and Vincent DiPippo.
(Tom Croke)
Company: FOCUS24
Location: 575 Park Ave., Cranston
Web address: www.focus24.com
Owners: Vincent J. DiPippo, Gerald Giacobbi and a silent partner
Employees: 17
Established: 1996, as Sytex Systems
Annual sales: WND
They’re ready for anything.
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FOCUS24 is a security company that really looks like one – its network operations center (NOC) is located in the American Alarms building, which was built in the 1970s for a traditional security company by a member of the civil defense and a former agent for FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency. It’s a fallout shelter. There’s a security pole outside the front door that would withstand a collision with a DC-10.
FOCUS24 is prepared.
The FOCUS24 NOC is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days each year, to provide customers with what they refer to as M3R: Remote Measurement, Monitoring, Management and Response.
The central MPOP (management point of presence) monitors each customer’s computer system from the inside out and converts the signals it receives into a form that staff who are monitoring can read, appearing as text messages listing the nature of the problem and whom should be contacted.
The company’s proprietary software monitors clients’ computer systems, but also traditional security such as fire alarms and burglar alarms.
But FOCUS24 is a lot more than just a security company – it also offers clients IT planning, eBusiness Infrastructure planning and implementation and development and support for Web-based applications.
The company was founded in 1996 by vice president of technology and infrastructure Vincent DiPippo and executive vice president of client services Gerald Giacobbi as Sytex Systems. (The company’s recent name change was to better reflect the company’s mission of 24 hour monitoring.)
“Very early on we knew we were good at networking,” said DiPippo who is a 3Com Wizard, a Certified Silicon Graphics Unix Engineer, a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and a Certified Unicenter Engineer. “Then we decided that we wanted to branch out into systems.”
DiPippo founded relationships with Computer Associates, Silicon Graphics, International Business Machines, Cisco Systems, 3Com, and Microsoft.
Systems lead to data presentation (Internet and Web applications) and enterprise management (technical assets).
“Those focus areas really drove our business for a while,” DiPippo said.
Today, the company sets as its focus a triad of primary services, each of which, DiPippo said, complements the others: eBusiness infrastructure, Web development and monitoring management.
“We want to help our customers manage their infrastructures, but their processes as well,” said Chris Dyson, director of business development.
Dyson is responsible for guiding the long-term business direction of the company. Prior to joining FOCUS24 Tyson was owner of an IT consulting firm.
Director of commerce Roger Benson came to FOCUS24 by way of A.T. Cross, where he was director of IS.
“I was a customer,” Benson said. “I understood because I was an IS director for many years. You can do wonderful things for a company, but if your e-mail is down, you’re ruined. If your operation doesn’t run, then you really can’t do the value-added tools for a company. “
Benson acknowledged that hiring an outside agent to handle your company’s IT infrastructure can be a difficult decision to make.
“I don’t think that companies manage IT really well internally,” said Benson. “They don’t know who to hire – you can’t understand what you need unless you have the skills yourself. Companies need to have a partner that provides what a network can do for them, but using an external technology company is a really important decision for a business to make.”
That Benson can provide a viewpoint from “the other side” is an asset to the group, according to DiPippo.
“Roger brings an unbelievable perspective of what a client wants,” he said.
“I was in their shoes for a long time,” said Benson.
“You know when a company is ready for us?” Giacobbi said. “When they’ve tried several things that don’t work and they say ‘I need to call someone who can put this into perspective for me.'”
The company is also working with several health care providers to make them compliant with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The 1996 passage of HIPAA is having a tremendous impact on the health care industry, and compliance must be completed by February 1, 2003.
In short, the act is intended to encourage the use of electronic transmission of claims and information and to reduce the complexity, duplication and cost of administering health care by requiring all providers and organizations to use the same standard formats.
“There are some areas of that business that are very natural for us: security, encryption” said Benson.
But DiPippo was quick to assert: “We’re not rushing into a HIPAA gold rush.”
DiPippo said that the compliance will be an ongoing process, and as FOCUS24 refines its solutions it will likely take on more clients who seek HIPAA compliance.
“We could go in there and give them a handful of cubic zircons, but we’d like to wait until we can give them (clients) a diamond,” said DiPippo.
The group was open about the challenges they face.
“We try to do projects that are strategic and not spread ourselves too thin,” said DiPippo.
Giacobbi is in synch.
“When these companies come asking for us, the challenge is to concentrate on our core competencies,” he said.
“Our goal is to not do everything by changing, but to do everything by adding,” Dyson said. “The key for us is to always stay six months ahead of where we think our clients will be.”
And because FOCUS24 works with clients on so many different fronts, competition seems to be coming from every angle.
“We’re in competition with every single thing that we do,” Dyson said. “It’s every step of the way.”
“I think that’s the very nature of what we do,” said Giacobbi.
Dyson said the company enjoys being in Rhode Island.
“We think it’s great,” he said. “It’s a much easier commute than it is to Boston.”
Most of the company’s clients, as well as a third of its staff, are located in Massachusetts.
“The only challenge with being in Rhode Island is when you’re dealing with other companies it’s sometimes difficult. . .If you ever want to be in a place that is cynical about value, this is it,” said Rhode Island native DiPippo. “But it’s a great state to be in.”
“If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” joked Giacobbi, who thinks that perceptions that might exist about Rhode Island’s lack of high tech prowess might be coming from the Ocean State’s side – not the Bay State’s. “I don’t think beltway companies have any trouble reaching into Providence for help.”
The immediate plan, DiPippo said, is to ease the company into its new identity with the goal of continued development and streamlining of its products so that they may deploy their technologies faster and serve more people.
“We’re in there with the client together,” DiPippo said. “We’re in it with the customer.”
