How one small company chose its technology partner.
How one small company chose its technology partner
When Willow Bend Mortgage moved into a new building five years ago, it needed someone to handle the technical details and coordinate its four satellite offices in the north end of Dallas. The company was expanding — thanks in part to the explosive growth of area subdivisions. But with only 40 employees, it was too small to attract big players like IBM Global Services or EDS, yet too large for the neighborhood PC store to handle.
Executive Vice President Craig Schrank organized the search. Schrank had come from EDS, where he worked as a systems analyst and a financial analyst in the commercial services division. Tired of struggling to maintain Willow Bend’s servers — especially in an area where ongoing construction often shut down the network for hours — he wanted a hosted solution maintained in a data center designed for protection and security.
“We seriously interviewed five candidates,” Schrank says. “We didn’t do a formal [request for proposal], but talked in detail about our needs and wants.” Since there was no real brand name in the mix, he ended up relying on word of mouth to make his choice.
Schrank crashed head on into a serious problem facing small businesses: The technology companies you know about, such as IBM and HP and EDS, don’t really want your business. Filling out online requests for information sends your name into a huge pile of leads the large vendors must somehow organize and distribute. As a consultant myself, I’ve dealt with resellers and large vendors for years. I can tell you, the leads delivered to dealers are late and nearly worthless.
Schrank decided on Aztec Systems, a Dallas company with strong references and a local data center, which Schrank wanted. With about 40 employees, too, Aztec’s been in business since 1991 and has about 450 customers, all small and midsize companies. Andrew Levi, Aztec’s CEO, says his firm has found the market sweet spot.
Willow Bend Mortgage contracted with Aztec to handle everything but the telephones. All servers and applications are now hosted by Aztec’s data center, which Willow Bend Mortgage offices access via T-1 lines or business DSL connections. Aztec’s remote access services are built on Citrix technology and provide hosted applications to several vertical markets like real estate. Fault-tolerant systems for user access and application redundancy guarantee availability.
Schrank is happy. “A week ago, construction shut down our power again. Everyone just went home and continued working from there,” he says.
Willow Bend got lucky with a good referral. But many small companies aren’t sure how to find the right technology partner. That’s why Levi and some associates have created the Information Technology Solution Providers Alliance (ITSPA), a non-profit organization sponsored by large companies such as HP, which realize they need to do a better job helping small firms handle technology.
On its Web site, ITSPA plans to list “solution providers” by certifications, technical partners and expertise, and match them to potential clients based on the project profile, Levi says.
ITSPA isn’t quite up and running yet, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Until then, I asked Levi what firms should look for in a solution provider: “Find someone who has done a similar project successfully, remember due diligence to check business records such as legal problems from unhappy customers, and don’t believe their word about technology until you see their shop yourself during a visit.”
