When Centre Technologies went looking for an acquisition recently, it wasn't hunting for particular skillsets or locations.

Instead, it was looking for people, said Chris Pace, CEO of the Houston-based solution provider, which last month acquired managed services provider Architel, based in Dallas.

Centre Technologies already had an office and a network operations center in Dallas, but really needed to fill out its ability to offer 24/7 support to its managed services clients, Pace told IT Best of Breed.

"We offer clients 24-hour support, but have not had the staffing we need," he said. "This acquisition expands our solutions to customers. By being staffed 24/7, we can now respond quickly to alerts as well as let our people enjoy their time off."

Texas has few managed services providers staffed around the clock despite this being an important part of supporting customers, Pace said.

"People are hard to find," he said. "We're always wanting to improve our offerings to customers. With the acquisition, we look forward to enhancing our products with people whose culture is similar to ours and who share our core values."

Solution provider executives who have been involved in acquisitions have emphasized the importance of culture and people in bringing two companies together.

Both Centre Technologies and Architel have similar skillsets, and both have enterprise and data center experience, Pace said.

With its acquisition of Architel, Centre Technologies will grow its headcount by 40, which includes Architel's entire staff and upper management, he said.

Architel is not Centre Technologies' first acquisition. The company in February acquired Tradentrix, a Houston-based cloud and managed services provider which brought it experience with hosted VoIP and IPC trading turrets, which are specialized phone systems used by financial traders.

That earlier acquisition brought Centre Technologies valuable experience it applied when looking at Architel, Pace said.

"There are always lessons to be learned with an acquisition," he said. "You need to make sure you understand all the good parts of the company being acquired. You don't want to change anything that works. But there are always mistakes. With your first acquisition, it's easy to just jump in without thinking about how to create a single company."

For now, Centre Technologies will probably not pursue additional acquisitions while it integrates Architel into the company, Pace said. "But in the long term, we will probably do more acquisitions to expand our footprint in Texas and Louisiana."

Pace declined to discuss financial terms of the Architel acquisition other than to say it his company didn't have to go outside for financing.