2014
ANNUAL REPORT
BREAKTHROUGH
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“2014 was a
breakthrough year for Annese in several aspects; private sector business growth, professional service pipeline development, and working capital.” —Ray Apy President & CEO Annese & Associates, Inc.
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE “All year long I could feel the buzz and excitement of what was happening. It was tangible, it was real, and it was fun to watch and be a part of. I could not be prouder of the accomplishments of the Annese team. They are a clear and resounding testament to what a focused group of people can accomplish together.” 2014 was a great year for Annese in many regards. Revenues were up 25% yearover-year, net profits were above 7%, success was achieved across all practice areas, client satisfaction scores (NPS method) were above 80, and employee satisfaction was at an all-time high with a 7% profit share bonus paid. All that on top of a similarly strong 2013. Over the past six years, we drove private sector sales higher each year to bring them on par with our public sector sales. In 2014, we achieved 49% of our total sales in the private sector. When we began this effort in 2009, private sector sales were just 15% of the total, while public sector sales were growing rapidly. This was a very difficult goal to achieve and now, the market does not think of Annese only as a government and education focused company. Today, the Annese name is ubiquitous in healthcare, financial and commercial business throughout New York State as well. The development of our professional service sales pipeline was also a critical part of our strategy in 2014. We developed a plan to increase new professional service sales bookings from November through March, as they have always been lower across those months. This goal was squarely met and the results were evident in the first three months of 2015. Late in 2013, the Annese Board of Directors agreed on a goal to increase our working capital average to 10% of total revenues. At the close of 2014, our working capital was well above 10% of revenue and is holding strong. This is a key indicator of our financial health and viability. With its very strong financial position, and no debt, Annese is poised to invest and grow. Target areas for investment in growth include service and sales capacity, and business acquisition. 2014 was a great year—a breakthrough year—and will be a tough act to follow. However, I remain confident that Annese has the right culture and financial foundation, and the right business strategy, to continue to grow carefully, conservatively, and profitably.
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2014 YEAR IN REVIEW
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Financial Overview Awards & Recognition Corporate Giving
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FINANCIAL OVERVIEW Effective February 3rd, 2015, Joe LoRe stepped down as Chief Financial Officer. Joe started his career with Annese in 1986 and was based in the company’s Syracuse office. Mike Fitzgerald, current Annese Board Advisor and partner at Fitzgerald, DePietro & Wojnas, CPAs, P.C., currently serves as Advising CFO to Annese.
Joe began his career with Annese as a Sales Representative covering education and healthcare accounts across the Central New York territory. He advanced over the years; to Area Vice President of CNY Sales in 2004, VP of Corporate Operations in 2006, and finally, Chief Financial Officer in 2010. Joe has been a valued member on the company’s Leadership Team, holding a fiduciary level of responsibility and overseeing operations. As CFO, Joe watched Annese’s profits increase steadily and substantially over the last five years; a feat he credited to a strong team and solid plan for growth. This growth earned Annese a spot on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the nation. In 2014, Annese achieved $105M
in revenue with over 7% net profit; a 25% jump over 2013 in revenue and another strong net income performance. “It has been my great privilege and honor to work with Joe these past 16 years of my tenure with Annese,” said Ray Apy. “Joe’s loyalty and honesty in both his professional and personal life are second to none. It has also been a pleasure to watch Joe learn and grow through his roles in sales, sales management, operations management, and ultimately senior financial management. Joe brought a business education to the table when he joined the company 28 years ago and he put it to use every day during his time with us. I am sad to see him go and will miss his calm and reassuring demeanor in the daily course of our work; but, I am very happy for him as well because he knows what he wants to do with the rest of his life and he has successfully put himself in a position to be able to control his destiny.”
