My 2023 Predictions for M&A, IT, AWS, and Ensunet

By Paul Robinson
Ensunet CEO

My company, Ensunet Technology Group, was founded in 2008 with a mission to reinvent IT for mergers and acquisitions or M&A.

Eight years later, another company called Amazon (perhaps you’ve heard of them) created another company of their own, called Amazon Web Services or AWS. It’s a cloud platform that, like Ensunet, has been growing since its inception.

Fast-forward to December 2022. I had the privilege of attending the annual AWS event in Las Vegas, known as “AWS re:Invent.” If you’re not familiar with it, let me tell you that it’s huge. It could out-CES CES.

For years—and to the tune of some $20 billion in acquisition activity which we’ve supported—Ensunet has been proudly vendor-agnostic as we’ve served clients in the M&A space. That’s not to say that many of those vendors haven’t pursued us. But in the end, they’re just looking to push their hardware sales, through us. And that’s not what we’re about.

AWS is different. Naturally, there’s no hardware to push; everything’s in the cloud. And AWS is based on a robust network of partners… forward-looking companies like Ensunet.

The M&A connection

The more I’ve learned about AWS—both what they’ve done and what’s on their business and technology roadmaps—the more excited I am about Ensunet’s ability to leverage their amazing platform to our clients’ benefit.

This comes right back to M&A. Ensunet has planted our flag on being the on-call tiger team for M&A support, from pre-deal due diligence through post-merger integration (PMI) and steady-state operations.

I’ll be the first to tell you, however, that so many parts of M&A—including the IT ones we work on—are still being done the same old, manual way they’ve been done for years. This doesn’t align very well with Ensunet’s strategic goal to provide “M&A as a Service,” replete with faster, better, and automated ways of integrating disparate companies and systems.

But AWS does align with our goals. It’s a whole new ballgame. Don’t think of it as just some source of computing, or storage, or databases. I don’t. It’s much more than that: over 200 services and growing. I like to think of it as a toolkit.

The most basic analogies I can think of are Legos. Or even a paintbrush. Put in the right hands, anything is possible.

This leads to my thoughts for the immediate (and not-so-immediate) future for Ensunet. Our view is that M&A transaction activity will continue to be strong as macro events shift economies and the way business transacts. And so we are working, right now, on realizing our vision of “M&A as a Service… Powered by AWS.”

I can’t show all my cards here, but I can tease a few details. Our Ensunet team will be growing as we have access to world-class AWS certified experts. We’re developing all-new ways, using the AWS platform, to reinvent IT as an M&A-empowering lever that streamlines and even automates critical elements of the deal cycle, while improving end-to-end revenue.

I’ve always said that if you think big, and work hard, you create your own gravity. That’s what Ensunet is doing this coming year. I hope you’ll come along as we bring more people, and power, into our orbit.

About the Author

Paul Robinson is the Founder and CEO of San Diego-based Ensunet Technology Group, a specialist in IT for mergers and acquisitions. Ensunet is a minority-owned, 8(a) qualified and SBA-certified small business. Visit Ensunet.com.