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Company in the Spotlight: Attending to every need Full-service strategy fuels XiTech's rapid growth
Sunday, June 18, 2000 By Stephanie Franken, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A computer network resembles a human body, to an extent. Its central nervous system, organs and appendages all function together, but any of them can act up. On occasion, the whole system fails.
If a malfunctioning computer network is like a sick person, then the people at West Mifflin-based XiTech Corp. aim to be a one-stop shop for wellness.
XiTech's partners and employees diagnose a company's technology problems or needs. They also act as surgeons who make repairs or replace parts in a network. They work as personal trainers, too, teaching users to keep the system running smoothly. And they stay close to the phone, just in case a problem crops up later.
The company's 11 partners believe that their industry experience, their highly trained employees and the range of services they offer set them apart in the increasingly crowded Information Technology arena.
And they say the loyalty of their 1,500 clients in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere in the United States is testament that their multiservice approach works.
So is XiTech's rapid growth, which earned the 5-year-old company a spot last fall on the Pittsburgh Technology Council's annual list of the region's 50 fastest-growing tech concerns. Last month, the 125-employee concern broke ground on a new headquarters in Carnegie.
As with high-end health care, XiTech charges more for what the company insists is better service.
"We'll never be the cheapest, but we're one of the best, if not the best," boasts President James E. Sommer.
XiTech has installed computer networks for big clients such as AT&T and Adelphia Communications, as well as smaller clients such as Freeport Trucking.
Planning Technologies Inc. hired XiTech to help install a wireless network under a tight deadline. "I don't know how they do it, but they always seem to get the job done well," said Fred Hronicek, a managing director at PTI.
XiTech's emphasis on treating clients well has become the hallmark of their business -- as well as a key strategy behind its growth.
As hardware prices fall, computer consulting firms cannot earn as much through sales alone. So by developing customer relationships based on providing the full range of products and services, XiTech has been able to offset the downward momentum in computer hardware prices, Sommer said. Some consulting firms learned this lesson too late, he added.
When the partners started their business five years ago, they decided that each would take his or her skills to form a segment of their business. For example, partner Allen Prevade had expertise in training network administrators, while Sommer was a network solutions whiz and Chief Financial Officer Bob Haller knew number-crunching.
Business:Information Technology solutions that include network consulting and implementations, Microsoft Windows NT training and consulting, and client-server systems design, integration, and implementation.
Headquarters: Currently at 345 Regis Ave., West Mifflin. New headquarters, under construction at 400 Lydia Street, Carnegie, will open in early 2001.
History: Founded in 1995 by 11 partners who now manage the company.
Employees: 125
Web site: www.xitech.com
On top of their skills, each partner put personal assets on the line when they started XiTech, offering their homes and cars as collateral for a loan. So they were more than relieved to see XiTech grow at a rate of 40 percent annually, hitting $42 million in sales in 1999.
Although their growth may resemble some technology companies' overnight successes, XiTech's founders stress that they have a more solid foundation than many high-tech firms.
"We're an old-fashioned hardware developer working in a high-tech industry. We're meat and potatoes in terms of what we provide for the marketplace," Sommer said.
And because XiTech markets its employees' expertise, it rarely hires inexperienced workers. That has presented some problems, given its rapid growth and the soaring worldwide demand for high-tech workers.
XiTech has tended to find workers in the same manner it's found clients -- through word of mouth. "But that can only take us so far," said Prevade. He noted the company increasingly has turned to search firms, Internet job listings and subcontracting to find the people it needs..
One XiTech employee who was hired after doing some work for the company, Information Technology Specialist Steve Sarrick, trains XiTech clients' network administrators in Microsoft and Lotus. When he's not doing that, he helps install and repair companies' networks.
So, in a way, Sarrick acts as both surgeon and personal trainer.
"Everyone operates on both sides of the business, which is beneficial to our clients and to us," he said. "If we're not training, then we're learning."
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