ENDICOTT — In response to recent client growth, a company focused on information-technology (IT) support services has expanded its employee count and wants to grow further. ICS Solutions Group has hired 10 new employees in the past month or so to work in seven areas of operation. Endicott–based ICS also added two other employees within […]
ENDICOTT — In response to recent client growth, a company focused on information-technology (IT) support services has expanded its employee count and wants to grow further.
ICS Solutions Group has hired 10 new employees in the past month or so to work in seven areas of operation.
Endicott–based ICS also added two other employees within the past few months, increasing its employee count nearly 20 percent, the company said in a news release it issued Feb. 3.
The firm currently has about 75 employees following the recent hires, says Kevin Blake, co-owner of ICS Solutions Group.
Most ICS employees work from the Endicott office at 111 Grant Ave. The company also has 17 employees in its Syracuse office at 2518 Erie Boulevard East in Syracuse, according to Blake.
Blake owns the company along with Travis Hayes, he says, adding that he is the firm’s majority owner.
“We generally are an outsourced IT department,” says Blake, who spoke with CNYBJ on Feb. 8 from the Endicott office.
New employees
The new hires are filling roles that include system engineers and network engineers. “We’re constantly looking for … people that already have experience in those roles,” he notes.
Difficulty finding employees who already have experience is what’s “slowing our growth down,” says Blake.
ICS also added account managers and an outside sales representative among its recent hires.
ICS Solutions Group anticipates an additional 25 percent growth in both employees and revenue during 2016, according to Blake.
Blake declined to disclose revenue totals for ICS Solutions Group, but notes his firm has generated revenue growth annually over the past decade.
“We’ve been growing roughly 22 [percent] to 27 percent year over year since 2005,” he says.
Blake expects to hire another 14 to 16 people. “We’ve already hired three [in 2016],” he notes.
ICS is adding employees because it is adding new clients, and some of its existing clients are growing, says Blake.
“Even though [companies] are moving their applications to the cloud, we’re still managing that whole infrastructure and managing how they’re connecting to it,” he adds.
The word “cloud” often refers to the Internet, and more precisely, to some datacenter full of servers that is connected to the Internet, according to the definition for cloud on pcmag.com, the website for PCMag, an online source for “labs-based product reviews, tech news, [and] buying guides.”
“We’re seeing a huge uptick in customers calling us looking for help. There’s a lot of work out there,” says Blake.
Clients
ICS Solutions Group serves about 500 clients, including 150 “managed clients” for which the firm is handling “everything.”
The company’s customers are all located within a three-hour radius of either the Endicott or Syracuse office, he notes.
The client base also includes companies in northern Pennsylvania in communities that include Sayre, Towanda, Montrose, and Susquehanna.
Blake estimates ICS Solutions Group generates about 15 percent of its revenue from Pennsylvania clients.
The company’s customers include Modern Marketing Concepts, Inc., Wagner Lumber, Fastrac Markets, Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare, and Associated Gastroenterology of Central New York, P.C.
Its client base in the medical field is “very large,” he says.
Blake also recently announced that ICS, which launched in 1986, is looking at both Elmira and Oneonta as its next areas for company expansion.
“We’re working both territories with outside sales [representatives], and we’re currently working on a merger or getting our own presence in Elmira,” he adds.