The Fast and The Furious
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Groupware Technology
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Take a solution provider on its last legs, throw in an exclusive relationship with the vendor that analysts and the press love to bash as most likely to implode, add in a faltering economy and what do you get? The fastest-growing solution provider on CRN's Fast Growth 100 list.
Campbell, Calif.-based Groupware Technology, which saw its sales soar more than 3,900 percent to just shy of $31 million in 2005 from a paltry $767,426 in 2003, almost didn't make anyone's list of solvent companies but for a reprieve courtesy of a group of investors who saw gold in its customer database and in its relationship with Sun Microsystems.
The company, now led by President, CEO, and Sun fanatic Mike Thompson, has staged the kind of comeback only Hollywood filmmakers could imagine.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
In March 2005, Thompson joined Groupware at a time when people there were anticipating closing the company's doors thanks to the huge debt it owed Boulder, Colo.-based Access Distribution. Thompson left an executive post with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun solution provider Helio Technology to join Groupware, he says, because Groupware offered him the top job and an equity stake.
It was quite a challenge to come to a company with low revenue that was nearly forgotten by the marketplace, Thompson says. "We needed to rebrand Groupware in the market to let customers know we are here," he says. "We needed to let our vendor partners know we are serious. And we needed to do that before we could get the credit we needed to run the business."
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The first step in the recovery of Groupware, which was founded in 1992, was to mine its customer list for opportunities, Thompson says. The next step was to rebrand the company and focus on marketing activities.
The results were staggering. Groupware had revenue of about $1.5 million during the first quarter of 2005, but it brought in about $29.5 million in the next three quarters. And, Thompson says, that was done with net new Sun business, not by poaching existing business from Helio or other Sun solution providers.
Going forward, Groupware is looking to expand by opening an office in the Pacific Northwest.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Paragon Solutions Group
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Three years ago, Haydn Hirstine, president and CEO of Paragon Solutions Group, an IBM Premier business partner in Denver, crafted a plan to build a business from scratch by going after "white-space" customers.
White space in the IBM world translates to non-IBM accounts, namely ones controlled by Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, EMC and Dell. That simple, yet daunting mission yielded a whopping 875 percent revenue growth from 2003 through 2005, and Paragon is on track to do $30 million in sales this year, up from $19.5 in 2005, Hirstine says.
"In any given market, IBM has 20 [percent] to 25 percent market share," he says. "Our model from the beginning was to focus on the 80 percent that IBM doesn't have.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
A lot of traditional IBM remarketers and integrators are ex-IBMers who brought over customers and then they get into town and they all start fighting over that 20 percent [of existing IBM business]. I said from the beginning, if we are going to be successful, it's because we go out and replace Sun, EMC, HP and Dell."
Hirstine came to the solution provider channel with some inside information about his new business strategy. A former IBMer himself, his job at the vendor was as a competitive rep focused on replacing competitive products with IBM hardware and software. Because of that, Hirstine says he fully understood both the opportunity and the challenges in converting a customer from a competitive platform to IBM.
Hirstine jumped into the IBM business partner channel in 2003 when he bought Mountain State Computer Systems, a small IBM VAR doing about $1.5 million annually selling Intel-based systems to small businesses. He admits that the purchase was just to get his foot in the door of the IBM business partner community. Hirstine immediately switched the focus of the business from PCs to the full gamut of IBM server and storage technology by hiring engineers who could help customers mitigate the risks in migrating from a competitor's platform, notably Sun and HP Unix, to IBM. "When you convince people to move their technology, you may have a great value statement, but they get concerned about mitigating the risk of changing," he says. "That's where our strong engineering focus comes in."
Hirstine notes, too, that by focusing almost exclusively on competitive wins, Paragon dodges competition from other IBM business partners that concentrate on existing IBM customers.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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NueVista
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To Stuart Emanuel, growing a solution provider business is all about the basics. "It's not magic," says the CEO of NueVista, an Oak Brook, Ill., company that grew its net sales almost 600 percent between 2003 and 2005. "It's about sticking with what works and sticking with the plan."
The plan for NueVista has been to stay focused on IT consulting, professional services and custom software solutions. The company, which was founded by Emanuel and four other partners in 2002, has quickly built a reputation in the software quality and testing space.
It wasn't easy. Emanuel was surprised by how difficult it was at first to become the go-to company for customers' IT needs. "We spent our first year primarily trying to get our name out there in the marketplace," he says. "Most companies didn't want to talk to us at first."
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
But persistence and a sharp eye for spotting where the opportunities lay have put the company on a swift upward trajectory. NueVista targets Fortune 1000 companies in consumer products, financial services, energy, high tech and health care because that's where the money is, according to Emanuel. He also looks for companies undergoing change, whether they're acquiring and so might be expanding their IT needs, or divesting, which might mean a spin-off or a new division to approach. In his view, when looking for companies to target, any change is good.
