The search for in-house IT talent is expensive, time-consuming, and often frustrating. What if there was a better way?
Learn how Atlas Search grew from a 6-person startup to over 100 employees while outsourcing IT to keep its tech operation lean. AnnaKate Ross (Atiba Project Manager for Atlas) hosts this honest talk with Pablo Ismael (COO of Atlas Search), Lee Brewington (Atiba Software Developer), and Jeff Johnson (Atiba vCIO and Project Manager).
You’ll get the inside story on:
✅ The hidden costs and risks of in-house hiring versus the true benefits of a strategic IT outsourcing model.
✅ How IT outsourcing drastically improved Atlas’s bottom line and agility.
✅ Pablo’s candid insights on what went right, what went wrong, and how to avoid common pitfalls.
✅ How IT outsourcing freed Atlas to concentrate on its core business – not on IT recruitment and management.
Atiba’s Outsourced IT Services and Software Development
- Custom Software Development
- IT Services and Managed Services
- Website Design and Development
- Artificial Intelligence
- Business Intelligence
Transcript
All right, I think we can go ahead and get started.
Well, thanks everyone for joining us today. Um, I am Anna Kate Ross. Um, and
this is an AIBA webinar on outsourcing your IT. Um, today I am joined by uh my
colleagues Lee Brewington, software developer and team lead, and also Jeff Johnson, a virtual CIO and fellow
project manager. And we’re going to speak with Pablo Ishmamail. He’s the partner and COO at Atlas Search, an
executive recruiting firm. Um the topic is outsourcing your IT and in this case
it’s outsourcing software development and also managed IT services. So Atlas is a client of AIBas on the software
side and actually works with a different company on the IT managed services side. So we’ll get kind of both perspectives
on that. Um Pablo, thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much for having us uh having me Anakate. Appreciate it.
Yeah. Well, so before we get into kind of actually outsourcing your tech, tell us a little bit about Atlas Search, the
company, and also the origin story because I know you were a partner from the beginning, right? Yeah, absolutely. Uh we launched
February of 2015. Uh it’s myself and a few others from a previous firm and uh
we launched with six people. Um initially, uh just in small room
basically that could fit uh I think six total and now we’re over 110 people.
headquartered in New York City. Um we do recruiting both on a permanent and
temporary basis across uh 10 different divisions. That’s awesome. So what was it that you
thought would set you all apart from your previous roles? What what did how how was Atlas search going to be
different than other environments? Essentially we just thought we could do it better in the way of you know our
previous firm was very successful. We thought though that we can do things differently. we can do change some
things and tweak some things operationally and from a techn technological standpoint to really kind
of supercharge a recruiter’s ability to uh fill roles for their for our clients.
And when back in the early days, I imagine you had kind of a startup mentality as you were just getting off the ground.
Yeah, absolutely. Like we still have that startup mentality, but um yeah, it was all hands on deck, everybody doing
everything and anything. And what essentially that mindset was what
brought on the idea of outsourcing our IT and outsourcing our development just because to bring somebody at that
capacity and inhouse is just going to be just cost prohibitive uh quite honestly
when you’re just you know trying to get pie and trying to survive your first few years. Yeah absolutely. Um, and when you first
started, how early, so Neo is the software application that, um, Atlas uses? Uh, that’s the applicant tracking
system, and that’s what we at Aiba help Pablo maintain and build out. Now, um, how early on did Neo come about? I
actually don’t know the the very early origin story of the application itself. So, we when we, you know, even before we
launched, we were taking a look at different applications and we realized quickly that nobody out there was doing
everything that we wanted. So the idea like software as a solution like off-the-shelf tools weren’t doing you
want to go. Yeah. We took a look at you know a few of the big players out there like a bullhorn I think big biller a few others
um we didn’t see anything that that fit kind of everything that we wanted. We ended up going with a product that kind
of got us by but since the very beginning we knew eventually we’d land on building our own. Um and then I would
say probably around 3 years in we decided to start going down that route of building in and you know we’ve been
now uh in business for about 10 years. So a little over 10 years I would say
probably six of the the last six years we’ve been using it and you know having different versions of it and adding
adding more and more to it. And it sounds like you were pretty certain from the beginning that you
weren’t planning to hire developers, but that must have been like to have in-house on your own. But what I you probably did discuss it some. Were there
some pros and cons you were thinking of when you were first contemplating all this? Yeah, you know, from from the idea of
outsourcing is, you know, we always like I mentioned from a cost perspective,
initially the thought of building our own software is like ah it’s one project, you know, take a year or two and then we’d be done with it. Um so
from that perspective made a lot more sense than hiring somebody dedicated to doing something like this. Um we also
like the idea of just scalability. If we wanted to ramp things up um we can scale
things up and down relatively easily. Um the other thing is just intellectual
capital. you know, bringing one person in who has one set of experiences is
limited comparing to uh, you know, essentially hiring a firm like yours that has a lot of developers, a lot of
different clients. Um, you know, I’m constantly saying like, hey, this is how I see the world as a recruiter. What
other solutions have you guys seen in other fields, in other industries that might actually fit better for what we’re
trying to achieve? Yeah, and Lee, can you speak to that a little bit because he’s the team lead um for a number of developers here to but
also as the solution architect um on Atlas Search. Uh and I I do always enjoy
having those conversations with you, Pablo, about this idea or that idea or how could we do this or that. And I know
that Lee’s experience and other clients has helped color some of that, but do you want to speak to that a little bit, Lee? Sure. Yeah, I think the experience is a
big part of it. As he mentioned, especially with if you’re if you’re a startup or if you’re a small to midsize
business, the number of resources you’re going to be able to hire on the project is pretty limited. So, that becomes a pretty important hire. You need someone
that knows the programming. You need someone that knows the DevOps. You need someone that has experience with all
