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 May 14, 2007 constitutes Alicomp’s 20th year in business. For those who may not know, Alicomp is a company born from the Information Technology (IT) division of our parent company, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company (ALICO), in May of 1987.
Our mandate, from the very beginning, has been to achieve three objectives: first, to provide world-class IT services to our parent company and our other affiliates; second, to provide cost effective, custom tailored, high quality services to our commercial clients; and third, to return a reasonable profit each year to ALICO. I look back with pride over the past 20-years, because we’ve met all three of these objectives each and every year.
Today’s competitive landscape is entirely different from what it was 20 years ago. Very few companies like Alicomp remain. There are very large companies and some very small “mom and pop” companies. Most large companies today require clients to change their operations, their software and, in some cases, even their technology in order for them to be acceptable as clients. At Alicomp, since we service the very small to middle market, we believe we must always do what the client wants, not what is easier for us. This approach has proven extremely successful and is the secret to our success.
Just as important, we now see new challenges coming and realize that in order to compete successfully, we will need to do more than just provide today’s services. We must provide emerging technologies including server based solutions and new mainframe solutions going Linux. We also believe that the mainframe is here to stay as evidenced by IBM’s push to bring in more flexible, less expensive mainframes to market; couple that with the ability to run Linux/Unix/AIX and Legacy systems, and the mainframe begins to look better and better. Companies can use the mainframe to reduce the number and type of servers, manage workload more effectively, optimize service levels and handle common management tasks much more easily. All of these will improve quality of service and save money.
While it is difficult to predict what the future will hold for Alicomp, we believe we have put the company on an extremely firm footing with great products and just the right balance of clients, large and small. But most importantly, our philosophy that the client’s needs come first will probably be most responsible for our continued growth. Twenty years ago, our clients considered us the only “boutique” provider of outsourcing services; we still are.
Finally, I want to thank all the clients, Alicomp’s staff, our business partners and the senior executives at ALICO, past and present, for their continued strong backing and for the confidence they have shown us over these 20 years.
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