IT company changes business model
When they were both 16-year-old student athletes at Byram Hills High School in Armonk, Thomas Boland and Doug Holdgrafer”™s teamwork on the many sports they played inspired them to go into business together.Â
Since then, White Plains-based information technology company WesTech Solutions L.L.C. has evolved along with its founders in the past five-and-a-half years.
“We were always into technology and we always had an entrepreneurial spirit about us,” said Holdgrafer, who got his start helping a friend”™s father develop and maintain an e-commerce Web site. “I”™m more of a techie, and Tom is really good at managing the business, so it”™s a good dynamic between the two of us.”
WesTech provides IT management services for small-to-medium businesses throughout Westchester and Fairfield counties, and the recession gave the owners the time they needed to take the company into the future.
“It allowed a little bit of downtime in terms of the volume of calls we were getting for us to switch into this new service model,” Holdgrafer said. “We said in December the next six months are going to be the worst; let”™s just spend that time focusing on switching to this new service model.”
In addition to providing IT services for their clients, “we”™re currently transitioning our business model from what”™s considered to be a break-fix model, which basically means people wait for a problem to happen and then they call us, to a preventative maintenance model, which is a more proactive model for managing IT networks,” Holdgrafer said. “We have ancillary services as well, including Web site design and development, e-mail and web hosting and residential services including off-site data backup.”
WesTech charges a flat monthly fee for its services, Boland said. Many issues that arise can be fixed remotely “so we don”™t have to go on-site and interrupt the business.”
“It”™s more cost effective for our clients,” Boland said. “It”™s an intangible thing, but if you sign up for the service you”™ll notice in the long run the business productivity helps increase revenues throughout the year.”
When they started the company, word-of-mouth marketing was the way to go for Boland and Holdgrafer. They moved on to direct marketing; now they have hired two outgoing friends to attend networking events and get the word out on their company.
“We”™re really just looking to grow exponentially at this point,” Holdgrafer said. “We”™ve built a good client base, we”™re revamping our internals and now we”™re just looking to drive sales and grow into the future.”Â