Banking on KC – Grant and Chris Burcham of CyTek Corporation
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Grant Burcham, the chair of CyTek Corporation and his son Chris, who was recently named the new CEO and president of the company. Grant is also a member of the board of directors at Country Club Bank. Welcome to both of you.
Grant Burcham:
Thank you.
Chris Burcham:
Thank you. Glad to be on.
Kelly Scanlon:
Glad to have you here. And Chris, I'm going to start with you. Give us a brief overview of CyTek, what it does, how it helps mid to small business owners.
Chris Burcham:
Yes CyTek is an MSP, managed service provider, and MSSP, managed security service provider. So you can think of us like your outsourced IT department. We assist with all the technological needs of a business, everything from their network infrastructure, all the way to their phones and everything in between.
Kelly Scanlon:
And that's changed a lot in the last 20 years. Now you're guarding against cyber security and all kinds of things like that.
Chris Burcham:
Like most industries, as you said, Kelly, it has evolved dramatically and certainly cyber security has taken up an increasingly large portion of the pie when we talk about services that we provide to our clients.
Kelly Scanlon:
There's a lot of IT companies in Kansas City. What differentiates CyTek from other IT support in managed services here in the Kansas City area?
Chris Burcham:
Yeah, that's a great question. So we believe that relationships are the one thing that can never really be commoditized. So we make it a point to be not just the guy or the gal you call when your computer is broken, but really becoming a business partner of our clients. And I think that kind of shift and that leap from, oh gosh, my Outlook is crashing to how are we proactively consulting with our clients to make sure that they are optimally positioned in the ever-changing technology environment to be as successful as they can be, I think that's how we try to differentiate ourselves in the market.
Kelly Scanlon:
I know many of our listeners are going to remember you from Missouri Bank, also called Mo Bank. What have you been doing since the bank sold in 2016? I can't believe it's already been eight years.
Grant Burcham:
I know, it's crazy. Time flies. Well, I spent the first two years working with BOK after the acquisition and then I took a couple of years off and I skied and hiked and biked and fished. And then I started to get a little antsy and I needed insurance. And so-
Kelly Scanlon:
Always that insurance, isn't it?
Grant Burcham:
Yeah, that pesky insurance. So I kind of started doing a little small business entrepreneurial investing in Kansas City. And along with that I've been a mentor to my partners and I continue to do mentoring through the Helzberg program and I serve on a few boards, nonprofit and for-profit boards in Kansas City.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you've made some investments and they've been in a couple of different fields, but why is IT one of those?
Grant Burcham:
As we looked at the IT landscape in Kansas City, it's extremely fragmented business. I talk to my friends and former customers at Mo Bank, all small business owners, and I say, who do you guys use for IT And IT security? 9 times out of 10 I hear we got a guy. I say, what do they do for you? I don't know. And so I think one of the exciting things about that is not only the potential for acquisitions for us, but how this extreme lack of transparency that business owners that have tremendous risk, they don't have any insight into what's being provided to them and how safe they actually are. And we think it's our duty to explain to our clients what their risk level is in IT.
Kelly Scanlon:
And that is so true. You hear people make the comment, oh, when I take my car into the mechanic, I have no idea what they're doing to it and whether I really need to have done what they're saying I need to have done. Well, having that situation with businesses and IT is like being on steroids with it because you've got so much at stake and you really are placing your trust in that IT service provider.
Grant Burcham:
Absolutely, yeah.
Chris Burcham:
I've had conversations with business owners who don't even use us as their MSP, but it's fun. And I mean we literally had a LinkedIn blog post with the title Three Things You Should Understand about your IT Setup: and If You Don't, You Should Ask Your MSP. It's really fun for me and I think our team to educate people even if they're not our customers, about core concepts that they should understand as a business owner, period. Not like, oh, I don't have to know anything because my MSP is taking care of it. There's still some core concepts that you should understand. And it's been really fun because that is ever-changing, as we discussed. It's been really fun to educate people about those things.
Kelly Scanlon:
So what were some of the key factors that led you to CyTek? What made it a desirable acquisition?
