PBN 2021 Fastest Growing Companies Awards
$250,000 – $5 million: 1. Signal Solutions Inc.
CEO (or equivalent): Thomas Bastianelli, president of managed services; Matthew Vincent, president of carrier services
2020 Revenue: $615,795
2018 Revenue: $60,939
Revenue growth: 910.5%
“We live and breathe tech ‘nerdiness’; we’re all geeks at heart,” said Thomas Bastianelli, president of managed services for Signal Solutions Inc.
Bastianelli co-owns the Warwick-based information technology services company with Matthew Vincent, president of carrier services. Serving as a dedicated department for businesses that don’t have in-house information technology resources, the company also offers telecommunication support.
Signal Solutions’ clients, scattered throughout New England, are typically small or midsized companies, such as accounting firms, car dealerships and medical practices. Having worked together earlier in their careers, Bastianelli and Vincent teamed up in January 2016 to launch the company, which now employs five people.
Vincent attributes the company’s 910.5% revenue growth from 2018 to 2020 to several factors.
“First, by always being customer service-focused, we hire talent; we don’t just hire to fill a seat,” Vincent said.
By hiring people with the relevant technical skills, 75% of these problems are resolved upon the clients’ first call, rather than routing clients’ problems from employee to employee, as often happens in large IT departments using a Help Desk as the first point of entry. This creates “happy clients; some 80% to 90% of our business comes from other clients,” Vincent said.
Finally, Signal Solutions has created strong informal referral partnerships with local telecommunications companies, including Cox Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and Rhode Island Telephone.
“We provide a consistent level of support for clients’ needs,” Vincent said. “After we’ve evaluated the telecommunication needs of new clients, we can refer them to the appropriate carrier. And, when those companies have clients with IT needs, they refer them to us.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, the company’s project work ceased, which was initially unsettling. A few months later, however, companies that hadn’t invested in their technology needed to implement changes, including work-from-home technology, which provided Signal Solutions with business.
“We understood the challenges companies faced in managing a difficult year. As a goodwill gesture, we didn’t charge our restaurant industry clients from March to December 2020, but we still provided them with our services,” Bastianelli said. “They had no revenue coming in but still needed those technology upgrades.”
In late 2020, Signal Solutions relocated from Johnston to Warwick, to be closer to many of its clients, and hired PMC Media to help with social media, marketing and to redesign its website.
Acknowledging that Signal Solutions isn’t the only IT company around, Bastianelli reiterated how beneficial the company’s first-call resolution of problems is for clients.
“We hire people who can solve our clients’ problems so they can focus on their core business,” Bastianelli said.
“Signal Solutions’ close relationships with telecommunications companies make us attractive to clients, too. A bank was having issues with its phone systems. Its IT partner blamed the phone system, while the one vendor blamed the IT system,” Vincent said. “When we have a client with a problem, we sit down and figure out what’s going on so we can minimize their downtime. We want to make it a rewarding experience rather than a painful and frustrating one.”
Eschewing the approach of “nickel and diming” clients for its services, the company offers different monthly options, which Vincent called “very competitive pricing.” Clients can choose unlimited remote services for a flat fee and pay an extra fee for on-site visits, or unlimited remote and on-site services for a flat fee.
“During the first six months of 2021, Signal Solutions’ revenue is up 20% from the same period in 2020, and we are projecting, for the last six months of the year, 25% to 30% increase over the last six months of 2020,” Vincent said. “I’m cautiously optimistic. The new [COVID-19] delta variant is a concern … but I believe that the future looks bright.”
