NRI phils network needs
Adam Stone
Special to the Business Journal
MORRISVILLE – After all this time, after all the promises, things stay pretty much the same.
"There seems to be a whole lot of pain when it comes to computers," said Phil Lanctot, Jr. "For small and mid-sized business, at the highest level, what they buy does not do what they intended it to do. Their networks are insecure. They get hit with viruses. Systems are just not as consistent as they had expected."
Bad news for business, but good news for Lanctot, who as CEO of Morrisville-based NRI has helped to build a thriving enterprise by smoothing out the never-ending wrinkles in business technology. Founded by Phil Lanctot Sr. in 1975, NRI has grown from 30 employees in 1988 to 50 today, and revenue has climbed steadily since Junior took the helm four years ago.
As a VAR, or value-added reseller, NRI sells and installs diverse technology systems. Just as important, Lanctot's team dispenses the vital advice that helps to lead business owners through the morass of systems management. Often, it is a crisis that sets in motion the long-term relationship.
"We will hear from a small business where they have been impacted by a virus or a worm, and they cannot function," Lanctot said. After putting out that fire, the NRI team then will help the client to build a more comprehensive plan for protecting its data.
NRI is hardly alone in this endeavor.
"There are probably 90,000 value added resellers in the U.S., covering a wide range of different services, from network services to software to installation," said Betsy Lang, industry director for the solution provider channel at printer manufacturer Lexmark.
By offering a combination of hardware and consulting, NRI narrows that field considerably, she said, since only about 25 percent of VARs deliver this combination of services.
Still, most would consider this to be a fairly crowded field, and the pressure is on for NRI to find a way to distinguish itself in the marketplace.
In part this means differentiating itself from the big box retailers like Best Buy, where many small-business owners are tempted to pick up inexpensive off-the-shelf solutions.
To that end, Lanctot makes the pitch based on service: Even if you can find the right product off the shelf (and Lanctot says you probably cannot) you still will be left to do the heavy lifting on your own. By working through a firm like NRI, "we're going to set it up and configure it for you and make sure that it works, and we are going to do it at your site," he said.
So there is the service strategy: offering more than the retail outlets.
Then there is the depth of knowledge, not in the sense of merely claiming 'we are the best,' but rather as a specific business strategy, a deliberate way of approaching an increasingly complex marketplace.
For 25 years, sales drove NRI, Lanctot said, with a business plan that depended upon moving product out to the customers. In recent years, Lanctot has shifted the emphasis away from sales, toward consulting. To that end he is spending $10,000 to $15,000 a year per technician for training in order to develop a new depth of skills in his engineering team.
"You can buy the products anywhere," he tells potential clients, "but it takes the right kind of people to get them to work."
Then there are the partnerships -- another way of gaining an edge in the marketplace.
Lanctot also has formed strategic ties with diverse vendors, including not only Lexmark but also Bluesocket, a prominent manufacturer of security solutions for wireless networks. Those ties give NRI timely access to products that the competition may not be able to deliver.
"This is a very strategic game for the resellers," said Andy Netburn, director of sales at Bluesocket. "With NRI, they are able to find relevant technology early in the development cycle, and they become advocates for that."
Taken altogether, Lanctot has brought a substantial amount of change. A move from products to consulting. Aggressive efforts to build the internal skills base. Strategic partnership that give the firm an inside edge on new technologies.
Still, these are tough times in the world of technology. The corporate world remains skittish about the prospect of new technology investments, while the price of devices is dropping steadily, thus eating into overall revenue.
NRI has held its own, with revenue inching up from $33 million in 2001 to $36 million last year. Looking ahead, Lanctot said, the company's strategic moves should create potential for further growth once the technology economy picks up again.
"When capital spending starts to come back, we will be positioned in more areas than we were just three or four years ago," he said.
© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc. |
