SYZAR NET

By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
POLAND -- David Syphard knows when he gains the trust of his clients.
"These are my keys," he said as he tossed his key ring onto his desk. "But half of them are to the doors at my clients' businesses."
His company, Syzar Net, needs those keys -- and the trust that goes with them -- because it functions as the information technology department of many area companies. If a computer system needs maintenance or repair, his company is there.
The relationship goes much deeper, however.
Syzar Net's main mission is to provide software, networking and other services to help companies improve their accounting, customer service and supply management.
In less than two years of operation, Syzar Net has done well enough to win the Emerging Business Award at the Fabulous Twenty Awards program put on recently by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber and Youngstown State University.
Business growth
Syphard said his company's 2001 sales were up more than 1,000 percent over sales in 2000. The South Main Street company, which employs five full-time and two part-time workers, was founded in July 2000.
Syphard said he expected the company's rapid growth because he saw the need for a local company to help businesses improve their computer technology.
He wanted his company to take up where Entre Computer Center of Canfield left off. Entre, the area's leading technology consulting company, closed in 1999 after it was bought by a national computer company.
Demand for consulting work is still strong locally because companies want to use technology to improve relationships with customers and vendors and lower costs at the same time.
The latest software, for example, allows companies to create detailed reports of sales trends, job quotes or other data for internal uses or for customers.
A worker can make such reports in a day, instead of a week, and send them by e-mail, which eliminates printing and shipping costs.
Many companies also are looking to transfer data from old systems to newer ones so they can use the information more efficiently, he added.
Though some of this was done with Y2K computer upgrades, other companies opted to patch their computer systems at that time rather than upgrade with new technology, he said.
Syphard wouldn't release his company's sales figures but said he expects the company to have 10 full-time workers in three years.
Ten would be the optimum number of employees because it would give the company enough talent diversity to be able to handle any problem quickly.
History
Having a variety of talent on staff is important because computer technology has become increasingly complex as companies seek to integrate systems in various areas such as accounting and productivity management, he said.
The rising complexity led to the creation of Syzar Net. Syphard had been operating a one-man business, ICS Computer Services, for 11 years when he realized he needed to be part of a larger organization to adequately serve customers.
After considering joining a national company, he decided instead to form Syzar Net with Daniel Zarlenga, a Canfield businessman.
Other companies were more interested in selling hardware or developing software that could be sold nationally, he said.
"Somebody has to do the day-to-day business of running computer systems. They just don't run by themselves," he said.
Syphard, 44, of Poland, got into the business by selling business computers for Tandy Corp. and the former YBM Corp.
Syzar Net works with a variety of companies, including banks, construction companies, manufacturers and accounting firms.
Most have annual sales of between $3 million and $25 million and prefer to have Syzar Net handle their information technology rather than hire a computer specialist, he said.
Some of the company's clients are large enough to have an information technology person on staff, but they still use Syzar Net because no IT person can be an expert on everything, Syphard said.
Most of Syzar Net's growth comes from referrals, but the company also has used direct mail and mass faxes and e-mails. In the beginning, Syphard solicited business with cold calls and relied on contacts from his previous business.
"Going out and finding the customers is the hard part," Syphard said. "Once they know we're here, and we want to solve their problem, it's fairly easy after that."
shilling@vindy.com