Interview: Timothy Guim, President & CEO, PCH Technologies

street from our office. Because of our location next to the courthouse, our litigation team is very attractive to the companies that find themselves in the MCL court for their mass tort litigation.”

After an uncertain 2020, the first half of 2021 also demonstrated a fast-paced recovery on the employment front for both financial activities and professional and business services in the state. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported a total 248,300 employed professionals in financial activities in May 2021, a 4% increase compared to May 2020. Professional and business services presented an even greater increase, going from 612,800 people employed in May 2020 to 656,100 people in May 2021, a 6.6% increase.

New work modalities also helped reshape the professional services landscape both in how they work and their business lines as companies across the United States made a decisive shift from remote-byforce to remote-by-choice. The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) shows that 42% of Americans employed in 2020 worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and 25% were still doing so at the time of the survey (November 2020). Businesses that wanted to add a work-from-anywhere perk to their workforce soon found that capitalizing on Timothy Guim

President & CEO PCH Technologies

What are some common mistakes you see businesses making in terms of IT?

The first thing companies tell their employees who are working at home is to turn on a VPN. The proper thing a company should do first is receive a third-party IT risk assessment. This will show you where your holes in security are and what are your weakest points when it comes to your network. Of course, this is going to be different for every business. A financial institution has certain things they need to protect, a hospital has patient data, a construction company has critical data that is vital to maintain their operations in the field. There are different levels to it and I think it’s very important that people understand how necessary a risk assessment is. Where is the data located? And what if something were to happen with your data that could affect your revenue? That is really the thing that people skip when they don’t have an overarching plan for IT and cyber risks.

How necessary is it to have cyber insurance?

Five years ago, I would not have been as concerned about having cyber liability insurance but, these days, it is absolutely critical to have cyber liability insurance and to understand, when you read the policy, what is covered and what is not covered. I’ve seen a lot of situations where there is wire fraud: an imposter will pretend they are the business owner to the CFO and say, I need you to wire me $30,000 right now, I have a great deal. The CFO will then wire that money through email transactions. On some policies, I’ve seen that, because they willingly wired the money, they were not covered.

What is your outlook for the next 12 to 18 months?

There is so much opportunity in this area right now. Regarding cyber, we’re in a growth position with our current clients as well as helping new businesses. Legislation is coming that will require businesses to be properly secured, which will help us help more people. I know we just had our best year yet, and I don’t see it slowing down in 2021 or in 2022

Marty Abo

Founder & Managing Member – Abo and Company, LLC

The prognosis for South Jersey is good. This is a very difficult state from a tax perspective, which could pose a risk for the area’s competitiveness in attracting businesses. But the virtue of South Jersey is that there is still room for growth in the industrial and distribution space, while still being a stone’s throw from the two massive population centers of New York and Philadelphia and we are very close to airports. The fact that we can work from home is also beneficial for South Jersey as we are seeing many professionals, executives and “virtual positions” from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington moving to more suburban areas. Home prices are very accessible here, much more so than in other metropolitan areas around the country.

An AICPA report shows that 42% of Americans worked remotely in 2020, with 55% unaware of the tax implications

the opportunity of hiring skilled talent anywhere in the United States also meant added layers of complexity on the taxation front.

For instance, AICPA revealed that 55% of the people working remotely during the pandemic were unaware that failing to update their state tax withholding to signal their remote work situation could result in unintended tax liabilities. Moreover, 47% were not aware that each state has its own remote work tax laws.

Still on the subject of taxes, the Garden State welcomed in 2020 the pass-through Business Alternative Income Tax Act (BAIT), a state revenue-neutral tax reduction that saves taxes for New Jersey’s business owners. The objective is to reduce local businesses’ income taxes by up to 30% and applies to subchapter S corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies, directly impacting many professional services firms.

While legislation and regulations get additions or modifications on a yearly basis, the pandemic turned into a rather prolific time for fast-track, high-impact legislation. In New Jersey alone, Gov. Phil Murphy issued 12 Executive Orders by April 2020, either closing or substantially limiting operations of several businesses, expanding protections and benefits for affected workers through swift-moving legislation. When swift reaction became essential, companies could not afford to waste precious time and resources figuring it out on their own. Relying on third-party, outside expertise became paramount to ensuring a swift recovery.

The new operational lens that COVID-19 forced upon businesses across industry verticals also opened opportunities in the realm of organizational effectiveness and culture. Former health system CEOs Rich Miller and Joe Devine, for example, joined forces to create MillerDevine Leadership Advisors, a consulting firm specialized in board development, integration planning, market insights, mentoring, customer service and leadership development — all areas that were brought under a fresh spotlight during the pandemic.

Accounting and advisory Accountants have played a long-standing role as consultants and business intelligence experts across industry verticals, providing not only expertise-based advice but also referring their clients to complementary experts within the professional services world — attorneys, bankers, insurance brokers and increasingly, cybersecurity technicians. The pandemic injected an added layer of depth to that role as CPAs were expected