Going forward my strategy is simple: Focus on my health and my family. The timing from the company’s standpoint couldn’t be better. We have a great Leadership Team in place. Each department is just as exceptional as the next which makes for a very complete organization. The results are obvious with the strong financials we have been experiencing over the last few years. 2015 should again be a record breaking year! One aspect of the job I will miss are the great friendships and acquaintances which have been developed over the years. Many thanks to Frank Annese who provided me with a life changing opportunity at Annese & Associates, Inc., almost 30 years ago. —Joe LoRe Current Board Advisor
Invoicing by Sector
Revenue by Region Albany
$31.2M up 20.37%
Hudson Valley
$16.9M up 17.17%
Buffalo
$10.6M down 42.29%
Public
$52.8M
up 14.88%
Private
$57.0M
up 93.48%
Rochester $37.1M up 211.78% Syracuse
$9.5M
down 28.90%
Annese Revenue Growth $105M $100M $95M $90M $85M $80M $75M $70M $65M $60M $55M $50M $45M ‘08
‘09
‘10
‘11
‘12
‘13
‘14
Revenue by Practice Area Professional Services
$4.8M
up 0.91%
Managed & Maintenance Services
$6.5M
up 24.46%
Collaboration $22.6M
up 135.92%
Data Center Virtualization
up 10.14%
$12.2M
Infrastructure $35.1M
down 3.56%
3rd Party
$22.0M
up 33.99%
Other
$2.2M
up 303.81%
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2014: A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
Making the List #1 WBE in Albany Annese ranked as the #1 largest women owned business in the Capital Region on the Albany Business Review’s list.
#5 Top Workplace Annese was selected as one of the Albany Times Union’s top workplaces, ranking #5 out of 25 companies recognized in Albany.
#6 Telecom Firms
Annese came in at #6 on the Telecommunications Equipment Providers list published by the Rochester Business Journal.
#206 SP500
Annese placed #206 in CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list, up from #259 the previous year.
#4429 Inc. 5000
The Inc. 5000 is a list of America’s fastest growing private companies. Annese ranked #4429 for its 61% revenue growth between 2010 and 2013.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION Annese is proud to announce the recipient of the 2014 Frank J. Annese Award (FJA) for Customer Excellence: Scott Dion, Collaboration Solutions Architect.
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The Frank J. Annese Award, named after the company’s founder, was initiated in 2009 and is presented annually. Scott Dion was nominated by his co-workers and then selected as this year’s winner after a unanimous vote by the Annese Leadership Team. A couple months before the winner is announced, employees are asked to submit nominations for someone who most exemplifies the Annese Customer Service Policy and who demonstrates the corporate values of Integrity, Innovation, Excellence, Teamwork, and Leadership consistently in their dealings with customers and colleagues.
Excerpts from Scott’s multiple nominations read, “Scott’s abilities have allowed Annese to meet customer demands when rolling out new technologies, and also when there has been staff turn-over. This has allowed Annese to meet customer expectations, and leave the customer thrilled about doing business with Annese again.”
Most fittingly, it was said that Scott “has been with Annese longer than most engineers, and has time and time again shown his loyalty for the company. He has been a great co-worker, leader for other engineers, and of course always good for a laugh.” Ray Apy shared these comments as he presented the FJA Award to Scott alongside company founder, Frank Annese; “Throughout his more than eight years of service, Scott Dion is consistently praised for the way he handles all interactions with the customers from pre-sales through implementation. Scott is no stranger to wearing different hats in the company, whether it is guiding our customers through all phases of our service experience, driving new technology solutions, or mentoring staff, Scott looks at every project as a new opportunity.” Scott has been with Annese since 2006. He and his wife, Rebecca, have two daughters.
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2014: A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
CORPORATE GIVING 2014 AND BEYOND Every 15 seconds, a child dies because of a lack of clean drinking water. That’s 6,000 children per day, or 2 million per year.
Water to Thrive
Annese supported the Springs for Life Campaign which benefits Water to Thrive; a not-for-profit faith based 501C3 organization which commits to bringing clean water to the people of rural Africa. Water to Thrive has a simple mission: To transform lives through the gift of clean water. The Foundation seeks to raise money toward the construction of clean well systems. At the cost of $5,000 per well, each system can support a village of up to 500 people. Women and children are forced to walk for hours EVERY DAY to get dirty water. They carry the water in jerry-cans on their backs, which weigh 40–60 pounds when full. The Annese Well is dedicated to the son of Joe and Yvonne LoRe, who passed away in November, 2013. The plaque reads:
In Loving Memory of Frank LoRe Annese & Associates
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Cisco Santa Connection
Far Left:
Albany Medical Center, with the help of Cisco and Annese, brought a live feed of the North Pole to its young patients—using either an iPad, or a video monitor and web-enabled camera.
