YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY

Springfield, MO

Log in Subscribe

Jim Quesenberry, owner
Jim Quesenberry, owner

2015 Dynamic Dozen No. 7: Corporate Business Systems

Posted online
“If you focus on being the best, your customers will demand you get bigger.”

That’s the mantra at Corporate Business Systems, according to CEO and President Tyson Johns.

“We just finished our first quarter and we’re on pace to have another record-breaking year,” he says of the company’s continued organic growth, which was 19 percent in 2014. “We’ve had very strong years just in revenue alone.”

Owned by Jim Quesenberry, Corporate Business Systems started out selling printers and copiers.

“A typical copier lease is probably just under 60 months, and we have a lot of customers who have been on three or four cycles,” Johns says. “We have customers who have been with us since back in the late 1990s.”

In years since, it has expanded to new service areas such as phones, computers, document management, information technology services and mailing systems, leading to $14.22 million in revenue last year. In the process, the company became what Johns calls a total office solutions provider.

“We want to be a total solution partner as opposed to salespeople,” Johns says. “That’s really the initiative that we’ve taken, and obviously it’s worked very well.”

The company prides itself on offering its clients one invoice for products and services, as well as one phone number to call when a problem needs fixed.

Staying on the cutting edge of industry technology and trends has been Corporate Business Systems’ key to success, particularly to serve the company’s regional client base, which Johns estimated is between 4,000 and 5,000 customers.

“In today’s business environment, a typical business does a lot of printing from mobile devices, so we’ve been involved in a lot of app exploration,” he says.

“It’s not as simple as one might think, but we have the solutions now where you can walk up to a copier and print straight from your iPad.”

Internally, the company focuses on building communication, education and culture through implementing open-book management and fostering employee collaboration.

“It’s a mindset of trying to empower people to make decisions,” Johns says, adding the company has a mural on one wall featuring the slogan, ‘It’s your company, what would you do?’

“It allows us to say, ‘Let’s get the right people on the bus and then we’ll find the right seat for them.’ As long as we have the right people and continue to build our culture, everything else will come together.”

Johns was the right man for the job when promoted to president and CEO in October 2013. His day-to-day management helped the company stay on track when Quesenberry was in an accident and lost his legs roughly a year ago.

Giving back also is part of that culture. Corporate Business Systems’ employees are active in more than 15 area chambers of commerce, three rotary groups and volunteers time, services and money to more than 20 nonprofit agencies.

“People enjoy working here,” Johns says. “They’re pushing each other. It’s not a top-down organization trying to solve all these initiatives. Mostly, initiatives are solved by the employees on a day-to-day basis.”[[In-content Ad]]

Comments

No comments on this story |
Please log in to add your comment
Editors' Pick
Business Spotlight: The Right Focus

Helping people is the foremost purpose in business for Angela Stephens. The idea for Re-Focus the Creative Office was born to help her son, Drake Stephens, who had started struggling in school in fifth grade.

Most Read
Update cookies preferences