Grant Burcham:
Well, at the bank we were always, it seemed at the forefront of hacks and attacks. We as a team took great pride in being best in class nationally at IT security. So I really liked that business. I knew, Rick, the former owner of CyTek, and I called him and this is during the pandemic, not knowing his situation, not knowing what his plans were. And I said, hey, I'm kind of interested in this industry and really like to buy an IT business and an IT security business. But I don't know your situation. I don't know how old you are. I don't know what your plans are. He said, I'm really glad you called because I am 62 and I need to make some decisions about retirement. So the timing was really good. We negotiated and talked for three or four months and then we bought it.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you've been at this now for a few years and you came into the business and then Chris you joined. At what point did you join and why did you decide to join?
Chris Burcham:
Yeah, so I joined in January of this year, so not very long. And I had been running a manufacturing company that I own that was financed by Country Club Bank. Quick plug, Daniel Zinser.
Kelly Scanlon:
We love Dan, yeah.
Chris Burcham:
I'd been running that for several years prior. And so that was about two to three years into the current ownership group at that point. A lot of great work had been done up to that point to get current on some tools and practices and processes. My dad had mentioned, he said, hey, we really need someone who can come in and really elevate the top line, elevate the revenue, keep us going up into the right. It's just as any, I think, small business owner would tell you, managing a $2.5 Million company is a different thing than managing a $5 million company. So there were just different needs at that time. And he said, do you think that you, with your situation with Forte, the manufacturing company that you own, do you think that that's doable? And the answer was yes. We had developed an incredibly strong team over there that I'm extremely proud of, and they really didn't need me anymore. They were kind of self-functioning. They ran the place.
So the prospect of coming over to CyTek and continuing to assist in that growth was extremely exciting. And I'd always been an admirer from afar. I was a shareholder since the beginning and always eagerly anticipated updates. I came from the technology world, so I wasn't a stranger to it. So all of it kind of made sense. And that's kind of the, I guess, long-winded answer of how I came to CyTek.
Kelly Scanlon:
And now you are the CEO and president.
Chris Burcham:
Correct.
Kelly Scanlon:
And you've moved into the chair role, Grant.
Grant Burcham:
Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. So this situation reminds me of where you found yourself in several years ago, Grant, when your father, Tom, handed the reins over to you, so to speak at Missouri bank. Given that, are there any things that you can share with us from that experience that you think will continue to create a smooth transition here at CyTek? Is the same sort of dynamics at play?
Grant Burcham:
Absolutely. First of all, thank you for using the word several and not dozens. But really as I think about it, one of the keys is that our relationship is first and foremost as father and son and as friends. And so I won't do anything. We won't do anything to damage that. That is an absolute.
Secondly, I think having very clear expectations and extreme transparency around those expectations and around performance is really key. So for either of us as we move forward, both in really good times and every business has challenging times, it's how we deal with those, very upfront, very matter of fact, and we knock them out and we move forward. Generally as a mentor and as a chairman, I don't like to look back. I like to learn from it, but I want to look forward. And so that's really the bulk of our energy is. When there are missteps, we address them, we move on and we look forward.
Chris Burcham:
I would echo all of that and say that I think a lot of it is steeped in the foundation of our relationship before I started working at CyTek, right? If we didn't have a good relationship, that's probably not going to work very well. But I was so confident in the relationship we had before getting into the office and taking the seat that I was 100% confident that it would work really well.
Kelly Scanlon:
And I guess that brings me to the next question. You guys make it sound really easy, honestly. I mean, you're both an entrepreneur, so you know what to expect, but there are some family businesses where the relationships aren't so solid and there is a lot of tension and it just doesn't work out sometimes. So as someone who's been through this now twice, Grant, and someone who's also a mentor to other businesses, what advice would you give family business owners who are looking at that, they're faced with that transition to the next generation, but they're just not ready?
Grant Burcham:
I think that goes back to that honesty and transparency around skillsets, around deficiencies and just treating it very matter-of-factly. So our relationship is built on a foundation of trust, obviously, our business relationship, and it's absolute. And that's really a nice place to start. Certainly if there's any kind of questions about trust based on maturity or anything like that in another business, that's when you have to kind of tap the brakes a little bit and give it time. Because often there's no hurry. I mean, often there's great desire to move into the transition, but really at times there needs to be some pace to how the transition happens, there has to be support, family leadership, business support in the area of deficiencies of whoever it is that's moving in. Nobody's perfect, right? Acknowledging strengths, acknowledging weaknesses, and building the culture and the business around those is the key to success. Pretending there aren't any weaknesses is not the way to do it.
