Employee leasing became a business buzzword in the 1990’s, but for Robert Boffa, Jr. of Personnel Coordinators, Inc, employee leasing was business as usual.
Rob and his brothers Brian, Jon, and Daniel represent the third generation of PCI, a company that has been at the forefront of employee leasing for over 40 years.
Last month (November, 2001) we met the Boffa family at a trade show it New York City. When I gave Rob my card he said, "Family Business Strategies? We are a family business."
At that point he handed me his company’s brochure, describing how his dad- and now his brothers- are in business together.
When I described some of the experiences I had witnessed working with family owned companies over the past 25 + years, he said "You must have been looking in our windows." With that, I knew we had found someone to interview for our weekly business profile.
We have received many stories of how retailers (see our Profile Library) are using the Internet to grow, but Rob provided us with a very different perspective – PCI is a service company.
How can service companies use the Internet? How can they offer enough information to be of value without giving away their proprietary resources? And just what is employee leasing anyway?
PCI, which began in 1960 as Universal Coordinators, operates out of offices in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
Their concept of employee leasing is simple: companies, often small and mid-sized organizations, come to PCI for personnel solutions. PCI, in turn, becomes the employer of record for the leased employees and handles all the administrative paperwork, including payroll and documentation.
Employee leasing is particularly attractive to smaller companies because, by leasing their employees from PCI, they are able to offer benefits such as health insurance, which may otherwise be too costly.
The companies save themselves time, money, and administrative hassle while gaining the ability to reward their employees with greater benefits.
The business world knew a good thing when they saw it, and over the years PCI has grown to open offices in 40 states. But Rob, who had worked for the family company since high school, decided that word-of-mouth wasn’t enough. It was time to capitalize on the Internet revolution and get PCI on line.
PCI launched the first iteration of their website, http://www.pcipeo.com , in 1995. Since then, it has already gone through one major overhaul.
Rob and his brothers, as members of the tech-savvy generation, were the driving forces behind the implementation of the site and the development of PCI’s web presence. We asked him if his dad- who has headed the company since 1969- was "for or against” the proposition, and the reply was consistent what we are hearing elsewhere.
"He is for doing whatever we can to be competitive – keep ahead of the competition." He also mentioned something about dad’s ability to program the VCR – but we didn’t press it.
Rob feels very strongly about the web as a powerhouse marketing tool: "It’s the way of the future as far as advertising is concerned." The site allowed the company to immediately have a national presence, and made it easy for potential clients to learn about the company and have many of their questions answered before the first contact was made.
A freelance team created the first site, but as web technology advanced and more companies became web-friendly, Rob felt that the site needed to develop expanded functionality and to update its look. The scope of this revision was broad enough that Rob decided to outsource the job to a web design firm. He turned to ApresMidi, now doing business as InterMediaPost (http://www.intermediapost.com/), for a state-of-the-art solution. He says he was pleased with the results.
Rob feels that the biggest challenge he faced when creating the first site was keeping current. He hadn’t considered how time-consuming the constant updates would be, but he knew that keeping information on the site fresh was crucial. Ultimately, he decided that outsourcing the maintenance of the site made the most sense.
When we asked him about the immediate future of their web site – how it will help them operate more effectively -- he told us that in January 2002, another iteration of the PCI site will be unveiled which will include specialized features for both their client companies and the leased employees.
With the planned functionality in place, companies using PCI will soon be able to handle their human resources and payroll needs remotely through the website, and they will have the ability to research the different plan descriptions PCI has available. This will save the client both time and money. Rob noted that money saved (versus additional sales) drops directly to the bottom line, allowing for future growth.
In addition, with the new functionality, leased employees will be able to create accounts, allowing them to log in and check valuable personal information such as the status of their benefits or accrual of vacation days. Once again, the goal is to save everyone time and money, and to provide convenient service as important information becomes immediately available to both the company and the employees.
Rob believes that the future of successful businesses will belong to the swift: business owners willing to embrace technology and change sooner rather than later will stay out front.
You won’t need to change your business or your business plan, but you will need to learn how to do what you are already doing more effectively.
Robert Boffa, Jr. can be reached via email or at http://www.pcipeo.com.
Profiles of business owners respected in their industry appear in our newsletter and are available on our web site. We encourage association executives to tell us about their members who are leveraging their inherent advantages (trusted brand, excellent service, etc.) by embracing a "doing it right" attitude into their strategy for growth.
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