We fill gaps between client needs and our service strengths fast, and that alone is differentiating us from the competition,” says Rosenkoff. “For any growing medium-sized enterprise client, this nimbleness represents a breadth and depth of service that many of our competitors simply cannot provide. Meeting customers where they are right now enables us to support large enterprises as well—on their terms.”
Across Pavion, the goal is to deliver an optimized and consistent experience no matter the region, technology, or service in question.
3. Enhancing the Employee Experience
As acquisitions were made, Pavion also took strategic steps to harmonize compensation and benefits plans and launch and integrate tools to support back-of-house operations, such as HRIS, CRM, and financial reporting tools.
Maintaining each acquired company’s best practices has also helped Pavion retain 98% of acquired employees along the way.
4. Restating Its Commitment to Customers
This year, the company moved forward with a new brand, officially shifting from CTSI to Pavion. The name comes from “pavise” (an ancient warrior’s shield) and “ion” (a charged atom). These words, together with the look and feel of the brand, reflect Pavion’s mission to “connect and protect” while continuously meeting customer needs through the substance and style of its highly differentiated services.
From a Mid-Atlantic Integrator to a Global Powerhouse
Today, Pavion can be proud of its strategic transformation from a Mid-Atlantic regional systems integrator to a global systems integration powerhouse that delivers differentiated solutions, services, and business outcomes for customers.
Now operating across 22 countries and 40+ U.S. locations, Pavion has grown its business by 400% while maintaining its best-in-class EBITDA performance and customer satisfaction levels.
“Our deliberate actions are inspiring innovation and skills pollination, and consistent delivery of a simpler, more consistent customer experience across all technology design, delivery, and support. Ironically—and happily—all this diversification has enabled a more focused, personalized experience and just one hand to shake,” says Rosenkoff.
