The firm has thrived by catering to a specific corner of the market in the region, and its success has gone viral. The company has grown 300 percent since it began operations in 2009, and is currently working with about 50 clients across the Valley. Go-to-market strategies for 2 more locations are being planned for later this year.
The firm also prides itself on being a Cisco premier partner, only one of two in the Valley that exclusively endorses the company’s business and solutions. Cisco is a global leader in communication equipment, owning 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies’ network architecture.
“Our niche within Cisco is the small business portfolio. There are other high end networking companies here in the Valley that target the ISDs, and banks and hospitals and big contracts, but none of them are focused on smaller business. It’s a large part of our business that we can call our niche,” said Joseph Smith, L3 cofounder, and vice president of sales.
“This was our main mission, bringing voiceover IP, unified communications, converged network, data and voice, and with the Cisco portfolio, and our ability to market the small businesses in the Valley, we thought it would be a great success, and it has,” Smith said.
Success has been driven partly from the demand for one of L3’s core products, what they call “Cisco unified communication for small business solutions”. The product is an all-in-one services hub that provides a router to the Internet, switchboards and voice systems for business clients.
Ask them about their bundle solutions, and they can include a network server, along with voicemail, auto-tenet voice and single number reach services for one price. L3 invites clients to imagine a complete office network that is more than a phone system. Virtual private network (VPN) technology allows companies to access their business network from anywhere in the world.
A potential client can be at home, and still be receiving files from their network. They can key an extension from any location, and all of a sudden be fielding calls from their office.
“It’s an exciting place to be to be working, and we try and foster that atmosphere,” Smith said. “We get the best products in the industry. We go out and consult with the company, learn more about their business to get the products that fit their business. Then we bundle those into hardware and service solutions.”
Cofounder and vice president of engineering, Chris Avants, has been a Cisco engineer since he was 17 years old.
“One thing that sets us apart as a company is, typically companies that have the engineering talent, and the partnership that we do, only play with the big companies, only go after the million dollar deals,” Avants said.
Key to L3’s success in the Valley is introducing new technology to region, on par with some of Texas largest cities. Combined with small business, that is companies up to 250 employees. The firm provides all the data infrastructure, and all the equipment companies need to get on the Internet or secure their business.
L3 is prepared to cater to its small business focused division, and give the same care and attention to those clients usually overlooked by competitors, and the same time provide services to education and enterprise. Avants likes to highlight the fact that many companies who work for the bigger deals, don’t work with small business.
“It’s one thing that sets us apart,”Avants said. “We know we can help people at that level. I mean, we’re a smaller company too, for what we do and that is an area where we know we can set those companies apart from their competition. We know we can do that for them. With the bigger companies, everybody is doing it. There are a lot of people offering similar solutions to smaller companies, but there isn’t anybody who can offer true, end to end architecture with one phone call.”
Prospective clients may schedule an appointment with L3 experts by calling (956)467-1410, emailing sales@l3tx.com or going online at www.l3tx.com
