The Staff of Northern Business Machines
It’s always fascinating to revisit some of our past Elite Dealers, such as Northern Business Machines, particularly if you missed their profile when it originally ran last fall. If you’re a dealer, which the majority of TWII’s readers are, it’s helpful reading about what makes your peers in the industry successful.
Northern Business Machines, Inc.
Burlington, MA
President/Owner: William Tracia
Year founded: 1985
Number of employees: 80
Primary hardware vendors: Sharp, Konica Minolta, HP, KIP, OKI
Primary solutions and services offerings: MPS, Managed IT, Document Management, Cost Recovery
Approximate/Average yearly revenues: $20 million
Biggest sale/win of the past year: A contract with a local private school in July. It was a six-figure transaction and net new business for NBM.
Being in business since 1985, there aren’t many challenges that Northern Business Machines (NBM) hasn’t encountered and successfully overcome. “We have been able to adapt to the changes in our industry that have reshaped our business model over the past 20 years,” emphasizes Bill Tracia, president. “We successfully transitioned first to digital technology, then to business color products and wide-format devices.”
NBM’s early adoption to MPS has been critical to its success over the past five years as MPS now represents 10 percent of total revenue, growing from 0 to $2-million in annual revenue over the past five years. Tracia is hoping to see similar growth in Managed IT services.
“We are just at the beginning stages with Managed IT, but are optimistic that we will surpass $1 million in revenue in 2014,” he predicts. “We have signed more than 20 Managed IT customers in the past two years.”
Customers tend to be small to mid-sized businesses, the sweet spot for the independent dealer channel. Although NBM is frequently competing with OEM direct branches, the dealership has found their clients prefer to work with a smaller, privately held dealership that is based in the community. “We are able to engage our clients on a variety of levels with a broad range of products and services,” states Tracia.
MPS customers tend to be larger accounts while the Managed IT accounts are likely to have fewer than 25 employees.
One area that truly separates NBM from its competitors is its Network Operating Center (NOC), which was added to their facility in the past year. “Customers with printing/scanning issues or service codes are often able to have the call cleared within 30 minutes by one of the Help Desk technicians instead of waiting 2-4 hours for a field service call,” says Tracia.
For IT clients, NBM offers firewall protection, e-mail services, data back-up and recovery, and manages their networks with remote monitoring software.
The past two years have been stellar years at NBM. Surpassing $20-million in sales is a major accomplishment and the perfect punctuation point to 2012, NBM’s biggest year to date as they billed just over $19 million.
“We are currently at 106 percent of last year’s run rate and if that continues through the end of the year, we will hit the target that we established last December,” states Tracia.
We admire the way NBM recognizes individual employee accomplishments. All employees that have been with the company ten years or longer are invited to the annual President’s Dinner. This year, 37 percent of employees were in attendance. Among that group were 15 individuals that have been with NBM for over 20 years. “We are extremely fortunate and proud to have such a talented and loyal staff,” says Tracia.
An Elite Dealer is open minded about new business opportunities and willing to invest resources to enter new segments of the market. That’s another hallmark of NBM. “We still believe in our core business and are able to maintain good margins in MFP hardware and services,” adds Tracia. “As always, it’s important to bring in young, talented individuals that will allow us to continue to grow over the next five years. Although we have never done an acquisition, that’s something that we will explore as part of the growth plan.”
Based on the past two years, NBM is well on track for continued growth, which helps secure its place among this year’s group of Elite Dealers.
