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Beacon Enterprise Solutions Group, Inc. (BEAC-OTC: BB) |
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May 1, 2009 Issue |
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Formed In Late 2007 Through The Acquisition Of Four Different Companies, Beacon Enterprises Solutions Has Seen Revenues From Individual Customers Go Up From $400,000 To $4 To $6 Million Annually |
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Beacon Enterprise Solutions is a single source provider for voice and data system design, installation and service. Through an integrated team approach, Beacon offers customers everything to make their communications run, from telecom infrastructure design, to software development, to voice/data/security system integration, system installation and maintenance, in addition to long distance, VoIP and Internet access service. Beacon's client roster includes state and local agencies, educational institutions, and over 4,000 companies ranging in size from mid-sized companies to the Fortune 500. While Beacon services customers globally, it is headquartered in Louisville, Ky., and has offices in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; and Mangalore, India. Beacon is publicly traded (OTC BB:BEAC.OB).
Over 19 years of industry
experience; Mr. Widener previously served as Senior Vice President of
Corporate Development and was one of the founding employees of UniDial
Communications / Lightyear Network Solutions, a private company that grew
from start-up to over $220,000,000 in sales within six years. At Lightyear,
Mr. Widener was responsible for Product Development and IT as well as
Mergers & Acquisitions and was the driving force behind several significant
initiatives, including the Company’s unique authorized agent program and its
entrée into the Local, Data and most recently VoIP markets.
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFOinterviews.com, Published – May 1, 2009
Mr. Widener: “The vision for Beacon Enterprise Solutions is to be a company that provides every essential technology that a business today needs to operate, whether it be voice, data, internet, cabling, managed infrastructure services or software. Anything related to IT or communications.”
CEOCFO:
What is your target market?
CEOCFO: What is your geographic reach? Mr. Widener: “Our geographic reach is global. We have a variety of different services. We have engineering design services and infrastructure management services; we also have the infrastructure maintenance and construction side of the business where we actually install the cable and structured low-voltage wiring. We also have an element of our business that installs and maintains the actual technology, whether it is phone systems routers, switches, firewalls, etc. in addition to application development. I would say that under the design engineering and application development segments of our business, we are a global company. We perform these services for companies all over the world.”
CEOCFO: How do you reach your customers? Mr. Widener: “We have a direct sales force. In addition, we have a very robust existing base of customers; over 4,000 enterprise customers, but primarily through direct sales. We have salespeople all over the world.”
CEOCFO: You
certainly have many recognizable names among your customers; why have they
chosen Beacon?
CEOCFO:
What are the most popular things that people are doing today; what are some
of the newer technologies?
CEOCFO: Do you find that customers are looking more for one company to find the solution today than they have in the past? Mr. Widener: “Yes. As and example, one of our customers, a large pharmaceutical company, recently chose Beacon to replace over 40 different vendors for IT cabling and infrastructure management services. They had been a customer of Beacon for about six years. We had performed approximately $400 to $500 thousand a year of design engineering and project management services for them on an annual basis and are now a $5 to $6 million a year customer.”
CEOCFO: You mentioned people are looking for efficiencies today, but given the economy, what has altered if anything in your strategy and the way you approach your market? Mr. Widener: “It is about cost-containment and improving efficiency for our clients. We are focused on that now more than ever. We are doing everything we can to continue to get as much value out of their legacy systems and legacy networks as we possibly can, by the types of services that we offer. They might be able to extend the useful life of their current infrastructure by several years because of our services rather than ripping it out and having to replace it. I would say that one thing that has been modified, given the current economic climate, is our focus on cost containment and improving efficiency for our clients.”
CEOCFO: What is the financial picture like at Beacon today? Mr. Widener: “We are very excited about the growth that we are experiencing for our company today in spite of the economy, and actually we are growing because of what is happening in the economy today. In 2008, Beacon was roughly a $6,000,000 company, in 2009, we’ve give guidance to hit $16 million and for 2010 our guidance is between $32 to $47 million. Very good growth, very solid growth, very profitable growth and we are excited about what lies ahead for us.”
CEOCFO: Are there other services, or do you see more acquisitions in the future? Mr. Widener: “We will make acquisitions strategically as we want to fill in either geographic pockets or from time to time as we identify specific needs driven by customer demand. By and large, our growth is predominantly organic today, but that does not rule out acquisitions in the future.”
CEOCFO: Would you tell us more about the geographic component for certain areas? Mr. Widener: “We are currently engaged with clients in the Middle-East, Europe, and Africa as well as Latin and South America. We perform a lot of design engineering services internationally. For large enterprise customers we actually design their data centers, their physical infrastructures, call centers, laboratories, and factories, whatever it might be. Because of how we brought the companies together to form Beacon, we are now able to more fully participate in the growth component of those projects. For example one of the companies that we acquired, a design engineering firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, generated about $2.5 million a year in design engineering services and project management. They literally gave away over $40 million spend related to the projects that they designed because they only provided design services. Now, with Beacon we can go and actually construct and manage the networks that they designed and realize greater revenue from many of those projects.”
CEOCFO: Your plan of putting the companies together has proven to be a good business model! Mr. Widener: “We are very happy with where we are and what we have done. We are actually now exceeding our growth expectation.”
CEOCFO: In closing, why should potential investors keep Beacon on their radar screen?
Mr. Widener:
“Because of the counter-cyclical component of our business model. The growth
opportunities that we are capitalizing on today are because of what is going
on in the broader economy. Their aren’t many Company’s today in this
position. Its unfortunate that many IT managers and in some cases entire
departments are being let go by corporations. However, networks are going to
continue to have issues and those issues will need to be resolved. Things
aren’t going to come to a stand still because people are being laid off.
Beacon can step in and provide very cost effective, predictable, budgeted
solutions for these clients to manage their networks going forward. Then,
when the economy does recover, I don’t think that we are going to see
companies rush in and immediately hire everyone that they laid off.
Therefore, we have a window here of eighteen to twenty-four months where we
can deeply entrench ourselves inside these enterprise customers and
strengthen our long-term relationships. We are very excited about these
opportunities.” |
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“It is more than just emails, more than just internet browsing. It is now all about voice, data, video, email, internet, and everything including physical security, intrusion detection, access control, and building automation. It is all running over the net today, so these networks become more critical now than ever. In spite of what is going on in the economy today, customers are looking for ways to optimize their networks.” - Bruce W. Widener |
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