{"id":34449,"date":"2019-05-16T11:07:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T18:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=34449"},"modified":"2019-05-17T07:51:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T14:51:19","slug":"new-captain-at-helm-of-novatech-a-qa-with-ceo-dan-cooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2019\/05\/new-captain-at-helm-of-novatech-a-qa-with-ceo-dan-cooper\/","title":{"rendered":"New Captain at Helm of Novatech: A Q&A with CEO Dan Cooper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Dan Cooper, Novatech CEO<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Last month, Nashville, Tennessee-based Novatech shocked the\nindustry with the announcement that Founder and CEO Darren Metz was transitioning\ninto the role of executive chairman, to be replaced by Dan Cooper, a 30-year\nindustry veteran with tenures at Xerox\u2019s Global Imaging Systems (GIS) and Danka\nIndustries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper\u2019s impressive resume includes tutelage from such\nindustry notables as Dan Doyle, Tom Johnson, Michael Shea and Tom Salierno. He\nflourished while at Electronic Systems (ESI), a subsidiary of GIS, and ESI\nestablished itself as a pioneering company in the area of managed IT. He was\npresident of GIS at the time of his departure in August of 2018, at which point\nCooper began considering his next position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To gain perspective on the future of the dealership, we\nspoke with Cooper about his career, the Novatech opportunity and his goals as\nCEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your\ncareer prior to joining Novatech.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> During\nthe first five years of my career, I worked for a company in Virginia that was\nbought by Danka. I had a great opportunity to work with some innovators in the\nindustry that gave me a lot of experience at a young age. In 1999, when the\nbusiness was struggling a bit, I left to join ESI, which had been bought by\nGlobal Imaging the year before. I worked with Bill Kamarek, truly a visionary\nin the industry and one of the early pioneers of office providers. He retired\nfrom the company a year later and I led it for seven years. When the board of\ndirectors at Global wanted to broaden the leadership team, I ended up working\nfor Tom Johnson. I joined the headquarters, remained as CEO of ESI and started\nhelping Global operate the companies that we were acquiring. Eventually, I was\nresponsible for all of the companies and became the CEO of Global in 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, a number of changes took place with Xerox and their\nboard that have been well-publicized. I\u2019m a financial model type of guy; it\u2019s\nhow we operate and go to market. I believe in the dealer-based model, and\nobviously Xerox is going to change that. So my message to them was to find\nsomeone to do the change they were looking to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What intrigued you the\nmost about the Novatech opportunity?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> The\nopportunities in the industry started coming and I took some time to review\nthem all. What was appealing to me about Novatech was the history of the\ncompany as an entrepreneurial business that is not afraid of taking risks,\nbeing innovative and going into new markets like 3-D. Having visited the\ncompany many years before, I knew we could have a successful transition between\nDarren and myself. Trivest Partners\u2019 (Novatech\u2019s capital partner) market approach\nis to buy good, quality companies, and when the owner retires, they put in\nanother leader and continue to let them grow with the company. That was the\nappeal because it was the way we operated Global Imaging for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at our markets, Nashville is on fire. Tennessee has\na good business climate in general. The company has made four acquisitions in the\nGeorgia marketplace, and Atlanta is one of the top markets in the country with\na lot of room to grow. Fifteen years ago, Novatech went into the Texas\nmarketplace, and they\u2019ve been able to expand beyond Dallas. We have other\noperations throughout the southeast, so the company\u2019s been able to demonstrate\nthe ability to manage multiple markets. That\u2019s something we look to continue to\ndo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the clinchers for me was that when I was talking to\nthem, they were in the midst of making a managed IT acquisition of DynaSis in\nAtlanta. The biggest part of my background since my days at ESI was in the\ncomputing field, and understanding that if you\u2019re on the customer\u2019s network,\nyou can be the trusted advisor and bring a lot of value-add. DynaSis has been\nin the managed IT space for 25 years; they were a market leader and twice the\nsize of an average managed IT firm. The ability to take that solution field\nacross the entire company was very appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you look at the manufacturing partners we have on the\nprint side, we have the premier partners: Canon, Konica Minolta and HP. All\nthose things taken together led to the decision that Novatech was the right\nplace for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you plan to put\nyour signature on the company, so to speak?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> At Global\nwe owned 40 companies, similar to Novatech, so I have a fair amount of\nexperience in understand the way Novatech goes to market. The number one thing\nthat I will put my stamp on is moving towards a more managed office\nenvironment, taking the acquisition we made from DynaSis and driving this\nthroughout the company. Novatech wasn\u2019t doing much in the managed office or\nmanaged IT space. My personal opinion is the entire office community is moving\ntoward the managed environment, whether it\u2019s managed print services, hardware as\na service on the computing side, or managed IT to provide the support. Number\ntwo is developing future leaders in the industry. