In 2000, Anne Bisagno and Tom Snyder founded Xantrion with a clear vision: building a people-focused IT services company. Twenty-five years later, our growth tracks the same pressures our clients faced: rising regulatory requirements, tougher security expectations, and increasingly complex IT environments. The Xantrion timeline shows how we adapted as technology moved from basic infrastructure to mission-critical operations and eventually to compliance-driven architecture, where auditability, access controls, and documentation became core design requirements. Those shifts continue to shape how we approach today’s challenges, including emerging questions around AI adoption in regulated industries.
The Early Years: Building Xantrion During Simpler IT Times
Founding Xantrion to Solve Practical IT Problems
We launched Xantrion as a staffing agency during the dotcom boom, drawing on our experience from Fortune 50 companies and management consulting firms. When the dotcom bubble burst in 2001-2002, we saw what small and medium-sized businesses really needed: reliable IT support. That reality prompted us to pivot. We became an IT services company built on responsiveness and hands-on problem-solving. Our focus was straightforward: keep systems running and build relationships that lasted.
What IT Looked Like Before Compliance Became Central
In those early years, our clients ran on-premises environments with relatively contained infrastructure. Regulatory mandates existed, but they didn’t drive IT decisions for our mid-market organizations. IT primarily meant infrastructure: servers, networks, and support tickets. Businesses didn’t yet evaluate technology decisions through a risk-management lens. Security mattered, but it hadn’t become the organizing principle for how we delivered services.
Growing With Clients as Technology Became Mission-Critical
From Break-Fix to Managed IT Services
Between 2003 and 2010, we introduced Complete Care, a comprehensive, proactive, fixed-cost support service. Our shift from reactive break-fix to proactive managed services mirrored a broader change in how clients depended on technology. Technology downtime was no longer just an inconvenience; businesses needed consistent uptime and standardized solutions. We built best practices and technology standards to help clients reduce disruption and boost productivity. We moved from “fixing what breaks” to “preventing problems before they happen.”
Expanding Industry Expertise in Regulated Environments
During this time, we started working more closely with clients in the legal, healthcare, and financial services industries, where compliance requirements were tightening. Those early experiences taught us that IT strategy had to account for industry-specific constraints. Supporting a law firm’s document management system or protecting client data for financial services firms requires understanding not just the technology but also the regulatory context around it.
When Compliance and Security Redefined IT Expectations
The Rise of Regulatory Pressure on Mid-Market Organizations
Between 2010 and 2020, regulatory expectations changed what IT meant for our clients. Data protection, privacy requirements, and audit readiness became standard expectations rather than specialized concerns. IT stopped being purely technical and became a compliance enabler. Organizations needed documentation, controls, and proof that their systems met specific standards. We introduced our vCIO (Virtual Chief Information Officer) service during this period because we realized clients needed strategic guidance, not just technical support.
Security, Availability, and Accountability Take Center Stage
As regulatory pressure grew, clients stopped accepting assurances and demanded evidence. Monitoring, documentation, and controls became essential parts of what we delivered. As we advanced alongside client needs, we earned recognition as a top Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) and a place on the Channel Futures MSP 501 list. Security wasn’t a separate service; we integrated it into how we designed, maintained, and evaluated clients’ IT infrastructure.
Navigating the Post-2020 Shift: Complexity, Risk, and Scale
How Remote Work and Cloud Adoption Changed Everything
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes that were already underway. We transitioned to a distributed workforce model while helping clients complete cloud migrations that once took years, now happening in months. Employees working from home expanded the organization’s attack surface. Operational complexity increased as organizations began managing hybrid environments. These included on-premises systems, cloud services, and remote access requirements.
Rising Client Expectations Under Tighter Regulatory Scrutiny
Clients in regulated industries faced faster response times, stronger governance expectations, and greater accountability demands from their IT partners. Rapid infrastructure changes, combined with tighter regulatory scrutiny, meant organizations needed partners who understood the technical and compliance implications of every decision. Our work with financial services firms, life sciences companies, and healthcare organizations meant balancing innovation with risk management.
AI as an Emerging Shift in Managed IT Services
AI represents another technology shift that requires the same disciplined approach we’ve applied to managed services and cloud adoption. Most organizations are already experimenting with tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, but usage remains uneven and hard to govern. In response, we introduced the AI Enablement Sprint to help organizations adopt AI more methodically. This work focuses on shared prompt libraries, clear usage guidelines, and hands-on enablement to make AI adoption intentional rather than ad hoc.
Why AI Changes Governance and Risk Considerations
AI introduces new questions around data access, oversight, and security that matter especially for regulated industries. When employees use AI tools, questions come up: what data can be shared? How should you review outputs? Who’s accountable for AI-assisted decisions? For financial services firms managing client assets or life sciences companies protecting intellectual property, these aren’t abstract concerns. Governance frameworks need to address AI usage the same way they address cloud services or remote access, with clear expectations and documented controls.
Xantrion’s Current Role in AI Readiness and Oversight
Organizations need AI systems that they can explain during audits and risk assessments, not just tools that boost productivity in ways leadership can’t evaluate or control. We’re here to advise your business and help you prepare. Our AI Enablement Sprint helps your organization establish centralized prompt libraries, aligned to defined internal safety standards and governance policies, and develop usage guidelines that set clear expectations. We focus on evaluation, governance planning, and alignment with your organization’s existing security and compliance requirements.
What 25 Years of Change Has Taught Xantrion
Technology Changes, but Client Needs Stay Grounded
Certain client needs have stayed constant despite shifts in technology: Reliability matters; systems need to work when clients need them. Accountability matters; someone needs to be responsible when problems occur. Trust matters, and you build it through consistent performance over time, not promises about the future. Whether we were managing on-premises servers in 2005 or handling AI governance in 2025, these fundamentals haven’t changed.
Why Experience Still Matters in a Rapidly Changing IT Landscape
Our 25-year history gives us institutional knowledge that helps identify patterns across industries and technology cycles. Understanding how clients in financial services navigated cloud adoption informs our approach to AI readiness. Recognizing when compliance requirements are about to shift lets us help clients prepare rather than react. Long-term partnerships mean we understand your organization’s infrastructure history, risk tolerance, and business objectives, which are critical when evaluating new technologies. Our experience gives us perspective on the most effective ways to navigate changes.
Lessons From Xantrion’s 25-Year History of IT Change
Our quarter-century journey is a story of adaptation rather than disruption. Tools have changed from on-premises systems to cloud infrastructure to AI-enabled workflows, but our role has stayed consistent: helping clients navigate complexity with clarity and confidence.
The regulatory pressures that shaped our evolution continue to drive client needs today. As new technologies emerge, organizations will continue to need partners who understand both the opportunities and the risks. After 25 years, our experience shows that successful technology adoption isn’t about moving fast; it’s about moving thoughtfully, with the right governance and support in place.