Kelly Scanlon:
No, that's going to get you into trouble really fast. And I suppose too that you could bring in a third party facilitator or group of advisors too to help navigate some of those situations and challenges.
Grant Burcham:
Absolutely.
Kelly Scanlon:
As a new CEO. How has the transition impacted CyTek's strategic direction and its company culture, if at all?
Chris Burcham:
No two leaders are the same. You could have two fantastic leaders and they're not going to be the same. They're going to have different styles. I'm going to bring a different flavor. That's just kind of how it works. I think a real point of emphasis for me has been trusting and empowering our team and making sure that everyone feels a sense of ownership over what they're doing. And I think that's been a real point of emphasis and a real kind of hammering the nail in on the culture on that end.
And the other point that I've really tried to instill with our team is a sense of confidence. When I got there, I was so impressed at the caliber of the individuals that we had on our team. I'm sitting here in my seat going, holy cow, I'm surrounded by A players. And I wanted them to feel that and know that and know that, hey, this isn't just some sleepy deal where we're going to kind of punch in and punch out every day. You guys are on the most exciting bus in town, and I'm very lucky to be on that bus with you. The relationships that they had with our customers in a lot of cases, literally over decades, I knew enough to know to not take that for granted and how lucky I was to have that. And it was really important for me that they felt that too, and that they got excited about where everything was going.
Kelly Scanlon:
For a young leader, that's a lesson that's sometimes hard to learn is you have great players, let them do what they were hired to do and get out of their way, hold them accountable.
Chris Burcham:
Absolutely. And the other challenge, and I think this is probably true across any small business where maybe you've had an owner for 20 years and now you have a different owner is just managing through change. And again, I've considered myself that's a different deal. If you've worked at a business and you've done things way A for 20 years, and now you're being told, we're going to do it way B, you need a team that's going to buy in. And I feel so fortunate that we've had a core team that has done that. They've bought in.
Kelly Scanlon:
And that's a great point because they've been through a couple of transitions in a very short timeframe. How do you see the role of IT evolving for small to mid-sized businesses over the next few years? Or you can take it out as far as you want to, and what do businesses need to be focused on to stay competitive?
Chris Burcham:
I think we're kind of in the midst of a larger shift where people are starting to understand that they need to view IT not as a nuisanced overhead cost, but as a required cost of doing business. And increasingly, kind of like I mentioned before, viewing your IT partner as a true business partner, not just a number or a person that you call when the computer's broken. So I think that's one thing I would say is a shift from that kind of break-fix mentality that we talk about to how can we use IT and how can you use your IT partners to actually make your business better.
The second thing that I would say, and we touched on it a little bit earlier, is the increasing threat of cybersecurity concerns. And then with that, the ever-evolving nature of the ways that we defend our clients from those cybersecurity concerns. I think it was 2022, the industry of ransomware crossed a billion dollars. And with that, getting our customers and our prospective customers to understand and change their mindset from, I'm not ExxonMobil, this will never happen to me, to, it's an industry and it needs to be planned for, and you need to be protected against that. And what's great to see is that more and more businesses are coming around and starting to understand that. So that would be the other thing I would say is just the evolving nature of the need to stay protected in your business.
Kelly Scanlon:
And some of the other technologies that you're hearing about right now, AI is huge, and some businesses are thinking, oh, this could be the answer to all of my problems. Maybe I won't need as many employees or any number of things. What's your take on AI and how small businesses can use it? Or can they really, is it overhyped?
Chris Burcham:
My view on that is that AI doesn't replace jobs, it changes jobs. We use AI and have used AI for a while now in a bunch of different areas of our business. And businesses should be using AI in their businesses as far as their technology. If you don't know, and you're a business owner listening to this podcast, you should ask your managed service provider, are we using AI? How are we using AI? And you should understand that. Obviously the tools and the capability of AI will continue to evolve. They always have, and it will become an increasing part of the way technology is set up for businesses. And then I think that's going to create a set of opportunities for people who understand AI and who understand how AI integrates with technology. So like I said, it doesn't replace jobs, it changes jobs.
Kelly Scanlon:
Give us a couple of examples. I think a lot of times when people think about AI, they think, oh, it'll help me write my email, or some of those kinds of things. Give me a few examples that you're thinking of right now about how it can change business processes.