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve been\npretty passionate about my entire career at Global Imaging. Most all the\nsuccession and development we did was from within, and I think there\u2019s a great\nopportunity to develop a lot of leaders inside of Novatech as we begin to\nexpand the company at a faster pace. We will utilize a lot of the talent we\nhave at the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us a little about\nyou short- and long-term goals.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> The first\nthing I did was to spend a significant amount of time with the employees. I\u2019ve\nbeen to every market except Dallas, and I\u2019m heading there next week. It\u2019s about\nunderstanding our sales and customer satisfaction strategies, then spending\ntime with manufacturer partners to understand what their goals are. I\u2019ve had\nsome initial phone calls and am learning about the pace in which they\u2019re moving\nand diversifying their business models. The short term is focused on driving\nthe front end of our business, driving the revenues, creating cash flow out of\nwhat we\u2019re doing. We\u2019ve got a strong acquisition pipeline, and I\u2019ve been spending\ntime with that part of the business as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of it entails continuing on our current path with the\nmethodology that the company\u2019s employed. We have plenty of capital from our\ninvestors and there\u2019s a great opportunity to expand the business in areas that\nmake sense to us. It\u2019s approaching the marketplace with a total managed office\nenvironment. Taking over the client\u2019s network and becoming a trusted advisor is\na lot of the focus. To do those types of things, you have to grow the\nemployees. You have to do a lot of development with them. In general, we\u2019re\nbringing a lot of youth into our industry. Our challenge, for people who\u2019ve\nbeen in the industry a long period of time, is getting people to come into the\nindustry as a career. That takes a lot of coaching and development, helping\nthem to understand the business model that the company can operate successfully\nin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have extensive\nindustry experience with Xerox’s GIS and Danka. How will that serve you in an\never-changing landscape?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> The\nfinancial model is definitely something we will use to improve the business at\nNovatech. The company\u2019s already strong, and to take it to the next level\ninvolves teaching the industry financial model to all the managers in the\ncompany. We need to grow in the markets we\u2019re competing in. There are some very\nfine companies in those markets, so we\u2019ll put a lot of focus on the front end,\nthe sales side. We don\u2019t want to just grow through acquisition, we want to grow\nthrough net-new business. We have some really unique things that we can bring\nto the customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I alluded to the company taking risks, and we really have\nthe capability to sell and service almost anything that prints in a business, including\n3-D, where the company was an early innovator. We have some unique\nrelationships in that area and I think that applying a financial model to that\nindustry will benefit both the manufacturers and us. I\u2019m definitely taking the\ncomputing experience that I had with a couple of great companies and applying\nthat to Novatech, and this will be a big piece of what we do. In general, if\nyou take care of your customers and keep them happy, they\u2019re going to continue\nto do business with you. When a company is an acquisition company, you tend to\nlose focus on what got you here, and that is taking care of the customers.\nThese are a lot of the principles that the company was founded on, and we\u2019ll\ncontinue to ensure we\u2019re focused on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many M&A\nspecialists struggle when it comes to organic growth, so what is Novatech\u2019s\nkey?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper:<\/strong> It\u2019s in\nthe DNA of the company. I give a salute to Darren for that. The company was\noriginally headquartered in Memphis, then opened up in Nashville from scratch.\nThey moved the headquarters to Nashville and built a very impressive building.\nThey went into Knoxville net-new, went into Chattanooga net-new, went into\nAtlanta through an acquisition, and in Dallas they bought a small Panasonic\nbranch. The DNA of the company has been if we can\u2019t find something in the\nmarket, we\u2019ll start from the ground up and get that net-new business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do to build upon what Novatech has accomplished?