SYRACUSE — A little more than a year after creating a new sales and marketing position to help drive growth, IT services provider Kishmish, Inc. is reaping the rewards, says the man who fills that position. “We’ve had substantial growth,” says Mark Hollingshead, president of sales and marketing at the company. When he joined Kishmish […]
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SYRACUSE — A little more than a year after creating a new sales and marketing position to help drive growth, IT services provider Kishmish, Inc. is reaping the rewards, says the man who fills that position.
“We’ve had substantial growth,” says Mark Hollingshead, president of sales and marketing at the company.
When he joined Kishmish in August 2013, Hollingshead set a goal of boosting sales to $2 million, but surpassed that goal and hit the $3 million mark. A large part of that growth stems from the company landing 87 new clients during that time, he says. As a result, Kishmish (www.kishmish.com) was also able to grow from nine full-time employees to 20. The majority of those new positions are technical engineers and support staff, he says.
Founded in 1999, Kishmish provides an array of network and IT services including carrier services, managed services, and complete outsourced IT services.
Specific work can include running the IT department for a company, creating and hosting a website, or developing interactive digital marketing.
“We’re becoming more of a one-stop shop,” Hollingshead says. Many clients prefer to have just one point of contact for their technology needs, he notes, and Kishmish provides that from phone services to computers.
With that in mind, Kishmish recently launched a new program that already shows great promise, Hollingshead contends. The hardware as a service program makes it easy for companies to have and maintain new computer technology by leasing the computers from Kishmish.
“We’re finding that people don’t care if they own the computer anymore,” Hollingshead says. Leasing gives companies the opportunity to have newer computers running the most current software and makes it easy to upgrade when newer products are released, he notes.
This benefits customers in several ways, Hollingshead says. First, it helps ensure that all employees at a company are using the same software. Oftentimes, when companies upgrade their computers just a few machines at a time, some employees can be left using older versions of software. That can cause some compatibility problems between the older and newer machines. However, when a company leases its computers, Kishmish makes sure all the machines are up-to-date and running the most current software.
The second benefit is that leasing computers takes away the guesswork on budgeting for technology. “Most smaller companies don’t have a line item in their budget for technology,” Hollingshead says. This can often lead to some financial scrambling to replace a computer when there is a problem or a system where computers are replaced at a rate of just a few a year. Leasing at a flat monthly rate takes the guesswork out of things, he says.
The final way companies can benefit is from Kishmish’s expertise in making sure that the employees of clients have the right computer for the job.
Hollingshead expects this new program to help continue to drive substantial growth at Kishmish.
And, Kishmish has an ambitious growth target. “Our goal is to be a $10 million company by 2019,” Hollingshead says.
The company has seen steady growth across New York state, particularly in the Utica, Watertown, Auburn, and Binghamton markets. Hollingshead expects the firm will soon begin looking outside New York for more growth opportunities. Kishmish’s fixed-costs model with remote support makes the company an attractive and affordable IT choice no matter where a client is located, he contends. Currently, Kishmish has clients in 18 different states.
Some of the company’s clients include Syracuse University; Crayola in Easton, Pa.; and Energyworks Energy & Infrastructure Services in Annapolis, Md.
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