Corner Office – Bridgette Hobart Janeczko, President of Paradigm Technology Consulting

Bridgette is president of Paradigm Technology Consulting. Spun off as its own business in 1999, the business has grown, evolved, and survived one of the toughest challenges a business can face. When she’s not in the trenches of PTC, you’ll find her in the waters training to swim the English Channel. 2012 is gearing up to be a big year for Jeneczko and PTC.

You founded Paradigm Technology Consulting in February 1999. What were you doing before and what made you decide to start your own company?

I was doing more or less the same thing as I am now. The difference was that I was leading a technology consulting group that was part of a regional CPA firm rather than a separate entity. In early ’99, for a variety of reasons, the partners in that firm determined that the consulting group wasn’t a good fit for their organization and we spun off as a new business. Most of the same team members, who were with me under the CPA firm, are still core members of our team today. Prior to founding PTC, I spent many years in public accounting, and in small closely held companies including family businesses.

12 years later is it on the track you thought it would be or did it evolve into something else?

Broadly speaking, I’d say we’re on track: Our focus, even now, is developing a solid consulting group with strong resources in applications consulting and systems engineering.

However, we also have a good development group, which is a growing part of our business. That wasn’t something we foresaw ten years ago when we outsourced the majority of our development work. Also, in the beginning we were pretty horizontal. But over the last decade we’ve begun to focus in several specific verticals such transportation, not for profit, associations, life sciences, and behavioral health.

Finally, we’re moving more toward being a software publisher. We’ve developed several add-on products to extend the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics GP. We have also developed our Paradigm Transportation Suite, a workforce labor management system that we developed for the transportation industry.

Companies come to you seeking help organizing their data systems. What was one of the toughest jobs you had? How did you work out a solution?

The non-technical challenges can sometimes be the toughest. A lot of the work we do involves the implementation of new systems for our clients. Those projects generally tend to have a similar life cycle and similar challenges and can all be handled through proper planning and good project discipline. The tougher jobs that we’ve had involved non-technical challenges. In some cases, we’ve taken over troubled sites from other consulting teams. Those are difficult because, not only are you faced with fixing the technical problems that have emerged, but you’re also working with clients who are in the midst of a project that has gone badly for them – so gaining user acceptance for the new system can be an uphill battle.

With economics and times changing, what are the companies who come to you looking for most? How has this changed in the last 10 years?

In the late 90’s some clients simply needed to get rid of their DOS systems and move into the world of Windows. Others were really seeing the benefits of automation for the very first time. Today, the ERP software market is much more mature. Clients may have put a new system in place ten years ago to address Y2K and having done so, they’re a more educated consumer. The bar has been set a lot higher, so knowing the software that you’re selling just isn’t enough anymore. If that’s all you bring to the table, you’re pushing a commodity. It’s critical that we are also able to assist our clients with business processes and can provide guidance on how our solutions can be leveraged to their greatest benefit. So the blended background of the majority of our consulting staff really helps to differentiate us and enables us to bring greater value to our clients.

What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Overall I love the often unknown, teamwork, challenges and project focus you experience daily in consulting. Consulting has become more of a lifestyle to me than a job so I enjoy working each day, and I think that is a blessing.

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