'Adapt or die:' Aztec Computer Outfitters gets technical

When President Michael M. Green started the company in 1995, he found a strong market in selling medical practice management software. That quickly changed with the advent of HMOs.

“There was a big change in the medical marketplace. All of the local hospitals started buying up all of the doctors, and that whole industry basically died overnight,” Green said. “We had to adapt or die.”

Green began to focus more on his retail operations and then on better serving corporate clientele.

“Like any beginning entrepreneur, I cast a really wide net trying to get any business that was out there,” Green said. “We used to try to be all things to all people, but now we are much more narrowly focused on doing more fun things like building high performance computers and servers and specialty machines,”

Aztec Computer Outfitters serves a gamut of corporate clients: those in the automotive industry, engineers and architects, lawyers, schools and accountants. The business takes pride in meeting the special needs of clients, including Springfield Lutheran School, Reliable Chevrolet and ESC Inc. Engineers and Architects.

“We custom-build computers, so that gives us the ability to build a computer that really fits an individual’s needs,” he said. “It’s not one size fits all. It’s tailored to your individual uses and still has a lot of expandability.”

For this reason, Aztec Computer Outfitters has a strong following among engineers and architects.

Eugene Bybee, president of ESC Inc., has been pleased with Aztec’s work in the nearly 10 years that he has used them.

“We have to have very stable operating systems and computers. We have a big network here – we have about three miles of cable in the walls – and they know every in and out and how the machines need to operate,” Bybee said. “We use software programs that are very powerful and need a lot of memory – AutoCAD and some land development software that requires a lot of memory – all of that has to be very stable for us to make a living, and their computers really do well for us.”

Aztec Computer Outfitters also set up ESC Inc.’s phones, e-mail and security systems.

“We have some very good people with computers internally, but we always go to Aztec with anything out of the ordinary,” Bybee added.

Beyond building custom computers, Green said Aztec’s most popular service is corporate networking.

“We have the ability to go into an office environment where they have 20 to 30 computers and address individual problems and make sure that everything is working well together,” he said.

The company also creates custom Web servers and conducts regular computer repairs and upgrades.

While technology and its providers are ubiquitous in today’s market, Green said, “Our competition doesn’t come from where everyone thinks it does – our competition is not the big box stores,” he said.

Competitors are other smaller, service-driven businesses. “Our business model is very focused on meeting the special needs of our clients, and that isn’t something you can mass produce,” Green added. “We have some very strong competitors that I respect, but I think the pond is big enough for a lot of us to fish.”

Green said the company was so busy this year that its official anniversary simply slipped past them. “We planned to celebrate it, but we were so busy around June 15th that we didn’t have time. We are waiting to slow down a bit, and then we are going to have an open house and do some other fun things,” he said, declining to disclose revenues.

Among Green’s desires for the next 10 years is moving into a larger location and increasing staff.

Green added, however, that he does not want these changes within his company to occur too quickly.

“The one thing I have learned in the past 10 years is that when you integrate services, you really have to do them one at a time and get really proficient with them,” he said. “The idea is not to simply be able to throw out a lot of services that we do, but to offer quality service in each thing that we do.”