ENDICOTT — Five years ago, America laughed at the release of an animated film entitled “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” a story about an inventor and a town where food falls from the sky like rain. For ICS Solutions Group (ICS) headquartered in Endicott, it’s getting very cloudy, but it’s not food falling from the sky. 

Rather, customer demand is raining down, and that is driving the double-digit corporate growth.

The business community is looking to the cloud. In this case, the cloud is not a visible body of water droplets that weather forecasters talk about, but a metaphor for Internet-based computing that allows large groups of networked, remote servers to access centralized data storage and offers online access to shared computer services or resources. For a user, the network elements are invisible, as if hidden in a cloud.

“We see a definite trend of our customers moving to the cloud,” says Travis Hayes, a co-owner of ICS and the company’s chief technology officer. “The traditional model of buying dedicated hardware and depreciating it over time is being replaced by a model where the customer uses a shared cloud infrastructure and pays as he uses it. That means no upfront investment; a company can focus on running the business and not worry about buying and supporting infrastructure.

“ICS’s customers need to have the tools to collaborate among their employees who may be in multiple offices, telecommuting, or require remote access,” continues Hayes. “One of these tools is Microsoft’s SharePoint, which is a Web application that organizes and shares files. Basically, SharePoint integrates the Internet, contact management, and document management. For a small monthly fee per user, companies of all sizes can now afford to utilize this tool. SharePoint has a Microsoft Office-like interface, and it’s integrated with the Office suite. The Web tools are designed for non-technical users. Microsoft offers a cloud-service edition as part of its Office-365 platform. 

“To accommodate the growth in this area, we just hired Michael Piester to manage our SharePoint team. He has experience designing and implementing SharePoint sites including ISO and legislative-compliant requirements, escalation workflows, dashboard reports to analyze ROI and sales, document libraries, and better communications through blogs and message boards,” Hayes adds. 

SharePoint is not the only area experiencing growth at ICS. “We are growing in all areas of the business,” says Kevin Blake, the company president and the other co-owner. “IT-managed services, telephony, cybersecurity, business continuity and disaster recovery, helpdesk services, virtualization services, IP security cameras, and access control are all growing from increased customer demand. Just in the last year and a half, we expanded our office space here in Endicott by 1,500 square feet and in another few weeks we will add another 1,000 [square feet].” 

Blake and two partners own the 40,000-square-foot building at 111 Grant Ave. in Endicott that houses ICS.

Growth and acquisitions
ICS has generated annual, compounded growth of 25 percent since Blake and Hayes bought the company in 2005. (ICS was founded in 1986 as Integrated Computer Solutions.) “We saw opportunities to grow this company by being proactive, not reactive. Instead of waiting for a crisis, we introduced a menu of support plans. ICS had four employees in 2005; by 2010 we employed 27, and today the number is 66, of whom 55 are IT consultants. Our growth has been both organic and through acquisitions. In 2010, we bought Microtech in Syracuse, which gave us a second location. ICS is currently in negotiations for two more acquisitions which would give us additional office locations to serve 750 clients. Our territory has expanded from the Greater Binghamton area to Elmira, Rochester, Syracuse, the Mohawk Valley, and [the Northern Tier of] Pennsylvania.” Hayes adds: “We also have followed our customers to Buffalo, the mid-Hudson Valley, and even Ireland.” The Central New York Business Journalestimates that the company generates $10 million to $12 million in annual revenue.

“The only thing that hinders our growth is finding qualified employees,” notes Hayes. “I’m not as concerned about finding tech-savvy people as finding those who have warm-fuzzy qualities. I need employees with the intangibles, who can interact with our customers. We can help to groom them, but they have to come with the right attitude and communication skills.”

Blake and Hayes see a bright future for ICS. “The industry is moving toward business intelligence, observes Hayes. “The back end of SharePoint is a database, and now customers want to tie the databases together. They understand that they have a tremendous amount of information at their fingertips to guide their businesses and to help them grow. We’re dealing with the early adopters of the cloud, and there is still a lot of educating required, but the trend is clear: business is moving to the cloud and that’s good for our growth. In a way, ICS is recession proof. In bad times, like the recent recession, customers outsource their IT; in good times, they buy our services. The cloud gives them peace of mind and the ability to collaborate.”

Blake is a 1992 Maine–Endwell High School graduate who started working at ComputerLand in 1990. He graduated from SUNY Oswego in 1996 with a degree in business. He started working full time at ICS two days after graduating college. Hayes graduated from Alexandria Central High School in Jefferson County and met Blake at SUNY Oswego. He also graduated in 1996, with a degree in political science and history, and started his career at Eastman Kodak in Rochester. Hayes joined ICS in 1999. In its Aug. 8, 2014, edition, The Central New York Business Journal ranked ICS Solutions Group first among Central New York computer/IT consultant companies. The ranking was based on the number of IT consultants on staff.                 

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com