He also says NueVista has stayed focused on the applications business—not infrastructure or networking—and developed a business strategy practice, which has led to high-margin business.
In its value-added staffing and project work, the key has been finding long-term assignments. He says the company's average assignment lasts eight months.
Last year, NueVista opened a new office in Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is already enjoying the same galloping growth as the Chicago office. The new office did $500,000 in business its first year, says Emanuel, and is on a projected run rate of $2.5 million for this year.
He has no intention of slowing down. "We want to get the business to about $25 million in revenue, which we should do in a few years. Then we'll have some real options."
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Micro League
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At first glance, it's hard to put your finger on just what exactly has been driving the success of Micro League, a seemingly typical jack-of-all-trades solution provider on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles.
Maybe it's the neighborhood's thriving entertainment industry and bevy of small businesses housed in posh digs at nearby Century City.
Or it could be the robust CRM system it has developed over the past few years. Or the 24-hour call center it opened in the Philippines.
Taken separately, there is nothing truly unique about any of those initiatives. Nor is Micro League's business strategy a major revelation: The company strives to groom a loyal base of repeat SMB customers by providing highly responsive customer care, one-stop shopping and a full plate of technical services.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
Still, Micro League has achieved notable growth, with sales rising 538 percent over the last two years to $6.3 million in 2005. President Ned Yousefzadeh, who founded the business 18 years ago at age 21, couldn't single out any one factor, either. "The unique thing about Micro League is we are a complete all-around solution provider," he says.
But the company's growth was not accidental. Yousefzadeh says his company has been laying the groundwork over the past four years. "This was a long-term plan—a lot of meetings, trips to Asia—and we're ready at this point to go after a bigger piece of the market," he says.
The company's technical services have been a part of the plan—from network integration to telephony to network integration and security. Service revenue has climbed from 30 percent of revenue to 35 percent, Yousefzadeh says.
But while its service business is growing faster and is more lucrative than its product sales, the company still views hardware as important. "We don't want the customer to go somewhere else," he says. "Even though hardware might not be profitable, we still gladly sell the product and gladly service it."
Indeed, the company still builds custom systems and is known locally for its printer sales and services sales. But those legacy businesses, while growing organically, are not something the company is aggressively driving, says Leo Shafranovich, who manages the company's sales. "Our strategic initiative is to deliver the best service to our customers we can and provide the best advice we can," he says. In the end, it all seems to come back to the simple mantra of meeting customer needs.
And it certainly seems to be working. Longtime client Antares, Los Angeles, operates its vending machine franchise business on Micro League servers, backs up data to Micro League's data center and occasionally calls on the solution provider for Web development services. "I trust them. I believe in them," says Dimitri Yazbek, IT director at Antares.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Integration Systems
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It was the year 2000, and after 15 years of IT consulting, Terry Keene was enjoying some much-needed R&R time. He'd moved to Scottsdale, Ariz. He was playing a lot of golf. Then, he got a call from his son, Derek, who reminded Terry that he had promised that one day they'd go into business together.
Two years later, Terry Keene was president and CEO of Integration Systems, and by 2004, its second year in business, the company had already achieved its IBM Premier Business Partner status and was growing like gangbusters. "It's been really fun," Keene says. "We deliver IBM's technology, philosophy and vision to the marketplace for them. It's an exciting place to be."
Integrated Systems, Deerfield Beach, Fla., grew its net sales 525 percent, to $11.4 million in 2005 from $1.8 million in 2003. The company has expanded dramatically in its first four years, opening offices in Boston, Atlanta and Puerto Rico. It plans to open another office in the southeast sometime in the next 12 months.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
Keene likes to say Integrated Systems' focus—the "infrastructure optimization" business—is a great space for growth, and the prime opportunities the solution provider finds are companies with server farms running applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Manugistics, all on different platforms. "We can walk in and put all those apps on two boxes, not even half full, and pool all the CPUs," he says.
Integration Systems is very gung ho on IBM and puts most of its focus on bringing incremental revenue for the vendor. "We do mostly competitive opportunities," he says. "We go into big Sun Solaris shops or [Hewlett-Packard] shops wondering whether to move to [Intel's] Itanium or move to something else, and we help them move to something else."
Keene tells potential customers: We can virtualize your infrastructure, optimize your infrastructure and build SOA capability into it. "It's a difficult job," he says. "First, you win their hearts, then you win their minds."