Chris Burcham:
So I'll give you a very concrete example. One of the tools that we use in our security stack for our clients is an AI-powered platform that filters phishing emails. So emails that come in. It's using AI to determine if that message is a phishing email or if it's a spam email, or if it's not, and it kind of just auto 80% of those emails. The 20% that it doesn't, the person, the human being can click a button and say, hey, I think this is a phishing email and then it reviews that. And the AI part of that is that it gets smarter. So every time it looks at another email, it's refining its own algorithm and it gets smarter and smarter and smarter and smarter and pretty soon you've got a really clean inbox. And then as my dad often says, the sleep at night test, knowing that you don't have to worry about the brand new hire in accounts payable clicking on a bad link, and that's AI doing that.
Kelly Scanlon:
So when you say that you think it's going to change jobs, not take them away, are you talking about it'll take the mundane, repetitive kinds of tasks and take care of those and then people can concentrate on more fulfilling aspects of their work?
Chris Burcham:
Absolutely. I think I would actually break that into two buckets. One is yes, that very much where people are not doing the repetitive mundane tasks anymore. And then the other thing is the people who understand the AI powered tools.
Kelly Scanlon:
For example?
Chris Burcham:
In the example I just described, we don't just turn that on and then never think about it again. We have an employee who keeps up with how it works, making sure that everything is functioning correctly with it, looking at other AI powered tools and seeing how we might be able to leverage those and plug those in, would they be a good fit? There's still a human element in determining how we use AI, what AI powered tools to use.
Kelly Scanlon:
So what is your vision? You're here at the helm now, you're steering the ship. What's your vision for the future of CyTek?
Chris Burcham:
Yeah, we want to become the largest MSP in Kansas City. And then as we look out longer beyond that, that 10 year range, we want to become a regional MSP. And I think once we get to that point, we'll have some options and we'll evaluate those at that time. But that's kind of looking at, we talk about three year, 5 year, 10 year, that's where we want to get to.
Kelly Scanlon:
Grant, people know you as an advocate of Kansas City, some people might even say that you're a cheerleader for Kansas City and in particular for the arts community. What are you most excited for Kansas City right now?
Grant Burcham:
I'm really excited about a lot of the development that's been going on. The Kansas City Current Stadium, the extension of the streetcar, which we've seen from the first streetcar line, how much development that brought, potential of the Royals coming downtown, the strength and vibrancy of the Kansas City Art Institute and its feeder into the broad arts community of Kansas City, Stowers MRI, right? The strength of our hospitals. There's a lot of good stuff going on. And I think if you are a little connected to what's going on, you can feel the energy that we have.
Kelly Scanlon:
You definitely can. And what I think is really interesting about what you just said is that in some cities you go in and they're just really excited about a particular industry. What you just rattled off crosses multiple industries.
Grant Burcham:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Kelly Scanlon:
So it's a very well-rounded set of development projects that are going on and just so much potential.
Grant Burcham:
Yeah, consider the power of the Nelson-Atkins, Stowers MRI, St. Luke's, UMKC, Rockhurst, and a potential new plaza owner. Pretty exciting.
Chris Burcham:
I would add onto that actually recently talking to me to a friend of mine from college who doesn't live in Kansas City, but works for SomeraRoad, who's the company who's developing the West Bottoms, and he said something that was interesting to me. He said, we've done a lot of these and Kansas City's, for the city of its size, it's like the last one who has an area like this that hasn't been developed. And that made me think about we are, as a city, I think, relatively late to the game to do a lot of this stuff, but the fact that we're doing it now is super exciting. I mean, he mentioned the stadiums, the development, that's all happening now. And how could you not be excited about that?
Kelly Scanlon:
Grant, Chris, thank you so much for coming on today, sharing your stories, and for giving some of the advice that you did about family business and about IT. We really appreciate that.
Grant Burcham:
Thanks for having us.
Chris Burcham:
Yeah, thank you for having us.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Grant Burcham and Chris Burcham for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. Their story illustrates the importance of smooth generational transitions in business leadership while continuing to introduce innovation that serves their customers well at CyTek.
As Grant, a member of the Country Club Bank Board of Directors, mentors Chris, the new CEO and president of CyTek, we have reminded of the legacy of family values and business acumen that drives our bank's mission. Ensuring smooth transitions and nurturing leadership within families is not only essential for business continuity, but also for cultivating enduring success and innovation. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City, Country Club Bank, member FDIC.