Balancing Innovation and Fundamentals: EchoStor’s Path to Impact in 2025 with Nick Sikorski

Blog Post: Reflecting on My Feature in Channel Insider 

I was recently featured in a Channel Insider article discussing EchoStor’s growth trajectory and key industry trends as we look ahead to 2025.  Victoria Durgin and I touched on a number of topics during our conversation including the evolution of services for the channel, a level-set on AI and our thoughts about the future.  Her the article expertly captured some of the highlights from our conversation, but I’d like to expand on some of topics to give additional context and detail before the impact of our conversation fades from memory.

Services: Moving Beyond Commoditization

One of the key areas we discussed, a space near & dear to the channel, was the importance of services. For years, the channel has always been focused on providing services to our customers as a key part of our value prop to both customers and manufacturer partners.  It provided an opportunity for the channel to demonstrate technical expertise, ensure excellent experiences for our customers, and was also a source of additional revenue.  As with everything in the tech industry, this part of the business is constantly evolving as well.    The traditional services engagements that customers used to find so valuable, have slowly become commoditized – – system deployments, capacity adds, software updates – – and are now merely check boxes on the path to more impactful work.   At EchoStor, we’ve been navigating this shift by focusing on higher-impact services that deliver real value to our clients and greater impact to their businesses.  Customers no longer just need someone to deploy or migrate systems—they need true partners who understand their business and can help them achieve long-term strategic goals. Rather than competing in the commoditized space, we’re positioning ourselves to provide more specialized, higher-value services. This not only makes our work more impactful, but it also allows us to recruit and retain top talent who are motivated to solve more complex problems.  We’ve also found this shift in focus a greater opportunity for a symbiotic relationship with our customers’ existing outsourcers and IT teams instead of competing.  This new dynamic fosters stronger, more collaborative relationships between all three parties bringing even great value to the customer. At EchoStor, the potential to create value for our customers is at the center of everything we do. 

Revisiting the Fundamentals: The Attic and the Basement

 In the Channel Insider article, I used the analogy of the “attic and the basement” to explain how the pandemic forced many of our customers’ businesses, including our own, to prioritize short term solutions over the long term in order to meet immediate needs  For example, end user services such as VDI or M365 were heavily strained to support a global workforce that suddenly found itself working from home.  The requirement to get employees back online and being productive often came at the expense of architectural standards, financial cycles or even security – – all things that are the fundamentals we observe when designing solutions in a regular situation.   While the article touched on this, I want to emphasize the importance of revisiting foundational elements like data security and operational efficiency, as businesses now shift back from emergency fixes to long-term strategies. As mentioned in the article, many organizations are now reconciling the compromises they made during the pandemic. Whether it’s the infrastructure they had to piece together, or the gaps left in their security, EchoStor is helping clients address these areas by ensuring that their systems are not only operational, but also resilient, secure, and ready for future growth.

AI: Between the Hype and the Reality

What kind of tech conversation would it be without a discussion around AI?  The excitement around AI is palpable, fueled by the grand visions of possibilities for organizations of all types.  In the interest of time, the piece didn’t include our conversation about the complex and in many cases completely uncharted path organizations will need to traverse to reach those grand visions.  Many organizations are taking a very cautious approach as they begin testing the wave of new products. As I mentioned in the article, businesses are caught between the hype and hesitation. There is an entirely new paradox of “finding solutions for problems” vs. “finding problems for solutions”.   I’m usually very disciplined about aligning solutions to specific business outcomes, but in the case of AI, it actually makes great sense to look at both ways.   AI, at its core, amplifies what’s already there. If your business processes are strong, AI can make them stronger. But if there are weaknesses in your systems, AI will only amplify those as well. That’s why it’s so important for organizations to get their house in order before diving headfirst into AI adoption.  EchoStor’s role is to guide our clients through this landscape by balancing optimism and pragmatism in this exciting new space.

The Importance of Diversification

The article rightly celebrates EchoStor’s strong presence across various industries, which is obviously a great asset, but I believe it’s important to highlight why diversification is so important.  There is a fine line that the best partners in the channel must walk as they grow their businesses between vertical specialization and diversification.   A partner with a strong vertical specialization can bring distinct value to those customers by tapping into a wealth of relevant experience across similar organizations.  These specialized partners can most effectively speak the language of customers in their vertical and truly understand their customers’ needs.   At the same time, the case for diversification is unrestricted growth into whichever space they are able to gain traction.     The most effective partners carefully strike a balance of the two strategies: specialization and diversification.   They carefully select the verticals into which they position themselves in order to bring maximum value to their customers in those verticals, while maintaining discipline to remain focused on those verticals without getting too wide and diluting their value.  COVID through a curveball into this go to market strategy for the channel.   Partners who were ultra specialized risked huge upside or downside depending on which market vertical they happened to be positioned in.  For example, a partner heavily focused on hospitality or construction would have had a very different experience during COVID than one specialized in high tech or financial services.   As with any portfolio, balancing diversification and expertise is the ideal.   At EchoStor we have masterfully walked the line between specialization and growth.   Our commitment to heavy investment into customer verticals such as healthcare, utilities, financial services, and high tech (to name a few) has enabled us to demonstrate industry leading expertise while also diversifying across several verticals to balance micro and macro trends.

Looking Ahead

As we approach 2025, I’m excited about what’s on the horizon for EchoStor and our industry. Channel Insider did a great job capturing our excitement for the future, especially in terms of expanding our services and deepening client relationships. I want to reiterate that, as we continue this path, our focus remains on delivering real, measurable outcomes—whether through innovative technologies like AI, or by simply getting back to the basics with strong infrastructure and security.

Thanks to Channel Insider for the opportunity to share our perspective, and I look forward to continuing the conversation about how we, as partners, can truly make an impact in 2025 and beyond. 

Read the full article HERE.

– Nick Sikorski, VP of Sales and Marketing, EchoStor Technologies