The Transformation of ARG – Part 2

ASSOCIATION RESOURCE GROUP (ARG)
Transformation leader: Greg Praske, CEO
Number of employees: 46
Year established: 1991
Original transactional business model: Telecom agent/subagent/master agent
Post-transformation business model: Voice and data network services consulting firm

How did you make the transformation away from a transactional business model?

We made the transformation incrementally over the past 15 years. One of the first steps was to partner with a PBX consulting firm headed by my brother, Steve. (We merged that company, Paladin, into ARG six years ago.) Prior to Y2K, we were getting a considerable number of requests for advice on how to address the potential hardware issues at the end of the last century. It was an opportunity to add value to our relationships with our clients. From there, we were introduced to the top PBX dealers and VARs in our market. We found that by teaming with those top companies, we could deliver a customer experience that was unmatched. We didn’t have the bandwidth or expertise to handle the equipment side of things, yet we were expert on the network side.

Beyond the partnerships, we began amassing the top talent we could find. We brought in one of the top insurance brokerage account managers to launch a similar effort in our telecom brokerage. Today, 15 years later, she’s our senior vice president. When the CLECs were going under in 2000-2002, we reached out to the people who impressed us at cutovers, in provisioning and with client support. We were able to add truly exceptional, experienced people who allowed us to ramp up our value-add and are playing critical roles today.

We continued to add superstars as we ran into them — a backbone engineer from UUNet, a 25-year Verizon sales engineer, a 10-year Cable & Wireless provisioner, a 10-year TEM president and more. We added top-notch professionals including a CPA, MBA, CCNA, etc. More recently, we’ve added top college grads and young, accomplished professionals from outside of telecom. With more than 500 years of telecom experience on staff, we’re able to develop these smart, dedicated people so that we can enhance our value further.

Last year, an opportunity came our way to merge the customer base of the second-largest telecom agency in our market. With that merger came six highly skilled executives who were able to fill perfectly complementary roles at ARG.

Today, we continue our transformation change by continuing to identify top talent while also partnering with the companies — both VARs and providers — who can effectively deliver the services companies need today and tomorrow. We are intentional about growing our expertise and keeping up with the dynamic and exciting changes that are occurring in our industry.