Demand Generator: Brad Leiber, Lloyd Group
"We started talking to them about future growth and the topic of phone systems came up," said Brad Leiber, relationship manager at Lloyd Group. "They rely very heavily on their phone system. The way it was phrased to me was that if one of their clients needs something, they go to them and hit speed dial—but if they can't get through to them they go to the next distributor," he said.
The company also was managing two separate phone systems: one at their Bronx location and one at a recently acquired distribution office in Central Islip, N.Y. In addition to providing an enhanced network with servers and a backup system from Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif., the solution provider successfully pitched a fix to the lumber company's communications problems—a Cisco phone system with hosted VoIP service from M5 Networks, also based in New York.
The cost of a traditional VoIP system, upward of $50,000 COO Jeff Honerkamp estimated, was too much on top of the network upgrade. "That's when they brought up M5 technologies and that they had started doing projects with them," Honerkamp said.
M5 brought in T1 lines, letting the lumber company cancel both its Internet and telephone services. M5 brought connectivity, and all Honerkamp needed were switches and telephones. "Instead of buying a whole new separate phone system, you buy a slightly more expensive switch, and you'll eliminate the need for a phone system," Leiber said. "All you're doing is connecting back to M5. They host, own and maintain the phone system."
M5 charges F.W. Honerkamp a flat monthly fee for services, as does Lloyd Group. The network upgrade cost the lumber company around $66,000 without the VoIP system, Leiber said.
The resulting off-site solution has freed Honerkamp to run other aspects of the business.
"As we're growing I'm getting more bogged down with stuff—but I'm not a full-time IT person. With this solution, that's all being done by your vendor. It's also simplified in billing. You don't have to worry about different bills from different vendors from different locations. It's the same cost every single month," Honerkamp said.
After five years of working with Lloyd Group, Honerkamp said that he trusts the solution provider to meet his company's needs.
"It's not like they installed our network and said, 'We don't have to worry about you anymore,' " Honerkamp said. "Anything that's managed for a company our size where you can't have an on-site IT person, it's a great fit," he said.