<\/g><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper<\/g>:<\/strong> Novatech has already demonstrated that they can make acquisitions, and we\u2019ll be making more of those. They\u2019ve already demonstrated how to take risks, so we\u2019re looking for areas where we can either open a niche business or work with different types of manufacturers from the computing side. Those are all things that we\u2019re going to continue to build upon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, Nashville, Tennessee-based Novatech shocked the industry with the announcement that Founder and CEO Darren Metz was transitioning into the role of executive chairman, to be replaced by Dan Cooper, a 30-year industry veteran with tenures at Xerox\u2019s Global Imaging Systems (GIS) and Danka Industries. Cooper\u2019s impressive resume includes tutelage from such industry notables as Dan Doyle, Tom Johnson, Michael Shea and Tom Salierno. He flourished while at Electronic Systems (ESI), a subsidiary of GIS, and ESI established itself as a pioneering company in the area of managed IT. He was president of GIS at the time of his departure in August of 2018, at which point Cooper began considering his next position. To gain perspective on the future of the dealership, we spoke with Cooper about his career, the Novatech opportunity and his goals as CEO. Tell us about your career prior to joining Novatech. Cooper: During the first five years of my career, I worked for a company in Virginia that was bought by Danka. I had a great opportunity to work with some innovators in the industry that gave me a lot of experience at a young age. In 1999, when the business was struggling a bit, I left to join ESI, which had been bought by Global Imaging the year before. I worked with Bill Kamarek, truly a visionary in the industry and one of the early pioneers of office providers. He retired from the company a year later and I led it for seven years. When the board of directors at Global wanted to broaden the leadership team, I ended up working for Tom Johnson. I joined the headquarters, remained as CEO of ESI and started helping Global operate the companies that we were acquiring. Eventually, I was responsible for all of the companies and became the CEO of Global in 2017. Then, a number of changes took place with Xerox and their board that have been well-publicized. I\u2019m a financial model type of guy; it\u2019s how we operate and go to market. I believe in the dealer-based model, and obviously Xerox is going to change that. So my message to them was to find someone to do the change they were looking to do. What intrigued you the most about the Novatech opportunity? Cooper: The opportunities in the industry started coming and I took some time to review them all. What was appealing to me about Novatech was the history of the company as an entrepreneurial business that is not afraid of taking risks, being innovative and going into new markets like 3-D. Having visited the company many years before, I knew we could have a successful transition between Darren and myself. Trivest Partners\u2019 (Novatech\u2019s capital partner) market approach is to buy good, quality companies, and when the owner retires, they put in another leader and continue to let them grow with the company. That was the appeal because it was the way we operated Global Imaging for many years. Looking at our markets, Nashville is on fire. Tennessee has a good business climate in general. The company has made four acquisitions in the Georgia marketplace, and Atlanta is one of the top markets in the country with a lot of room to grow. Fifteen years ago, Novatech went into the Texas marketplace, and they\u2019ve been able to expand beyond Dallas. We have other operations throughout the southeast, so the company\u2019s been able to demonstrate the ability to manage multiple markets. That\u2019s something we look to continue to do. One of the clinchers for me was that when I was talking to them, they were in the midst of making a managed IT acquisition of DynaSis in Atlanta. The biggest part of my background since my days at ESI was in the computing field, and understanding that if you\u2019re on the customer\u2019s network, you can be the trusted advisor and bring a lot of value-add. DynaSis has been in the managed IT space for 25 years; they were a market leader and twice the size of an average managed IT firm. The ability to take that solution field across the entire company was very appealing. If you look at the manufacturing partners we have on the print side, we have the premier partners: Canon, Konica Minolta and HP. All those things taken together led to the decision that Novatech was the right place for me. How do you plan to put your signature on the company, so to speak? Cooper: At Global we owned 40 companies, similar to Novatech, so I have a fair amount of experience in understand the way Novatech goes to market. The number one thing that I will put my stamp on is moving towards a more managed office environment, taking the acquisition we made from DynaSis and driving this throughout the company. Novatech wasn\u2019t doing much in the managed office or managed IT space. My personal opinion is the entire office community is moving toward the managed environment, whether it\u2019s managed print services, hardware as a service on the computing side, or managed IT to provide the support. Number two is developing future leaders in the industry. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve been pretty passionate about my entire career at Global Imaging. Most all the succession and development we did was from within, and I think there\u2019s a great opportunity to develop a lot of leaders inside of Novatech as we begin to expand the company at a faster pace. We will utilize a lot of the talent we have at the company. Tell us a little about you short- and long-term goals. Cooper: The first thing I did was to spend a significant amount of time with the employees. I\u2019ve been to every market except Dallas, and I\u2019m heading there next week. It\u2019s about understanding our sales and customer satisfaction strategies, then spending time with manufacturer partners to understand what their goals are. I\u2019ve had some initial phone calls and am learning about the pace in which they\u2019re moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":33936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1650,82,87,1638],"tags":[3410],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34460,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34449\/revisions\/34460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}