Five Questions With: Christopher Dale

Christopher Dale is president and CEO of The Apex Technology Group Inc.

PBN: Tell me about what you do at Apex.

DALE: As the president and CEO, I’m responsible for leading our sales, marketing, finance, engineering,and operations groups. It’s very much a team environment and I’m fortunate to have a mature, experienced, happy team supporting me in my role. The key is to hire people that are better and smarter than I am … that have similar passions and motivation to satisfy customers.

PBN: There are a lot of information technology services firms out there. How do you differentiate Apex from your peers?

DALE: Our people, experience and track record have been a differentiator and continue to be for Apex. It’s becoming a more crowded field, but we’ve had a different set of offerings and solutions for clients during the past 13 years when compared to other IT companies. We’ve consistently offered managed IT services and have long-term agreements to help run our clients’ IT organizations. … In the past years, we’ve seen many of the old IT companies trying to change from “box-sellers” to value-added IT providers. In fact, we’ve seen our proposal templates, website and materials copied more frequently; that tells us we’re doing something very well. So now our competitive advantage is our experience and long-term track record of success, but we also know that more targeted advertising will help our visibility – then our people and experience will continue to be the differentiating factor.

PBN: Apex has had some pretty major clients over the years, including Apple, AT&T and Boeing. How does a small firm go about getting work for major corporations like those?

DALE: The largest clients in the world are comprised of key individuals and we’ve been fortunate to have developed and maintained these key relationships. Once you’ve proven that you can satisfy those large-scale, enterprise clients, the word spreads.

Our employees, clients and suppliers represent a strong collective network of successful IT professionals. We’re fortunate to have a very diverse cross-section of clients by size and industry, but the big names are always impressive and we’re flattered to have them as clients.

PBN: What would you see as one of the most challenging projects you have done at Apex over the years?

DALE: There are many great case studies, but it’s most satisfying when you can truly help a client transform its core business through more efficient technology and IT operations. We have customers that have thriving businesses with greater profitability and they attribute some of that to Apex and our efforts together. One of the most challenging and rewarding IT projects is a multi-year effort that is still underway with [the New York City Fire Department]. At FDNY, we’re working with another Rhode Island firm on the design, engineering and installation the world’s largest emergency response network. It’s highly visible, very complex and in New York City with many moving parts: technical, logistical and political. It’s a great success and a wonderful challenge for us.

PBN: You worked for Shawmut and Fleet banks prior to founding Apex. What have you learned by switching from doing IT within a larger corporation to having your own firm?

DALE: The large corporate experience was incredibly important – it created a certain ingrained discipline and mentality about how Apex designs, manages and optimizes a client’s IT environment. We instinctively pay more attention to production networks, uptime, reliability, change-control, disaster recovery and other important IT disciplines for our clients. We’ve kept that focus and discipline and have availed it to our clients of all sizes, but without the bureaucracy, lag-time and high prices of the corporate world.