Time For A Tuneup

For more than 22 years, SBS Group has provided solutions that revolve around improving business processes in the financial business arena and in sales and marketing. The Woodbridge, N.J.-based company focuses on providing end-to-end technical solutions for companies that vary from $20 million to $350 million in revenue and dot the eastern seaboard from Baltimore to southern Connecticut. According to James Bowman, president of SBS Group, the company grew more than 70 percent between 2005 and 2007. CRN talked with Bowman on the challenges posted by the current economic climate.

CRN: What is your customer strategy?

BOWMAN: Our job is to keep our customers ahead of their competition. We make sure they can take advantage of cutting-edge technology. Most of our revenue is derived from implementations of financial ERP systems and MRP supply chain management solutions. Our focus is there as well as in customer relationship management solutions.

CRN: How is business?

BOWMAN: So far, we are seeing positive growth year over year. Our existing customer business is through the roof. Customers seem to be taking opportunity of this lull in economic growth to attend to things they need to fix but didn't have time to before. They are taking projects that were on the back burner and are now making them priorities to get done. So when growth starts again they'll be in a good position for growth.

CRN: For example ?

BOWMAN: For example, Web integration. A number of our clients are now spending time integrating sites into order-processing systems, so orders flow more smoothly. You don't want to do that when you're running at full capacity and risk losing orders. Also, clients are attending to better financial and management reporting. When there's an economic slowdown, there is a heightened sense of importance around financial reporting. In particular, you want to know where money is going and where it's coming from.

CRN: How are your customers faring?

BOWMAN: We are seeing that our new customer business acquisition pipeline is not as strong as a year ago, but we are seeing that potential clients have a genuine need; they're not just tire-kickers. While the number of opportunities has decreased, we've flushed out the tire-kickers. We'll add customers at a similar rate [to last year] but we're not engaged in as many sales cycles because those tire-kickers are gone. Also, the ones evaluating, say, eight vendors, are now minimizing those to four.

CRN: What technology is particularly hot right now?

BOWMAN: In the ERP space, remote access is growing. Customers want access from different devices, from PDAs and smartphones. People are generally talking about that more than they did. It's about the ease of accessing their own information and finding a service advantage over their competitors. They potentially see that as a way to get business from larger, slower-moving competitors.

CRN: How will you continue to grow?

BOWMAN: We made a number of acquisitions throughout 2006. In 2007, we focused internally.

Now, we're back in the acquisition mode, and there are a couple we are looking at. We're expanding our geographic reach, particularly along the southeastern seaboard. Second, we are looking at practice enhancements, such as SharePoint and virtualization; we are considering acquiring abilities around those areas.