SMB managed IT services provider Logically has been very busy since earning last year’s MSP 501 Digital Innovator of the Year award.

The digital innovator award goes to a company that demonstrates excellence in intellectual property development for a home-grown product or service. Channel Futures unveiled the 2020 MSP 501 last week.

In addition to continuous innovation, Portland, Maine,-based Logically capped off 2019 with two MSP acquisitions. It acquired Raleigh, North Carolina-based Carolinas IT and Reno, Nevada-based IQ Technology Solutions. It now has 300 employees.

Logically’s Mike Cowles

And in May, Logically appointed Mike Cowles as its new CEO, succeeding company co-founder Christopher Claudio. Cowles was most recently the CEO of the Rainmaker Group. He was with that company for over three years, leading it to annual double-digit growth.

Logically received the MSP 501 digital innovator award for its OpLogic self-healing, intelligent MSP platform for SMBs.

In a Q&A with Channel Futures, Cowles gives an update on his company and how the digital innovator is navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Channel Futures: What’s been happening on the innovation front since winning the award?

Mike Cowles: At Logically, we continue to innovate both from a technology and a service offering perspective. Our automated platform, OpLogic, is continuously built upon, as well as newer offerings in SecureCore. Meanwhile, we also continue to innovate non-software services we bring to the market.

CF: Why did you want to become Logically’s CEO?

MC: Understanding the opportunity at Logically let me know that this was an already great company that’s a national MSP platform, which has a history of M&A activity as well as a road map to the future. And continuing to build on that inorganic growth, along with organic growth through some of the innovations, makes this a really exciting opportunity. I look forward to helping to lead the organization as we continue to acquire more and grow our customer base revenue organically.

CF: Logically is now a national MSP?

MC: We have seven local offices. MSPs are generally fairly regional by nature, and those came through acquisitions. We continue to look for new small acquisitions in locations where we already have a presence. Then also, new medium and larger acquisitions in new geographies that we’re not in today.

CF: What’s the significance of the Carolinas IT acquisition?

MC: Carolinas IT was a relatively larger acquisition for us. It also brought some interesting innovations that we’re now able to share with all of our customers, specifically their full-service tech offerings, including most notably security audit and compliance services. In addition to the resources and the customers, that was a great add to the Logically innovation road map.

CF: How has Logically been navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic?

MC: We have offices and employees in seven geographic locations around the country. We’ve been actively working with the local ordinances and guidance, and putting together comprehensive, responsive reopening plans given the nature of what’s happened in the last couple of months. We have modified that plan as appropriate and pushed it out, and polled the staff to understand also what their comfort level is and their desire to return to the offices within the guidelines. And based on that … most of our employees are still working from home and we support that. Some critical employees are coming into the office and following all the guidelines.

CF: How have Logically’s customers been impacted by the pandemic?

MC: Overall we’ve had a very limited impact from a business continuity perspective and from …

… a revenue view — much less than 1% of our annual revenue. We do have a small subset of our customers who are no longer in business — temporarily or permanently. Some have stopped needing IT services, but the number is quite small. And another bucket would be a handful of customers that, as we reached out to understand how our customers were doing, it became clear that they probably needed a little bit of temporary help. And so extended payment terms and things like that have been another pretty small bucket of impact on our business in support of our customers as they’re working through the coronavirus.

CF: What are some examples of verticals that Logically works with?

MC: It’s important to note we’re not a verticalized company. However, as we get a foothold with certain accounts, word of mouth and in our business, some of the things we do particularly to support our customers in regulated environments ends up meaning that we pick up more customers in some verticals just naturally. So health care is an example. State and local government, and education are some good examples where we’ve acquired customers and slightly shifted our service offering to be in line with things that they deal with uniquely, like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in health care, and that has organically launched us into picking up other customers in those verticals.

CF: What does innovation mean to Logically and why is it important?

MC: Not only do we want to differentiate ourselves by being a national player with regional presence and strong regional support, but also we do a lot of innovation internally. And some of it we pick up through mergers and acquisitions. We do technical innovation of products that we use with our customers and to serve our customers. For example, OpLogic, but also our SecureCore, our next generation, best-in-class security offering. But also in our service offerings as well, most notably with our expansion with the Carolinas acquisition into security audit and compliance services. That came through acquisition. But we are working to make that available to all of our customers as applicable, not just in the Carolinas.

CF: Are you seeing growth in demand for your services despite the pandemic?

MC: We are. I would say it’s slightly muted compared to what we otherwise would have expected. But we’re in single-digit year-over-year growth in the first half of the year. We expect to maintain that through the end of the year. It’s not quite what we had planned for, but we are still net growing.

CF: What would you say is Logically’s competitive advantage over other national MSPs?

MC: I think the national nature of us –and there aren’t many that have our scale out there – gives us the opportunity to do innovations that we can then take to the regional markets in which we operate. So I think the national scale, while maintaining regional high-touch service levels and customer attention, is probably our biggest differentiator.