He says you have to win their hearts with cost savings, then you win their minds by showing them how to bring on-demand virtualization technology into their environment. "I tell them, 'I want to be a partner, and I'm willing to earn that status.' "
This year, the solution provider is working to align the company even more closely with IBM. "The hardest part is getting the reps to go outside their comfort zone and find those competitive opportunities," Keene says.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Sword & Shield Enterprise Security
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Being in the enterprise security business and focusing on regulatory compliance-oriented security solutions, it would be hard not to be enjoying solid growth, as the federal government has gotten serious about requiring organizations to safeguard sensitive corporate data on their networks. Even so, Sword and Shield Enterprise Security, a Knoxville, Tenn., security integrator with a staff of 24, has done very well indeed. It grew 442 percent over the two-year period CRN looked at, to $26,959,436 million in 2005 from $4,974,229 in net sales in 2003.
Regulatory compliance-oriented security solutions, such as encryption, authentication and identity management, represent the fastest-growing part of Sword and Shield's business, according to CEO Will Henderson. The company partners with Check Point Software Technologies, Juniper, Websense, RSA Security and Internet Security Systems to bring compliance solutions to market. "All of our security products are based around compliance in one way or another," he says.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
About 92 percent of Sword and Shield's total sales come from security products and 8 percent from security services. Its largest individual client is the federal government, spread out over several different agencies, Henderson says.
Compliance solutions aren't the only growth driver for the solution provider, however. Henderson's financial industry background has helped the company form strong and beneficial business relationships, according to John McNeely, CTO at Sword and Shield. "He understands financial models that will work, especially in partnerships and agreements, and he really has an eye for the number-crunching aspect of things," he says.
One of Sword and Shield's main strengths is the knowledgeable team of sales associates Henderson has assembled over the years, says Juhi Aswani, COO at Securematics, a distributor in Santa Clara, Calif. "They're very easy to deal with, they know their products, and they know the right questions to ask."
Sword and Shield's sales force is also aggressive and willing to dig deep into accounts to look for opportunities to sell solutions, says Anthony D'Angelo, manager of Americas Channel Sales at RSA Security, Bedford, Mass. When it comes to regulatory compliance, companies depend on solution providers like Sword and Shield to help them define their needs and show them how solutions can benefit them, he adds.
Sword and Shield stages regular seminars to educate companies on the need for compliance technologies and also works on a one-on-one basis with customers to understand where compliance fits into their business processes, according to McNeely.
Henderson says Sword and Shield's judicious use of subcontractors has helped it sustain growth without adding staff. This approach gives it the ability to choose subcontractors with industry knowledge and contacts specifically related to key vendor partners, he adds.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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MTM Technologies
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MTM Technologies set out to reinvent itself two years ago when it saw an opportunity to take a road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.
"We saw that there was a void in the marketplace for a midmarket, nationally focused IT infrastructure provider," says Francis Alfano, CEO of the Stamford, Conn.-based solution provider. "The dearth we saw of solution providers comes into full view when you see clients operating their businesses in multiple geographies and having to work with multiple solution providers."
As the company sought to take its expertise in VoIP, remote access and storage beyond the borders of its Northeast focus in May 2004, it brought on Alfano as its top executive, changed its name to MTM from Micros to Mainframes, brought in Pequot Ventures as an investor and initiated a buying spree during which it acquired six other solution providers, a strategy that has led to its phenomenal growth, Alfano says.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
For calendar year 2005, the public company reported revenue of $203.1 million, up 269 percent from 2003, when its sales hit $55.1 million (its fiscal year ends March 31).
Through its acquisitions, MTM has built an enviable portfolio of expertise across vendors such as Avaya, Cisco Systems, Citrix Systems, Microsoft and Nortel Networks.
The end result is an organization with 28 locations, three network operations centers, 720 employees and about 4,200 customers, each typically with revenue between $50 million and $1 billion, Alfano says.
While the majority of MTM's growth has come via consolidation, part of its success also comes from picking the right technology areas to focus on, such as the hot VoIP market, Alfano says.
But perhaps MTM's biggest differentiator is its commitment to its vendor partners, says Bill Burley, area vice president for North American channels at Citrix, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. "They've really made an investment to align themselves with what Citrix feels are key goals," he says. "They invested in engineering to make sure they had Cisco-type folks on staff to morph beyond our presentation [portfolio]," Burley says. In fact, MTM's commitment to Citrix training and certification is unparalleled, he says. "They've got the most certified engineers of any partner [we have] in the channel."
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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The EBS Group
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The EBS Group, a longtime NetSuite and
partner, was founded in 2001 with three people. Now, the solution provider fields 24 employees and is adding about one person per month to keep up with its phenomenal growth, says CEO Scott Jenkins. Net sales for 2005 were just more than $3.6 million, up 219 percent from 2003.
Jenkins says it will be tough to sustain that growth rate, but he's going to give it a shot. EBS, which stands for Enterprise Business Solutions, may be small in stature, but it puts its resources where they matter, he says. And focusing on a handful of vendors lets the VAR concentrate on their wares and what they can do for the customer. EBS, Lenexa, Kan., also focuses on a few verticals—engineering, construction, health care and government, he says.
