MNJ Outpaces VAR Market Growth in 2019, Fueled by Edge Focus

– MNJ Technologies, a midmarket-focused IT solution and services provider, more than doubled its 2018 growth record with a 23% revenue increase in 2019 driven by an emphasis on edge-based solution sales. The company has hired 13-year CDW veteran Andrew Ballema as vice president of sales, effective this month, to advance that growth and oversee an expanded sales team and services portfolio in 2020.

Ballema most recently served as CDW’s senior manager of integrated services engagement and aggregation, infrastructure and managed services (AIM), with responsibility for growing aggregation brokerage services, cloud, colocation and managed services sales. He also led the solutions portfolio, sales enablement, operational fulfillment and partner relationships for the AIM team.

“Our 2019 performance is a direct result of the solution sales initiative we began in mid-2017 coupled with the ongoing expansion of our edge-based products and services, including SD-WAN, cloud and unified communications. Andy has deep experience in building profitable growth across an almost identical portfolio,” said MNJ’s Ben Niernberg, who was promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president to continue his strategic focus on scaling the business. “Adding him to our executive team gives us a strong leader to help us sustain our growth trajectory as well as execute the many new initiatives on our roadmap.”

MNJ milestones in 2019 included: 

• A 35% increase in monthly recurring services revenue, driven by offerings including managed SD-WAN, managed LAN, Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS), and bandwidth and connectivity services in its role as a certified Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC).
• The addition of four new vendors to its SD-WAN offerings, which now span Cisco, Cloudgenix, Fortinet, Meraki, Oracle, Silver Peak and Versa solutions.
• The opening of an SD-WAN demo lab enabling customers to identify the best-fit solution for their specific traffic priority requirements and growth initiatives. The lab is equipped with a WAN emulation solution capable of simulating any available circuit type and bandwidth as well as network conditions such as packet loss, latency, jitter and out-of-order packets.
• Expansion of its collaboration portfolio to include Workplace by Facebook, the online collaboration tool that uses familiar Facebook features to facilitate cross-company communication, increase productivity and strengthen corporate culture. MNJ is one of Workplace’s first channel partners.

“One of the benefits of our go-to-market strategy is that every part of our portfolio feeds every other part, including hardware sales. We get our foot in the door by helping customers drive profitability, topline sales and a better customer experience in one area, and inevitably they come back to us for the other products and services,” Niernberg said. “We have taught our sales team to build customer conversations around P&Ls, balance sheets and business outcomes, and that has put us on a fast track to growth.”