Datel Reaps A Harvest

atel Systems had a very good 2003.

The solution provider, based in Kearny Mesa, Calif., near San Diego, reported that revenue grew 43 percent to $30 million while sales of its custom-built systems grew to 1,240 units per month, up 88 percent from the prior year.

There was nothing much Datel was doing differently last year, and company President Larry Piland knows he can’t always count on that growth. It all depends on the blips, he says. Unlike some years, where a single large government contract could send his numbers soaring, he attributes Datel’s 2003 growth to several smaller blips.

“It’s something like a farmer who plants seeds, waters them and then they pop up,” Piland said.

Datel has been planting seeds among government, education and business customers in the San Diego area since 1983, providing network integration and training services as well as custom systems. It also has a storefront but mostly stays away from one- and two-unit orders, preferring to farm larger accounts and being realistic with customers about its core competencies.

AD
id	unit-1659132512259
type	Sponsored post

“We’re very knowledgeable about what we do,” Piland said. “So if someone needs something, we try to accommodate them instead of making them work with what we have to offer.”

One customer Datel has focused on accommodating is the Cahon Valley Union School District. The district has been buying Datel systems for five years through a consortium of school districts in northern San Diego County that accepts bids, said Linda Sheive, the district’s IT director. “We’re not limited to the winners,” she added. “We go with Datel because we chose to.”

Sheive said Datel not only offers good service and competitive pricing, but is also very helpful with system imaging services.

With a recent order, Datel was able to guarantee that all of its systems would have the same components and work with the district’s images, she said.

That is the kind of customer that created blips for Datel last year as the economy began picking up, perhaps more so in San Diego than in other U.S. cities. Datel did begin building more servers last year, selling about 25 a month compared with five per month the prior year, and Piland is looking to further increase his server business this year. But mostly he plans to continue farming his customer base, plant a few new seeds and hope for another bumper crop.