Delta, B.C.-based Digitel Systems Inc., a VAR that specializes in telecommunications, has grown from serving 100 clients for over 20 years ago to today serving more than 1,500 customers throughout North America.
Digitel Systems was founded in 1984 as a private company after another organization collapsed due to financial difficulties. David Shaw, vice-president of Digitel Systems, said most of their staff and client base were secured and recruited to Digitel Systems.
“We started out with 100 customers,” Shaw said. “We had access to two product lines from Mitel and Toshiba. When voice-mail became popular, that opened up a new base for us so we also secured a product line with Active Voice.”
The company, which originally started out with a team of 10 employees now has 30 staff members and over 3,000 installations to its name.
Jerry McKenzie, president of Digitel Systems, says the company is financially strong and continues to grow at a slow and steady pace.
“We don’t do business for the sake of doing business,” McKenzie said. “Although we’re showing growth this year, we can’t take on a lot of it without planning our staff for it. With our staff of 30 people, there’s only so much staff and service you can do.”
Digitel Systems offers customers help with the planning, designing, installation and maintenance stages for data and voice system management. The company has customers mostly in the 20 to 50-size branch office market in the Vancouver area, but McKenzie says Digitel is also successful in the hotel, legal, accounting and technology sectors.
The services and solutions offered by Digitel include Mitel’s business telephones, communications platforms, mobility and messaging, Toshiba’s video communication, video processing, and Active Voice’s enterprise and SMB solutions with unified messaging and more.
“We’ve also come out with some data product offerings recently,” Shaw said. “We now sell HP data switches with our solutions too.”
Shaw says what helps set Digitel apart from other VARs in the industry is the fact that the team takes a consultative approach when it comes to servicing its clients.
“We’ve always believed in being more of a consultant to see how the business operates,” Shaw said. “We want to get to know your business and we ensure this is carried out through our highly trained staff.”
Digitel will place a special focus this year on continuing staff education and training, increasing customer satisfaction levels, as well as continuing to look for new vendors and solutions that fit with their clients’ needs and the company’s value proposition.
“We’re constantly looking for multi-site locations and head offices and new businesses,” McKenzie said. “We also want to continue to grow internally as a company by educating our staff because education is the biggest thing. We’ll also be using more Web based training tools to help with this.”
Also lined up for this year, McKenzie says, is more collaboration with its customers using voice calls and other online services.
