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| Happy Independence Day! |
Part 3: Challenges and Opportunities
The heart of Coordinated Systems, Inc., veteran-owned and CT-based, (CSI) begins and ends with the professionals who work here. “Each individual at CSI brings his/her own unique abilities to the table. Each and every day we face new challenges, whether it is a support call, a unique sales call, the development of new functionality to stay competitive in this ever-changing world. I have been grateful for our management, who has found a way to keep this company going through good times and bad, facing tough economic challenges,” offered Dennis Vincent from our support and training team. “We are a success because we just get the job done,” added Robert Hutcheon, CEO.
“People here at CSI are always taking on multiple responsibilities and learning new skills. As a small company, we are often thrown into the fire and forced to succeed, which we do,” said Rich Marcia, Marketing Director.
Challenges have been aplenty in the 40 years of CSI. Amidst the recessions we stayed positive but lean. During the hurricane of 2011, we forged on while battling power outages and telephone interruptions. We’ve faced numerous “emerging” competitive threats who’ve all managed to become less prevalent. We’ve stood in the footsteps of the giants of the industry and won because we were more nimble, more cost effective and more open to specific customer requirements and their diverse needs.
“CSI also has a wonderful ability to be very successful in the hiring process, finding people with unique skills and a desire to “go the extra mile” to contribute to the company’s success. It is this, above all else, that I feel has allowed us to continue to be a company that has been able to adapt to changing times,” Dennis added. One of our employees is nearly at “half-life” as he calls it. Our director of development, Dan McGrail, started at the company fresh out of college at age 22 and says, “three more years and I’ll have been here longer than I haven’t”.
Personally, working in a family-like environment means learning quite a bit about your co-workers. You see them through all of life’s milestones: weddings, children, grandchildren, new cars and homes, sports events, etc. “My son, who turns four this week,” Rich said, “knew that “C-S-I” is where his Daddy worked when he was only two years old. “ You also get to experience life’s tragedies with the support system a close-knit family-like organization will provide. Unspeakable events such as 9-11 come to mind. One of our owners, a storied Vietnam veteran, remembers the toils of war as well as the turbulence of an economic downturn. “If you’re to remember anything about CSI, it’s that we are survivors,” he exclaimed.
As we’ve grown, we’ve had to keep up with the growing demands of a similarly-growing customer base. A big part of our ability to keep up has been the addition of our support management system. It’s allowed us to become more efficient and really streamlined our support processes.
Being at CSI for a long time has other perks as well. Company outings are always memorable, whether it’s a hockey game, a trip to the ballpark or a college football outing, the common thread here is work hard and play hard. Every Friday morning the company eats a home-cooked breakfast. We rotate menu choices and dish-cleaning duty. It’s a culture we’re proud of.
Some of the best memories of the 40 years come from our own customer interactions. We still support many long-time customers from the early days in manufacturing. With VO, we’re on 10+ years with a lot of customers, including many global enterprises, recognizable brands, healthcare institutions and a diverse array of other vertical market customers, both large and small.
Thinking back on 40 years brings back many memories and also presents a great sense of accomplishment, laying the foundation for a bright and innovative future. We’ll continue to evolve the Virtual Observer platform, adding features, functionalities and connectivities as our target markets, and most importantly, our customers have demand for them. We’re big on waiting for the industry giants to launch their new buzz features at big prices. We’ll then apply our “simple, effective and affordable” philosophy to it, and disrupt the marketplace with high value and breakthrough affordability.
“We’re certainly researching new technology and new spaces to see where else we can provide value to our customers. I see VO being in a great position to make evolutionary transitions, thanks to our agile development and our ability to stop on a dime and make the changes needed,” added Marcia. “In the recent years we’ve seen VO move swiftly to virtualized servers in many environments, and we’ve created a web-based interface. The global footprint will continue to be flattened, as will our customers’ true cost of ownership.”
Read part one of three
Read part two of three
