Listen to the LYME Navy Podcast to discover how industry and Government partners are enabling mission success!
Anthony Jimenez
Welcome back to CarahCast, the podcast from Carahsoft, the trusted government IT solutions provider. Subscribe to get the latest technology updates in the public sector. I'm Anthony Jimenez, your host from the Carahsoft production team.
On behalf of Lyme, Dell Technologies and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast focused around the newly awarded Blanket Purchase Agreement at Naval Air Station Patuxent River and how strong industry partnerships are enabling the U.S. Navy with mission-driven IT modernization. Andrew Sullivan, Chief Revenue Officer of Lyme Technology Solutions and Jim Kelley, Senior Director of Data Center Sales and Strategy at Dell Technologies and Corey Rooney, Director of Partner Business Development at Carahsoft, will discuss the value of collaboration, innovation and trusted relationships in supporting federal customers.
Corey Rooney
Hey, good morning, thanks. My name is Corey Rooney; I'm the Director of Partner Business Development here at Carahsoft. We are very fortunate to have Andrew Sullivan, we like to call him Sully, and Jim Kelley, we like to call him Jimmy, from Dell, and Andrew's from Lyme.
I am the Director of Partner Business Development here at Carahsoft. We've been around since 2004. We have seen a tremendous amount of growth and are very excited to have two very close partners with us today.
We are a government and public sector focused distribution partner, very proud to be partnered with Lyme and with Dell. And I'm going to turn it over to you, Sully. Perfect.
Andrew Sullivan
Thanks, Corey. Yeah, so Lyme, we've been around since 1984. We are very heavily partnered with Carahsoft, they're just an incredible partner for us at Lyme, really helping to scale our business, and we've been a longtime partner with Dell as well.
Dell's original, very first GSA letter supply holder, back when Dell was getting into the business. So we're pleased to have such strong partners to help us motivate our business and grow it. And we're here today to talk about our BPA specific to the Navy, but also more generically, how we help our customers get the best products.
So I'll turn it over to Jimmy Kelley from Dell. He is the Sales Leader for the Data Center Practice at Dell.
Jim Kelley
Yeah, good morning, guys. I'm Jimmy Kelley. I run the storage business over here at Dell Federal, and my business partner, Lev Kates, and I collectively are responsible for all the ISG business.
So thanks, server, storage, and networking. Let me begin by just saying there are no friends like old friends, and certainly you guys fit into that category. You know, from my lens, we're only as good as those that we surround ourselves with.
And at Dell, we're blessed, and I mean that sincerely, to have partners like Lyme and certainly Carahsoft to work with. My boss, his name is Ken Doherty, that runs the North America Data Center business for us here at Dell. He has a saying, and it is, know me, like me, trust me, and partner with me.
And so, you know, again, I couldn't think of two better partners to be on the podcast here with this morning. You know, Sully, I can provide a little perspective, you know, if you want me to about Dell, just a couple of little things here, if that makes sense. You know, as we all are trying to navigate some unusual times and circumstances, the federal government right now, we have to get out of our comfort zone.
You know, we recognize that, you know, comfort and growth don't coexist. And so, you know, as we navigate the federal government right now, everything from the you know, we have talked intently over here about adapting, improvising, overcoming, and therefore remaining solvent and, you know, significant in the industry. So there's a lot happening, you know, at, you know, we talk a lot about the fact that, you know, Michael, one time on stage made a provocative statement, and he said at Dell, we have a vision, and that is to be the essential technology company in the world.
And we genuinely believe that our charter is to create technologies to enable human progress. And, you know, that resonated with me. And I had to process that for a minute, because if you asked me why I exist, I would probably come up with something other than creating technology to enable human progress first.
But ultimately, I would get there. But we continue to invest roughly three billion, billion dollars a year in R&D, and we've committed to doing the same for the foreseeable future. So I'm excited for you guys.
I'm excited to continue to partner with you. That BPA that you guys successfully bid and won out at Pax River, I think, is going to be impactful based on our relationship and the amount of time we've done each other work together. I'm excited.
You know, there are some things that can happen. You know, from a Pax River standpoint, we're involved in a lot. I know you're aware of our line of business out there, but basically we touch the aircraft, we touch the testing, the development, the flight simulation.
You know, we're in the lab, we're in the aircraft, we're on the airfield. Essentially, they're using all lines of business from Dell to help support their mission. So you tell me, my good man, how can Dell continue to support you so you can make, you know, a game changing difference there at Pax River?
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah, that's awesome, Jimmy. We definitely appreciate the partnership. My account manager, Tricia Tallier, is supporting this particular contract, this particular customer.
She's already pretty well integrated with your team at Pax River. And I think it's just a continuation of bringing the technology to the warfighter, so to speak. So we're going to continue to do one day events down at Pax River with Dell.
We're going to continue to do... Lost my train of thought. He's editing.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, we're going to do lots of technology days down there, highlighting the BPA, highlighting Dell, highlighting our partnership with Carahsoft and Dell as well. So we're looking forward to just continued growth.
It's really about creating some brand awareness now down there with this contract and get folks really excited to use it. It's a rapid acquisition tool for them, $250,000 and under, but it has a ceiling of $5 million per year. So we're excited about it and excited to strengthen our partnership with Dell.
Jim Kelley
Well, just a couple of thoughts. You know, we're a matrixed organization over here, so we have any number of people that are at Pax River on a daily basis. So this isn't something that we do haphazardly.