Photo provided by Water to Thrive
Left: Jeremy Annese posing with Santa
Albany Medical Center
Santa visited with children in the hospital’s playroom, and a mobile cart or iPad enabled with Cisco Jabber software helped Santa travel room-to-room for a bedside visit to those children who didn’t feel well enough to leave their room.
“A big eye opener for me was the fact that prior to having access to a local community well, women and girls spend the majority of their day traveling to bring dirty water home to their family and therefore do not have the opportunity to attend school or learn a skill to be employable. By putting a well in a community, life changes dramatically for these young girls. The entire community changes for the better.” —Francine Apy Secretary of the Board, Co-Owner/Principal
Bottom: Employees Mark Coffey, Andy Enright, Eric Peterson and his son partake in the Great Pumpkin Challenge
$5K for 5Ks
Annese invited employees and prospects to four family-friendly community races across each of the company’s main regions— Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, and Hudson Valley, with all registration fees covered by the company. Annese donated $5,000 with many employees participating. Cumulatively, the races sponsored 3,000 runners across four cities and raised $100K for local causes.
Races included:
Annual Great Pumpkin • The Challenge at Saratoga Bridges in Albany
Journey Scarecrow 5K Race • Safe and Family Fun Run in Rochester Chapin Memorial Run • Harry Against Hunger at Croton on Hudson in Hudson Valley
Longviews 6th Annual • Gateway Pumpkin Run 5K in Buffalo
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2014: A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
The Annese team was published in several industry trade publications with contributed byline articles on IT topics and trends.
ANNESE
Byline Articles
Jason Beiter
Mike Decker
Solutions Architect
Director of Managed Services
TechTarget Plan An Internet Of Things Architecture In The Data Center
IT Briefcase How Far Is Too Far When It Comes To Outsourcing IT?
Mark Dingee
Tom Gdula
Rus Healy
Systems Engineer
Data Center Virtualization Practice Manager
Chief Technology Architect
Virtual Strategy Magazine Best Practices For Managing Your Data Center
StorageCraft Magazine Virtualization vs. Cloud—How Onsite Virtualization Affects Cloud Adoption
CIO Review Cisco Solution Provider Partners Navigate New Waters To Provide Business Continuity Solutions
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The company was also featured in a number of local business outlets for growth and hiring throughout the year.
IN THE NEWS
Feature Articles
Peter Allen
Francine Apy
Ray Apy
Solutions Architect
Co-Owner/Principal Secretary of the Board
President & CEO
CMSWire What’s The Big Problem With Big Data?
Albany Business Review Hiring Trends In The Capital Region
Albany Business Review Five Questions With Annese CEO Ray Apy
Merry Bhattacharjee
Rob Buckland
Director of Human Resources
IT Manager
The Job Scholar Do Candidate References Matter?
Technical Support Magazine Supporting Today’s Anywhere Workers
See more Annese in the News stories at www.annese.com/Newsroom.
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2014: A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
02 CUSTOMER INTIMACY
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Meet our Salesman of the Year Beekmantown CSD Success Story Hudson River HealthCare Success Story Northern Credit Union Success Story
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What customer intimacy means to:
PAT GOESSLING Salesman of the Year
How do you create value for your customers? Say-Do Attitude. I work to say what I am going to do, then do what I have said. Simply stated, follow up with customers in a timely manner, provide timely and quality deliverables, and continuous follow through to ensure that we are helping our customer achieve their stated objectives. I also strive to work harder than my competition. What do you consider to be Annese’s strongest assets in meeting customer needs? Our expertise, our talent, and
our commitment. We have a tremendously talented team, and to be able to speak to the 40+ years Annese has been in business, provides value and comfort to our customers. Our team is committed to creating a positive customer experience through sometimes challenging technical circumstances. What is an example of a customer relationship you are most proud of? The ability to transition through a new management team at various enterprise global accounts. This transition is very
Over the past five years that I’ve been with Annese, Pat has taught me the importance of customer intimacy in working with our customers, partners, and colleagues. It is important to see things through the eyes of our customers and understand challenges they face. When we do that, we not only solve their immediate needs, but also prove ourselves to be a trusted partner as we develop and maintain long-standing relationships. Our customer intimacy model is what has differentiated Annese over the years and continues to be valued by our customers every day. —Jason Beiter Enterprise Solutions Architect Congratulations to the Annese Salesman of the Year, Pat Goessling! Shout-out to Enterprise Solutions Architect, Jason Beiter, who is an instrumental part of Pat’s team. Great work!
