Great Lakes IT Report - February 5, 2008Premises Systems boss wants to stay in the field, not the office
David Jasinski has already been through just about the worst the technology industry has to offer.
Now he helps his customers get its best.
Jasinski, partner and director of technology of Walled Lake-based Premises Systems Inc., started his career as an information systems operator for Fretter Inc., the legendary Detroit electronics retailer.
Eventually he rose to IS director – some time later Fretter, beset by deeper-pocketed national competitors in the brutally competitive consumer electronics business, declared bankruptcy. "It was the worst year of my life," Jasinski said. "I spent a year selling off what I had spent almost 15 years building."
After that experience, contacts led to a new IT job with auto supplier Key Plastics. "It worked out great," Jasinski said. "I wanted the automotive experience."
But he didn't want to live through another bankruptcy, so from Key Jasinski moved on to Art Van, the furniture retailer, where he led a complete network rebuild in a company with five major platforms, none of which could speak to each other.
"Eventually I had 21 people working for me," he said. "I felt like an HR manager. I wanted to get back out in the field."
So Jasinski moved on to consulting under a company named WANS for five years and eventually formed the company that became Premises Systems in 2005. The company posted 50 percent revenue growth in 2006 and added 40 percent more in 2007.
Partners Darrell Adkins and Ron Sizeland give Jasinski the business and sales expertise he needs, so he can concentrate on keeping the customers happy.
Today, Premises Systems has a number of field engineers and a small office in Cleveland. Its sister companies offer physical security technology, including surveillance cameras and card access, cabling services, and infrastructure integration.
Premises Systems leads with the Shore Tel VoIP product that converges voice and data networks.
"As an IS director, I always owned telephony, although I didn't ask for it," Jasinski said. "I had 255 locations at Fretter and every phone system was an island. It was a thorn in my side. I could take my laptop anywhere in the building, plug in and work. Why couldn't I do that with the phone?"
Jasinski said he's searched high and low in the Voice Over Internet Protocol world and is convinced that Shore Tel has a superior product over others in the industry, based on its exceptional architecture and manageability.
"My first ShoreTel installation was at the beginning of 2003 for an auto supplier, Fisher Dynamics in St. Clair Shores," Jasinski said. "Within a year they had spread it to locations in Troy and Tennessee. Right then we knew it was a good product and we became a ShoreTel partner ... We will continue to evaluate other products to add to our portfolio, but we will keep leading ShoreTel because of our success with it and we have a good sized customer base currently on it."
The ShoreTel product also offers proactive monitoring that alerts Premises Systems to problems, frequently before the customer even realizes there is one.
"The beauty of the system is that it will e-mail us errors or events," he said. "We had one customer who had a T1 down and we called their vendor to fix it before they even knew it was down."
Premises Systems targets small and mid-sized businesses with multiple locations. Customers include Champion Enterprises, the Grosse Point Yacht Club, the law firm Rader Fishman and Belle Tire.
Jasinski said he's trying to "methodically grow" the company while maintaining a high level of customer service.
Feel free to contact Roy Bruinsma at 248.715.1087 or via email: rbruinsma@cablers.com to explore how Premises Systems can help your organization leverage ShoreTel to gain and maintain a competitive edge.
