Managing Midmarket IT Expectations Through Hypergrowth and Industry Evolution by Richard Richison at Repligen Corporation
by Richard Richison, Director of IT Infrastructure and Operations, Repligen Corporation
The IT industry has gone through drastic changes throughout my 20+ year career – one that evolved almost parallel to the industry itself. Working help desk, I began on the technical side and eventually moved into sales, touching everything in between from technical solution architect to director of engineering, presales, and more. My knowledge of IT and deep relationships with clients during my time at Konica Minolta/All Covered led me to Repligen, a bioprocessing company that serves the pharmaceutical industry.
Seizing the Opportunity
The opportunity to join Repligen really came while I was building out programs for our enterprise customers, Repligen being one. I worked closely with them for about three years, designing their entire infrastructure globally. I acquired deep knowledge of the business and strong relationships with the IT staff throughout this time. When that door opened and Repligen offered me the position of Director, my transition to their team was just so easy, having already established a repertoire – it really gave me a leg up, especially since the business was in the midst of hypergrowth at that time.
The Last Five Years
Since 2017, Repligen has been on a massive growth path, which includes approximately nine acquisitions during that period – skyrocketing the company from $40 million dollars to this year’s projection of over $800 million. With now over 25 locations and 2200 employees globally, my biggest focus has been bringing those acquisitions and networks together so we can function more seamlessly as we continue to evolve and scale. This – of course – meant a lot of capital expenditure and IT infrastructure consolidation, which has been a massive undertaking, but a successful push for our business. I essentially came on and continued the work I was doing for them, taking over global infrastructure, building relationships with vendors, and then focusing intensively on creating a security framework for the entire organization.
Securing the Organization Into the Future
The focus on security is just massive. It’s growing and deepening, and we have had to invest in this because we know how important it is. Just like any large enterprise, we outsource the small things so we can focus on developing a security framework and bringing our maturity level up. That’s something, I think, everyone in the midmarket is doing – the focus is on protecting data, assets, employees, customers, etc. Repligen has always had cyber insurance, but the costs are rising. It is a challenge for small and mid-size businesses to get the coverage they need, but it’s so important. I am lucky that our executive team understands and supports that. Everyone in the midmarket should be finding ways to fit that into their budget to stay protected.
Final Thoughts
It is such a transitional time in tech. The focus has really shifted to the experience – both customer and employee – which is so exciting. Repligen is definitely aware of this, and everything we do around building up the right technologies, setting the stage with innovation, and securing our environments truly benefits our clients and our staff. As technology becomes more complex, the real goal is to create solutions where those complexities don’t trickle down into the experience. Every day you have to think about how to implement changes that keep the business, employees, and customers on the edge of innovation, but also secure and simple so we can move forward as seamlessly as possible. The industry is evolving, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us all.