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“Customer intimacy, to me, is the ability to build relationships with customers and understand their business to a level where we are anticipating and delivering on their needs and objectives before they ask us or recognize that there is a need.� difficult and I have been fortunate to forge even stronger relationships with the new management team(s) and continue to provide value through very complex technical and political environments. How do you feel our customer intimacy model makes us different from our competitors? I feel the customer intimacy model speaks to the culture at Annese. The company treats its employees well and this
creates happy customers. Customer intimacy is not just for our customers but how we treat and work with each other internally. This then leads to a natural relationship with our customers as they become an extension of the Annese family. How do you build customer loyalty and continued engagement? It starts with customer intimacy. Then the say do attitude, and then continuing to stay relevant in our market space and
offer valuable and relevant solutions that meet our customer objectives. What do you feel customer intimacy is not? Customer intimacy is not sending a proposal blindly without understanding the business or strategic objectives of the customer. Customer intimacy is not always having the lowest price.
Closing Thoughts From Pat Honesty is always the best approach.
Embrace a team dynamic with your co-workers.
Be honest with your customer, provide them the options that are available to meet their objectives, and speak to your experience and success in previous similar engagements.
Everything that we do at Annese we do as a team and we have an AWESOME team. There are many talented people at Annese within and across all departments. It is the people that make Annese as successful as it is.
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Pictured above is Mike Ferrante, Annese Account Manager with Eric Brosius, VP of Technology Services at HRHCare.
PROACTIVE NETWORK MONITORING SUPPORTS 24X7 CONTINUUM OF CARE Over the course of this long-term partnership, Annese’s ARMS team has worked in lockstep with HRHCare through proactive monitoring and maintenance of the organization’s network. Annese has become an extension of HRHCare’s internal IT team.
Hudson River HealthCare (HRHCare) provides primary and preventive healthcare services to the underserved and vulnerable in 10 counties throughout New York’s Hudson Valley and Long Island. Vice President of Technology Services, Eric Brosius, comments on the expanding role IT is playing in this space; “IT in healthcare has grown over the last decade. The federal government has created a lot of incentives to increase the use of technology with the ultimate goal
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of providing better patient care.” With a modest sized IT team tasked with supporting the technological needs of a rapidly growing organization, HRHCare turned to Annese in 2000 to bring its newly opened site in Commack, LI, onto the network. Over the course of four years, the organization doubled in employee size, but notably, not in IT resources, as Director of Network Services, Stan Tyler, points out.
an exchange migration. Annese’s Remote Managed Services (ARMS) team also proactively monitors the organization’s network to ensure it is always working to its fullest potential. “The role of IT is to make the patient data accessible,” notes Stan Tyler. “With the advent of the electronic healthcare record, the role of IT has really become more and more
we take care of the plumbing in the background. Plumbing is very important—no one really sees it, no one cares about it, but when something doesn’t work, it’s a problem. Annese is there to make sure that things are working.” To read more success stories like this one, visit the Learning Center: www.annese.com/LearningCenter
“There is the need for increased technology with a conscious budget in order to provide the best possible experience for patients.” —Eric Brosius VP of Technology Services Currently, HRHCare has 29 physical locations geographically spread over 100 miles, there are multiple data connections in play, including the phone system, the network, the servers, and single points of failure. “Where I don’t have the resources in-house to meet my IT needs, I immediately turn to Annese. They help me bridge the gap,” said Eric. As the strategic partnership progressed, several projects came to fruition including an overhaul of HRHCare’s Cisco VoIP phone system and Contact Center, a core infrastructure upgrade, implementation of an enterprise backup solution and SAN, a wireless deployment, and
Pictured above is Stanlee Tyler, Director of Network Services in the HRHCare Data Center.
