Business: Pace Systems Inc.
Address: 2040 Corporate Lane, Naperville
Phone/Website: 630-395-2260, www.pace-systems.com
Controller: Nick Taylor, 38, of Itasca
Years in business: 41
What does your business do? “We’re an IT reseller and integrator. We sell laptops, PCs, computers, software,” Taylor said.
What is reselling? “A hospital will call and say, ‘We need 500, 1,000 laptops.’ We provide that service. We’ll ship them the laptops. … Most times, they’ll say we want the laptops specific to them. … We have a lab where we rack them up — 90 at a time — that we can blast an image out to. … We provide a customized experience.”
What else do you do? “We offer many services. We do audio-visual in large conference rooms, board rooms. We’ll do security. Access control. People want to swipe a card (for entry). All that type of technology is something we do. … We employ 60 electricians.”
Any work we may know? “We did Wintrust Arena, a lot of the fiber backbone, the cabling that hooked up the audio and visual. Our electricians (were) working on the scoreboard. … Addison Dispatch. That was the first 911 center in our area. A 40-foot video wall.”
How’s business? “We typically fly under the radar, but when I got here, there were 50 or so employees. Now, there’s just over 200.”
How about competition? “I don’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. Competition in IT, it’s constant. … You’re fighting against folks who will sell certain types of hardware. We are big on HP (Hewlett-Packard) for example. We’ve been selling HP for years. … Now you have different brands coming in. People will sell them for nothing. You’ve got to compete with that.”
How do you compete? “Service has gotten us through. We’re agile enough. We’re not that big where we’re going to say, ‘Oh, you just want one laptop? We can’t do that.’ We’ll do that. We’ll send a guy out smiling to help you. That’s what has gotten us through.
“Maybe we get in selling hardware, doing a smart board. We say, ‘We also do this. We also do that.’ With customers, we try to be very ingrained in their business, one, for our own future and security and, two, for theirs.”
How do you find clients? “Referrals are huge.”
What do you do as controller? “Head of finance, accounting. I also lean more toward the IT side in business development. … This is my 11th year. I was doing the same thing before this in the construction industry.”
How often should we replace computers? “Being a finance guy, I like running things till they break. They’ll tell you three years on the commercial side. Not that it will not work. But what do you want it to do? Some people replace them every two years, every year.”
Any favorite stories? “One of our best stories happened with COVID-19 and showed our smaller company’s capabilities. A college called and said, ‘We need 3,000 laptops. All our students will be e-learning. Faculty is going to be home. Can you get them to us in two weeks with our image on them?’ We had shifts in the back working (non-stop) over 24 hours. We were able to image 3,000 laptops and get them out the door. It was easily one of the most involved projects for the entire IT department, the warehouse.”
Is Naperville good for business? “Naperville is the spot to be in the suburbs. There’s easy access to highways, which is important for us. … Happy to be here.”
What do you like best? “No day is the same. When I started here, someone may call in (sick). I’d drive a truck downtown, a day of deliveries. … Honestly, some of my best days. Meeting customers. Putting names with faces.”
What else do you enjoy? “The people. We have people here 10, 20, 30 years. We take a long time to hire folks. ‘Is this person going to mesh here?’ We do two, three, four interviews.”
Anything you dislike? “The hours do not bother me. … I grew up in a family where you just work. I’m on all the time. 24/7. There are a lot of people here who put in extra time to make sure the job gets done.”
What’s your advice for someone starting a business? “These days, everything is immediate. Be prepared to be ‘client-first’ all the time. If you go in with that mentality, you’ll have a leg up.”
If you know of a business you’d like to see to profiled in Down to Business, contact Steve Metsch at metschmsfl@yahoo.com.
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
