GTSI

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GTSI started reselling computer products to the government for over 20-years. Selling approximately 350,000 items to the offices of the Department of Defense in the U.S., Germany, and Korea. However, the competition such as CDW-G had gained market share and brand recognition by offering better pricing and customer service. After the attacks on September 11, government IT spending became a top priority. GTSI needed to capitalize on this, however IT services only comprised of 3% its revenues.

In 2005, GTSI had a net loss of $16 million on a total of $886.3 million.

GTSI started to shift away from being a reseller to a solutions provider in 2006 and had a gross margin of 10.7 percent. By third-quarter 2007, the gross margin increased to 14.8 percent and increased income of $5.5 million. 

To show this turn-around to their clients and shareholders that GTSI had turned a corner, it needed to reflect the change by a rebrand. Due to cost concerns and thin profit margins, an outside firm to head the rebrand was not applicable. This had to be done in-house. We met with key stakeholders and executives to incorporate their vision of the brand and how it would reflect the changes that were being made. Months were spent in designing and developing, collateral, marketing campaigns, websites and other components of the brand. 

At the end of 2007 services and solutions became three-quarters of the company’s business and was profitable for the first time in three years. The internal branding efforts accounted for approximately $1 million dollars as compared to external design agencies, thus helping to keep the profits and not incur sunk costs.