prevalent within healthcare. We need to have information available at a moment’s notice.” Account Manager, Mike Ferrante, likens Annese Remote Managed Services (ARMS) to the “plumbing” underneath HRHCare’s foundation. “ARMS is ideal for mid-market healthcare organizations like Hudson River HealthCare,” he explains. “A lot of these organizations are short staffed and ARMS allows them to focus on their core business while
“Annese is definitely our second and third set of hands. Our working relationship with the Annese team is personalized. A lot of the Annese team I know on a first name basis.” —Stanlee Tyler Director of Network Services
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2000 Students District-wide
14 Data Closets
400+ Extension Voice Over IP Solution
CAMPUS TECH INVESTMENTS SUPPORT HYBRID BYOD AND FLIPPED LEARNING INITIATIVES Beekmantown Central School District engaged Annese to deploy 802.11ac wireless access points to provide full coverage across two campuses, the District Office, and the Bus Garage. Beekmantown Central School District, located in West Chazy, New York, consists of four schools, over 2000 students, and 300+ employees. “We’ve seen a massive progression in our District over the last decade from having no technology, to having technology woven into virtually every aspect of what we do,” said Gary Lambert, Educational Technology Coordinator at Beekmantown. “It’s part of our culture.” In a partnership that has spanned more than a decade and counting, Annese has led a host of technical initiatives for the District, including a series of network and data upgrades, Voice over IP (VoIP),
virtualization deployments, and remote managed services. “We’re now doing centralized managed printing solutions, and video streaming to the cloud over that network,” said Gary. “We’re webcasting, we’re podcasting; all of these things are now layered onto one flat network.”
Beekmantown saw the value in virtualizing its 15 servers into two physical hosts with network storage area networks (SANs) in order to increase flexibility and reduce the amount of electricity consumed and heat generated. Server virtualization will allow the District to deploy new servers as needs arise and compartmentalize by task, which will greatly lessen any impact on users. “I had full confidence in Annese that the job would be done right, that the engineers would not be gone until the job was completed, and that they would be leaving us with a turnkey solution that allows us to operate with our users not even knowing anything has changed; well, except for the fact that (the IT team) doesn’t seem as stressed anymore!”
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Pictured above is Gary Lambert, Educational Technology Coordinator at Beekmantown CSD and Brent Jones, Annese Senior Account Manager.
In 2014, the campus was ready to launch a massive District-wide enterprise wireless deployment. Annese installed brand new 802.11ac wireless access points throughout the District to provide full coverage across two campuses, the District Office, and the Bus Garage. “Enterprise-wide wireless networking is a game-changer in the K-12 space,” said Brent Jones, Senior Account Manager at Annese. “Beekmantown had small pockets of unmanaged wireless access points. We’ve moved them to an enterprise wireless network solution. They now have security, identical user access, and the ability to support full campus-wide wireless.” “People have been talking about classrooms without walls for
years,” he continues. “A connected classroom now means that students are always connected to their learning environment whether that’s at home, on the bus, or at school.”
“We went from having 40 phones district-wide—an old PBX system that I inherited—and with Annese’s help, we migrated into a 400+ extension Voice over IP solution that is serving us to this day.”
“Annese Remote Managed Service has saved the day more times than I can count— from troubleshooting strange VoIP issues, to reporting network outages and helping to resolve them, to alerting us at 4:00 in the morning when cooling units have failed in our main server room.”
“We may be a small District physically,” said Gary, “but with partners like Annese, you’d never know it. We’ve been able to do things that everyone else does or wants to do. Our District has the opportunity to provide world-class education in a small town setting.” To read more success stories like this one, visit the Learning Center: www.annese.com/LearningCenter
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CREDIT UNION INVESTS IN DATA RECOVERY SITE TO ENSURE CONSISTENT MEMBER EXPERIENCE When Northern Credit Union learned that a looming construction project threatened to impact branch connectivity, the IT team capitalized on the opportunity to develop a formal disaster recovery strategy to insure member services would not be disrupted.
Northern Credit Union has seven branch locations and 27 ATMs positioned throughout northern New York State. When the Credit Union learned that the City had plans to dig up the road outside its main branch, leaders recognized a prime opportunity to develop a business continuity plan to make sure branch connectivity and member services would not be impacted. Northern engaged Annese to implement a disaster recovery (DR) site and a formal business continuity strategy. “With Northern’s progressive mindset, we wanted to take that a step further and have a true backup solution so, if an event arises, we can switch from one end to another and not lose those member services that we hold to the highest standard,” notes Luke St. Hilaire, Technical Solutions Supervisor at Northern. Located in a geography not unfamiliar to crippling winter weather patterns, Northern’s investment will enable them to remain operational if an ice storm were to hit—giving them a significant competitive advantage. “Northern’s technology vision has helped them to be ready for any type of disaster that they might experience in their main site,” said Rus Healy, Chief Technology Architect at Annese, “and as a result they have a well-developed business continuity strategy that is really far and above most of their competitors.”
