Gary Palardy | President and CEO, Blue Moon Industries
1. How does it feel to be awarded the U.S. Small Business Administration small-business person of the year for Rhode Island? It was quite a surprise and very humbling. There’s also a bit of a feeling of validation, sort of like getting a good performance review. I was nominated by Joe Hindle at Coastway Community Bank, and they’ve been a partner. I think the world of the SBA. A lot of small businesses wouldn’t get started without them because they provide a safety net to help business grow. … Coastway and the SBA stood by us and really saved our business.
2. Tell our readers briefly about Blue Moon Industries and the services you provide. Blue Moon has two complementary facets: a systems integrator for Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) and a software company developing add-on modules for Dynamics GP, as well as providing custom software-development services. We focus primarily on manufacturing and distribution companies.
3. What’s most challenging about this line of work and working in such a specific and unique industry? Balancing schedules, priorities, etc. When a company makes a decision to implement or upgrade their ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, or need to improve or expand how they utilize it, the project timeline is very often driven by the business cycle or a specific strategic need. … We work as an extension of their information-systems team, so their timeline is our timeline.
4. What would you attribute your success to over the years? Having a great team. [Our team members] not only have strong knowledge and skills but are genuinely committed to customer success. Another important aspect is our internship program. I’m a passionate believer in internships, and am a product of that myself. We have a particularly strong relationship with Rhode Island College. … Half of our team started with Blue Moon as interns.
5. How would you like to grow, or sustain Blue Moon Industries? I would like to bring our software products to other midmarket ERP systems. There is significant demand for five to six of our modules, so we will be growing our software-engineering team to give us the bandwidth to broaden our marketplace. In conjunction with that, we will grow our professional-services team to support the implementation of our products across multiple platforms.