"Most of our customers are in the 'M' part of SMB," with 100 to 2,000 employees, Jenkins says. Many are interested in offloading some of their IT burden on a trusted partner like EBS, which will host services, including Oracle Collaboration Suite, if they'd like or install on premises.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
"We focused on a limited number of partners," he says. "We picked some niches and concentrated on being the best at them."
Jenkins says keeping abreast of the latest-and-greatest perks in their vendors' technology helps because many customers are not up to speed on that. It is a truism that most businesses focus on their business, not on the potential new IT underpinnings of that business. So if EBS can demonstrate why Oracle 10g or NetSuite 11, for example, can solve problems more efficiently and free up their internal people, that's all for the better.
Most EBS customers come via word-of-mouth referrals—many from Oracle itself, Jenkins says. "In the Oracle world, we're known, and we have customer references. We were among the first to do identity management, service-oriented architectures."
J.E. Dunn Construction, the sixth-largest construction company in the United States with revenue of about $3 billion and 1,500 employees, came to EBS via an Oracle referral, says Kent Immenschuh, director of information services at Dunn. "We were shopping for a portal product, trying to decide which platform to standardize on and had read some good reviews of Oracle Portal. When we contacted them for a demo and an implementation reference, they put us on to EBS," he says.
It didn't hurt that EBS and Dunn are both based in the Kansas City area.
EBS also is notable for having embraced the emerging Software-as-a-Service model. In SaaS mode, vendors and partners forego the big, upfront license sales bucks in favor of a more incremental subscription-based revenue stream. Many VARs were burned in the ASP boom-and-bust, which they see as a forerunner of SaaS, and have shied away from SaaS. However, Jenkins says he believes SaaS could boost rather than erode margins.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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ACS Services
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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."
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
Says Richard Brooks, director of business development at ACS: "Our slogan is 'We're IT for you.' That doesn't cover one specific industry, it covers many industries. And it says we get technology working for them. I always tell our clients, 'Our job initially is to make sure your investment allows you to maximize employee performance.' From there, we enhance that and control their technology network," Brooks says. "It's a pretty simple formula, but it's amazing how good it's been for our services business."
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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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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Network Innovations
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Brian Gregory has owned his network integration company in Olathe, Kan., for about a third of his life—all the more compelling when you consider he's only 31 years old.
The president of Network Innovations, which last year topped $1.5 million in sales, joined the staff 15 years ago as a Novell NetWare technician and hasn't looked back. Gregory became a partial owner of the firm in January 1994 and took on the whole operation about a year later. He has proved a pioneer in VoIP technology: Network Innovations, with just eight full-time employees, was singled out for its work in the banking industry last year by strategic vendor Altigen Communications. Network Innovations also counts Novell and Microsoft, for basic server infrastructure, and WatchGuard, for firewalls and VPNs, among its other key vendors.
Gregory, who says the company has been profitable every year of its existence, credits his clients—the company has 250 customers in total, six of which have been with it since the beginning—with helping show him the way in business even while he showed them the way in emerging technologies. "If you really do care about their business and it matters to you that you do a good job, it takes care of a lot of the problems," he says.
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• Groupware: A Startling Comeback \ • \ • \ • Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off \ • Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining \ • Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales \ • \ • \ • ACS: A Simple Services Formula \ • |
He also joined The ASCII Group, mainly to learn from his peers. "It has really helped me form a tighter partnership with some of these people," Gregory says.
Citizens Bank, which has been a client for about two-and-a-half years, tapped Network Innovations to deploy the Altigen IP-PBX system across 11 locations in Kansas, and the relationship has deepened over time, to the point where local executives consider him an expert on computer safety and network security. "We are comfortable enough with Brian that we have actually had him speak at customer forums that we do," says Paul Newman, a vice president at Citizen's Bank.
Belinda Davis, principal owner of DGR Associates, which has been using Network Innovations for its entire 15-year existence to keep its Web site up to date, maintain its phone systems and introduce it to state-of-the-art technology, considers the integrator an extension of its own business. "Brian has been very proactive in providing me service through these years. He's part of my staff to me," she says.
Joe Holman, managing partner at Holman, Hansen and Colville, a local law firm with about 20 attorneys, says his firm turns to Network Innovations for the entire gamut of its infrastructure needs, including two file servers, and 40 PCs and workstations. "Brian may be younger than anyone on our staff, but he's so far ahead of the curve on service and knowledge that it doesn't make any difference at all. In fact, it's probably an advantage," Holman says.
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
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Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
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•
Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
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ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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•
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Groupware: A Startling Comeback
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•
\
•
\
•
Micro League: Plan For Growth Pays Off
\
•
Integration Systems: Winning Customer Hearts And Mining
\
•
Sword & Shield: Compliance Plus Security Equal Sales
\
•
\
•
\
•
ACS: A Simple Services Formula
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