It is a coordinated effort in everything that we do out there. And from a standpoint of interacting and truly partnering with that group of people, I think you're in a good spot. And I think it's also a sign of what's happening in the federal government right now with respect to, you know, customers wanting to do business with fewer, more strategic partners, hence the BPA, so they can make, they can streamline the business and make it considerably easier for the end user to get the things that they need.
And that's certainly where we come into play. You know, we have a point of view, a repeatable framework and solutions to help our customers create a vision and an executable roadmap to position them for long-term success. We've demonstrated that in spades with the group out at Pax River, you know, hence, you know, working with, you know, everything from flight simulation to development and in the labs.
So I think, you know, and oh, by the way, Sully, we have we got a lot of stick time. We go with flight hours, so to speak, you know, and so we've got the luxury of having captured many lessons learned and therefore being able to implement best practices. And that puts us in a great spot to be a difference making IT partner to the various entities and various customers out at Pax.
So I'm excited, man. Look at, you know, I opened by saying there are no friends like old friends and then parlaying that into know me, like me, trust me. You and I have covered that territory for a period of time.
Right. So that is that is a constant in this relationship. And so we've moved well beyond that.
Now we're into making a difference for the customer working together. And oh, by the way, is there anyone better than Carahsoft to help us do that? I don't think so.
Corey Rooney
We appreciate that, Jim. You mentioned being a partner to the customer. I'd love it if you could go a little bit deeper into your expectations of a partner and what you're what you'd like to get out of Lyme and what your expectations are of them in the account and as a partner overall.
Jim Kelley
Yeah, yeah, good, good segue, Corey. So look at what and it goes back to the relationship, Sully and Josh and some of my senior leaders over here have. First and foremost, we are a known entity there.
Lyme will be a known entity before long. There is power in partnering with Dell. And I think Sully would agree with me that we aren't there to sell anything.
We're there to be a strategic, consultative partner, Corey. So one of the things that we pride ourselves in over here at Dell is being exactly that. We take a consultative selling approach.
We didn't get to where we are at Pax River or any other place throughout the Department of Defense or civilian for that matter, without taking that approach. You know, first thing we you know, we ask is, hey, what workloads are you running? You know, what apps are in play here as a block file or both?
You know, we look at the current platform. Are you storage CIHCI, et cetera, you know, kind of understand the budget, the size of the environment, what SLAs are in place. We're looking at performance, security, availability, resiliency, all of those things.
And then, of course, you know, as the OEM, I've got to know the competitive presence that's there. And my deal, you know, who from my competitive landscape am I going to have to compete against and therefore demonstrate that I bring something different to the fight? Because at no time would I ever go in and suggest to a customer, I want if you have something that's working, if you have something that meets every expectation that you have, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
Right. So we take that consultative approach. We try to understand an end user's desired plan to modernize, build versus buy, et cetera.
We talk to them about, you know, accelerating their AI adoption and make sure they have a multi-cloud strategy. And Sully and I have done this time and time again with various customers. And the expectation is that we're going to demonstrate that, you know, or replicate that success with Pax River on this BPA.
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah, I love that. You know, I've been doing this a long time myself and I've done a little bit of everything in the fed-space, but done a lot with the DOD. And one of the things that always intrigued me was kind of supporting the mission.
And to me, to your point of we're not selling anything, there was no greater satisfaction than understanding what a customer is trying to do and giving them the tools and the ability to do that and meet their objectives. So while I never served myself, and by the way, thank you for your service, Jimmy. Absolutely.
You know, I always felt like this was my way to give back to the military. A lot of smart people, a lot of people putting themselves in harm's way sometimes. And, you know, the technology as I've sold to them, sometimes they're just to communicate with their family, like while they're deployed.
So that mission became so critical for me, really understanding what they're trying to do. So I agree with you 100 percent.
Jim Kelley
Yeah, man, so as we get out there and Sully, I encourage you to lean into me if you need anything, you know that. But as I said, you know, we've got people out there in groups practically every day. I'd love to get out there with you personally and go have some of these conversations with the customers that we have developed relationships with over a period of time.
And I really want to lean into to what they're doing from an adoption standpoint. I think you're going to be really surprised in terms of how far along the Pax River is and what they've been able to accomplish and, you know, start talking a little bit about more about, I guess, you know, the multi cloud strategy. Of course, again, we've got stick time.
We've had some we've taken some bumps on the head and we've had some lessons learned. You know, the cloud first versus cloud smart. We successfully navigated our way through that.
We have a multi cloud by design approach versus default. And, you know, we've invested a lot of intellectual capital, time and effort in making sure that we can leverage our strengths to help customers make good, educated decisions. You know, at one point and you and I've just talked about this a little bit, you know, cloud for me as an OEM was a bad word, you know, and we did we knew that there was a place for cloud, but we didn't know how to embrace it as an OEM.
We figured that out. We don't run from the cloud now. We run to the cloud.
So but you've got to have that hybrid approach. And certainly, you know, Pax River has demonstrated there a good working knowledge of how to do that. So I'd like to get you involved in some of those conversations.
And then, of course, you understand our portfolio and what we had the capability to provide. So anything you need, my man, you're here to help, brother, here to help. Appreciate you.
Anything else I can answer for you guys this morning?
Andrew Sullivan
I don't think so. Good on my side. Yeah, it was great.
I'm good on my side and appreciate the partnership, as always, Jimmy. Great to see you.
Jim Kelley
One team, one fight, Sully.
Anthony Jimenez
Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to CarahCast and be sure to listen to our other discussions. If you'd like more information on how Lyme, Dell Technologies and Carahsoft can assist your organization, please visit www.Carahsoft.com or email us at delltechnologies@Carahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.