Pictured above is Elaine Harrison-Neukirch, Network Administrator at Northern and Rus Healy, Chief Technology Architect at Annese.
Northern currently uses technology to enhance its members’ experience and make banking more mobile and efficient.
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The Credit Union’s newest branch in Evans Mills, NY, is highly tech-enabled, featuring three SMART Offices where members can be serviced remotely by Credit Union professionals over video conferencing, as well as convenient tablet equipped waiting areas where members can securely access their accounts.
Annese to implement backup VPN connectivity for its ATMs to provide full mesh networking.
Instant Issue machines allow financial service representatives to print debit cards upon request, automatic coin counters, cash recyclers, a mobile application enabling remote check deposit capture, and an Automated Interactive Teller (AIT) system— which offers full branch banking
“Starting a disaster recovery or business continuity initiative with an assessment is critical for two reasons,” said Rus. “One is fairly obvious—there’s a lot of technical information to gather. Secondly, we need to ensure that all of the solution components are compatible, and to help define
“The fact that ATMs will stay up and we’ll still be able to do business at the branches and through mobile banking, is huge,” acknowledges Elaine. “We would take a huge hit if we couldn’t do that.”
“We’re not going to have to shut the doors to every branch for a week if something happens to the main building. All of our applications will continue to run.” services from a live teller through the ATM—all connect back to Northern’s core network. “If our connectivity was to go down, then all those services and applications would be lost,” said Elaine Harrison-Neukirch, Network Administrator at Northern. Annese worked with Northern to establish a secondary site to replicate data in real-time allowing the branch’s main operational site to failover and continue running if an outage were to occur. In parallel, Northern’s network engineering team worked with
the stages of project work— such as remediation, upgrades, and implementation of new hardware, software, and services.” Annese and Northern worked hand-in-hand to get everything built at the same firmware level with the same software patches, and move services like email, file, and database services to a real-time, high-availability model, running at both sites. The next phase was implementation of VMware Site Recovery Manager followed by a test failover—an important milestone which gave the team
a list of items that needed to be addressed before a live failover test. Two live failovers were conducted in May and October which ran all production servers from the DR site for 18 hours in each case. These went smoothly due to months of intricate planning and careful preparation. “Having a DR site has increased our competitive advantage and put us ahead of the game in comparison to most of the businesses and financial institutions in our area due to fact that we are going to be able to handle any type of disaster imaginable,” said Luke. “The project will be on-going; if we open another branch we need to work that functionality into the plan. We’ll constantly be tweaking it and adding to it.” To read more success stories like this one visit the Learning Center: www.annese.com/LearningCenter
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PARTNERS & CERTIFICATIONS Several Annese employees demonstrated their commitment to our partnerships in 2014 by advancing their expertise in our core practice areas through the attainment of key certifications.
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57
Annese employees attained manufacturer certifications in 2014
Advanced industry certifications achieved by Annese employees.
Over 75% of the Annese Service Team has at least one industry certification. Over 80% of Annese employees have a college degree.
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Technical Coverage Map The map depicts Annese’s service competencies across New York State and into New England.
5 8 4 3
Buffalo
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Albany
Syracuse Herkimer Rochester
3 8 Hudson Valley
Annese is proud to have achieved the following NetApp distinctions:
Annese is proud to have achieved all four Cisco Solution Architecture Specializations:
• NetApp Professional Services Certification (PSC)
• Advanced Data Center
• Clustered Data ONTAP (cDOT) Specialization
• Advanced Collaboration
“Earning this level of recognition is an important milestone in our partner relationship with NetApp. Our team is proficient in designing and installing NetApp solutions for our customers, enabling them to respond quickly to business changes and new opportunities—both on premises or in the cloud.” —Tom Gdula Practice Manager, Data Center Virtualization Annese & Associates, Inc.
