National Vice President of Cloud Transformation Services Joe Hartsel learned the value of partnerships early in his career. Today, he is leading Centric Consulting’s strategy of leaning even more into its partnerships, especially with Microsoft.
You might not be surprised to learn that Joe Hartsel, Centric Consulting’s National Vice President over Cloud Transformation Services, grew up loving gadgets. But did you know that his interest in writing and editing helped launch his career in technology and consulting?
Hartsel’s first job out of college was as a technical writer at Honda of America Mfg., and those early years helping people understand technology prepared him well for his Centric career — especially considering his most recent responsibilities.
Hartsel not only oversees Centric’s Microsoft business applications, cloud platforms, software and development, and D&A but also helps lead the company’s Microsoft partnership strategy. I was curious about how Hartsel got to where he is today and what his past experiences mean for Centric’s future.
Have you always been interested in technology?
I’d say that as a kid, I was interested in gadgets and how they work. For example, I remember setting up the first Pong game on our black-and-white TV.
Back then, technology meant something different than it does today. Even though the Pong game was certainly a piece of technology, technology now means creating products for purposes that are integrated into our lives. That was a more exploratory era when people were more focused on building things because they could rather than on what those products could do for us.
That element of play and exploration will never go away, and it’s important for innovation. But my interest has always been, “What can we do with technology for some sort of positive result?”
So, did you plan to study technology in school?
Yes and no. I first thought I wanted to be an engineer until I realized that engineering isn’t so much about getting hands-on with how things work but more about the design. I ended up majoring in Scientific & Technical Communication at Bowling Green State University with a minor in Computer Science, which had always been an interest of mine. To explain how things work, you first have to know how they work, and the technical communication degree that I earned gave me a chance to do both.
I imagine you wrote a lot in college, then.
Yes, my degree program’s goal was to help me write things like technical manuals, end-user documentation and technical specs. But one day a professor in the program asked if I’d be interested in editing her book on technical communication. I guess I’d shown some sort of propensity for tearing up other people’s work!
So I did that, and I went on to edit the student newspaper and help the College of Arts and Sciences with its marketing communications. I also edited other people’s theses and dissertations, even after I got my first job as a technical writer for Honda of America Mfg.
What was it like working at Honda?
Well, I’d always been interested in the automotive industry, so that was a draw. Also, the job was right up my alley because of my education.
I spent the first few years writing instructional manuals and other technical documents for Honda’s employees and suppliers. However, Honda was lean and growing rapidly. The broad range of projects I worked on gave me an edge because it helped me see the revolution that was coming.
When I started at Honda in the late 1980s and into the early ’90s, companies were transitioning from single computers in each department to computers on everyone’s desktop. Honda saw the writing on the wall and created a PC Group with me as the lead.
That was my first foray into management, and I was 27 years old and really bad at it! But I stuck it out over the next few years, and my management skills got better as Honda’s fleet of PCs grew from 300 to more than 6,000.
Then, the PCs needed to be connected and talk to each other. That gave me the chance to learn more about IT infrastructure and networks. I also started negotiating software agreements with major players like Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. I even helped deploy Microsoft SharePoint when it was brand new.
Eventually, Honda put me in charge of software implementations at new manufacturing plants in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, and I started consolidating core IT systems across all of the company’s North American facilities.
That was 17 years after I’d started at Honda, and the travel had become a burden. At the urging of a friend from Microsoft, I decided to consider consulting, and another friend led me to a Columbus, Ohio-based consulting company in 2006.
Can you tell me about your early years in consulting?
At that first consulting company, I focused on building a Microsoft partnership, as well as Microsoft technology and delivery. In less than seven years, the practice area grew from nothing to about $6 million annually.
A few years later, a former colleague mentioned this place his wife worked at a place called Centric Consulting. He told me that Centric had a job listing and said, “It’s you, dude!” I’ve been at Centric ever since, 10 years now and counting.
How did you decide to make the leap?
I didn’t decide right away — I did a lot of research first. I learned that Centric was rapidly growing and that it treated its people really well — my friend and his wife attested to that. As I talked to more people, everyone I spoke with said that Centric was not like every other consulting company, and I could see that and feel it.
Plus, I liked that it was a national company instead of the regionally focused firm I was at, and I appreciated how its culture encouraged teamwork. I knew that I would be going someplace different rather than repeating what I already had.
How did you progress at Centric?
I was hired in 2015 as the co-lead for a new service offering, Portals and Collaboration, but the hiring manager told me that my experience building Microsoft partnerships was a big draw for him. Portals and Collaboration changed its name over time to Enterprise Collaboration and then Modern Work, and during those years, it grew from three people generating less than $1 million annually to more than 20 people generating about $8.5 million per year.
Our Microsoft partnership was a primary driver of that growth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many companies quickly adopted Microsoft Teams as their collaboration platform.
In 2022, my scope changed from leading a single SO to leading the Tech Service Line. Over the past few years, that has transitioned into my current role over the new collection of SOs we call Cloud Transformation Services.
Why are partnerships so important?
I’ve always been a big believer that strategic partnerships can accelerate your growth as a company, and it’s been great to see that happening at Centric. One benefit is that they offset the need to drive all your sales by yourself, but you have to make sure you have a good strategy in place that benefits both the partner and Centric.
I’m excited that the entire company is now committed to expanding Microsoft and other strategic partnerships from the business-unit level to a broader, business development standpoint. It’s critical that we do that because partnerships are now a key part of our overall Centric strategy.
As our Microsoft partnership matures, it will mean working a little differently because the Microsoft Account teams will become a bigger part of our client work. But in the end, the payoff will be significant for everyone because it will form stronger bonds and relationships between us, the client, and Microsoft or any other partner.