The Fast & The Furious
3:00 PM EDT Fri. Jul. 21, 2006
From the July 24, 2006 issue of CRN
Page 9 of 10
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By Scott Campbell  ACS Services hasn't grown its business by targeting new geographies or selling new technologies. Instead, the Easton, Mass.-based solution provider increased net sales 81 percent from 2003 to 2005 by focusing on SMB and services—and letting other people do the talking.
ACS narrowed its focus to 100 percent SMB customers and sought to become the outsourced IT departments for those customers, ACS executives say. Then ACS let those customers spread the word of its success. ACS also makes sure not to force technology on its customers, says William Adams, CEO of ACS. "In my 21 years of experience, I've learned that you can't predict the growth of a [customer's] company. You have to talk to them, extract that information from them, then make a well-planned decision on what upgrade is the best thing for them," he says. "The worst thing you can do is take a customer and fill their need temporarily, and [then] they call you in six months saying, 'The server you sold us can't handle the network.' We try to give them a decision that makes sense, is affordable and also is not throwing good money after bad."
ACS derives only 20 percent to 30 percent of revenue from hardware and software—the majority comes from services, Brooks says. One of its customers is Schneider Associates, a 25-person public relations firm in Boston. ACS was hired when Schneider Associates' previous IT firm changed its business, says Jessica McDermott, director of finance and administration at the PR firm. "IT has always been a real hot button here. We've had terrible experiences," she says. "The biggest thing is I can trust [ACS]. They take things that are way beyond my technical means and explain them in layman's terms of why it needs to be done." McDermott has recommended ACS to several other companies, she says. "[With ACS], we're prepared for what's on the horizon, and we can plan and budget for things we need. If we can't afford something at that time, they provide plan B or C to get to the next step," she says.
The PR firm's monthly plan with ACS allows it to save money, but the flexibility of the plan adds value, McDermott says. "If I don't use my 10 hours [of on-site service] for one month, I can apply it to the following month when we might have [a bigger project]," she says. "They've been wonderful, not only in times of crisis, but they're always looking ahead for what's coming next."
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