• Enterprise Networking • Security “Annese continues to dedicate the resources, both financial and manpower, to be identified as a top-level Cisco partner. These achievements, coupled with the future obtainment of Gold Partner Status and the Master Collaboration Specialization, will further demonstrate that Annese is well-positioned to consult, design, implement, and administer the full depth and breadth of Cisco solutions.” —Jamie Aiello VP of Services Annese & Associates, Inc.
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03
EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION
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Great Rated! Survey Results Meet the New Family Members
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GREAT RATED! STATISTICALLY SPEAKING... “Annese continually strives to offer our family of employees the best working experience possible and that mission is demonstrated, in part, through our comprehensive benefits package, numerous employee recognition programs, paid family leave policy, and personal approach to business,” said Francine Annese Apy, Co-Owner/ Principal, Secretary of the Board. “This company was founded more than forty years ago by my father who invested in the well-being of his employees above all else, knowing that happy employees make for happy customers. We have not wavered on that philosophy since; it guides us to this day.”
“This family-owned company makes sure its employees know how much they’re appreciated,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, Great Rated!’s Vice President and Senior Editor. “Annese employees rave about their comprehensive benefits package, which includes a 401(k) savings plan, fully paid medical and dental plans, life insurance, and more. A full 97 percent of employees say they’d like to work here for a long time, seven points above the benchmark for even the top companies.” This review is based on 91 employee surveys, with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of ±4.71.
98% GREAT CHALLENGES
99% GREAT ATMOSPHERE
98% GREAT REWARDS
99% GREAT PRIDE
97% GREAT COMMUNICATION
98% GREAT BOSSES
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EMPLOYEES REVIEW ANNESE'S WORKPLACE CULTURE The “Great Rated!” report surveyed Annese employees about their workplace culture. The review highlights what makes Annese unique in the areas of professional development and training, company atmosphere, benefits, and recognition. “Great Rated!” conducted an anonymous survey of randomly selected employees to assess the quality of the workplace challenges Annese provides. At Annese, 93 percent of employees report the company often or almost always provides needed training, fair promotions and personally challenging work. Another 5 percent report the company sometimes provides these opportunities, for a combined positive rating from 98 percent of employees in the Great Challenges category. A significant majority of employees (96 percent) say they carry a lot of responsibility in the organization, and nearly all (98 percent) also
say that managers trust them to carry out these responsibilities without micromanaging them. For the large majority of employees (93 percent), their work at Annese is more than just a job. At Annese, 93 percent of employees feel they receive the training and development they need to further their careers. While it is often difficult for companies to ensure that promotions are awarded fairly across organizations, at Annese, 91 percent say that promotions consistently go to those who best deserve them, exceeding what one can typically expect even at the very best companies in the country.
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2014: A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
Our growth continues to be in line with business needs and driven by our corporate strategy. Throughout 2014, we had great success recruiting and onboarding new additions to our employee family. Our commitment to employee satisfaction is one of the driving forces behind our long-standing corporate culture and we are proud to be in a position to offer rich benefits that make Annese a recognized employer of choice in New York State.
PETER ALLEN SERVICE
RILEY JANOWICZ SERVICE
MIKE TRAPASSO SERVICE
MERRY BHATTACHARJEE
DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES
DANIELLE WHITE OPERATIONS
Offictas sitatinimi, consed eium diassim
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debit, cor res etur aut elibuscia a dolupti qui doluptatus et adi sitis qui
SCOTT ELLIOTT
STEVE HAILSTONE
JOHN HOEFER
BEN JACOBSON
STEVE LEEPER
BLAKE MARAS
GREG MCINNIS
PETER O' ' B RIEN
SALES
SERVICE
SERVICE
SERVICE
SERVICE
SERVICE
SALES
SALES
NEW TO THE FAMILY
12 %
New employees joined the Annese family in 2014.
ANNESE HEADCOUNT GROWTH
99
2012
111
2013
117
2014
130
Projeted 2015
• • • •
13 employees hired 7 promotions 83 people recognized for company awards 57 certifications
Stay Connected Headquarters 747 Pierce Road, Suite 2 Clifton Park, NY 12065
Phone (518) 371-9000
Email marketing@annese.com
Service (866) 581-9718
Web www.annese.com
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A Need. A Network. Annese. Our mission is to provide an excellent customer experience as we meet our client’s evolving business objectives through comprehensive, industry-leading technology solutions delivered by a caring and talented team.
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