those things. So that’s one thing that AIBA has is uh for instance for Atlas if they want to speed up their search and
they need to bring in some kind of full text index or open search type software
they may not they might have hired someone that doesn’t have that experience. Whereas ata we have two or
three people that have not only know about the technology but have had hands-on experience. So it’s easy to
bring that experience in and apply that to the application in real time. So, and we’ve seen that in Neo System as a real
world example of that happening. So, yeah. Um, from a cost perspective,
Pablo, how do you all think about in terms of, you know, paying for like a monthly fee for outside developers to
come in versus having someone on staff? You know, there’s obviously plus and minuses to both. um you know from the
from a cost perspective the way we look at it is like yeah we can bring somebody inhouse but their capacity is going to
be limited um you know how much they can do and so we like the the ability to
kind of ramp things up you know we just discussed recently like hey we might be adding this other project in do we do it
simultaneously with everything that’s going on now or do we just kind of wait you know till we we take care of some of
these open items. So from that perspective um you know it it it also
the the other component of it from a cost perspective is you know we don’t have to worry about having a a seat
dedicated to somebody the technology behind them benefits on boarding hiring
you know a big concern is like what if we do have somebody that’s kind of like a master of all these things etc. None
of us are developers uh now that person leaves we have no idea about where
anything is etc. Um whereas we’re if we’re engaging you guys if unfortunately
one of our resources leaves your firm, somebody can kind of pick up uh you know
where it was left off and get up to speed relatively quickly. Whereas if we hired somebody and they left, I I’d have
no idea what anything is in the background or any of that. I don’t know code. So that’s really kind of like the
intellectual pro, you know, intellectual capital that you guys have to make our lives easier.
Yeah, that makes sense. And also Atlas is a pretty lean operation in terms of the 110 folks that you have, most of
them are recruiters at this point, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We are we lean and mean across everything
operationally u from a recruiter standpoint, from a technology standpoint. you know, it it helps us uh,
you know, in a lot of ways just be more agile in our decision- making and also it just, you know, helps us with our our
bottom line as well because we’re we don’t have a a huge headcount um to take
care of these things. It allows for us to have, you know, just increase profits
from a like a security perspective too. I know that, you know, the as technology
continues to evolve, there are new risks to to manage. And I think that that’s something we can help with also is just
being able to kind of assess some of that and help guide and make recommendations on some of those things.
Um, have you found that’s the case, too? Yeah. You know, oftentimes I’ll, you know, just come up with brainstorming
ideas. It’s like a component of just a sounding board for some ideas. this like, hey, this is an idea that in
theory works in my head, but what are the practicalities to it that um apply
to our applications? Like what is practical, what is not? Um and also, you
know, obviously from a security standpoint, it just, you know, we’re always looking at different things. You
know, I’ve I’ve heard of competitors that are their software has been hijacked and the ransomware and all
those things. So I’m constantly, you know, thinking about those risks. Again, that’s where the experience from the
other other folks at AIA really is important to us because everybody’s seen
something different from one of their clients. So they’re able to tackle things that I haven’t even thought of or have exposure to things that me and my
recruiting world, you know, my my counterparts for the most part that I speak to in this world all come from the
recruiting world. So there’s so many different ways of of seeing things that it is very beneficial for sure.
Yeah. Um, one of the things we’ve been talking with you all about is AI and how we could fold that into some of the
various areas of NEO. And that’s been a just internally a fun topic for us to discuss because we’re having that
conversation with so many of our clients right now and how can we fold it in and um I I know that we’re hopeful there’s a
couple different projects which we don’t need to talk about the specifics of but um Lee, you want to talk about that just
a little bit? how you know sharing ideas between clients and kind of the brainstorming side of things how that’s
been helpful um on Alice in particular. Yeah, I mean at we definitely see the
relationship as a partnership. So I mean we realize like Pablo is a
great recruiter and he has a lot of knowledge about it but he’s definitely not the expert expert nor does he want
to be. So we when we approach the situation we really want to extend that knowledge. We want to set them up in the
best possible situation. So as like you mentioned AI is an emerging technology
everybody’s super interested in it and we want to come to the forefront as the experts to lend that partnership to
Atlas. So when Pablo comes to us and says hey I know we don’t want to be the first but we don’t want to be the last.
What do you what do you think that we should do in this AI space? We want to be able to have the expert opinion on
that but there’s also a level of trust that we need to have with each other. So, you know, Pablo’s very comfortable
with the work that we perform in in the past and other areas that we’ve executed on. So, he really has that trust that
this the things that we’re going to advise them on is not only um the right thing, but we’re we’re coming from a
situation where we want us both to succeed. So, if we don’t advise them in the correct way, you know, they’re not
going to have success and then we’re not going to have success. And that’s basically what it comes down to is really trying to fig find that situation
which we both have success and we’re both able to you know find wins in that space.
Um Paul I one question if you had any advice like for others who are looking to hire like a software outsourcing
their software development um is there you know how would you identify the right kind of company because you’ve
worked with other people than just us. this is, you know, there’s it’s this is a current partnership, but I know
there’s a lot of different folks you work with. Are there specific um characteristics you look for or any advice you’d have on hiring a firm like
this to do this like pretty meaningful part of your business? Yeah, look, the first that that lead
touch upon is just building working with somebody you can trust, right? and and trust that
the advice I’m being given is what’s best for us, not what’s easiest or most
profitable or fastest for for the consulting firm. So, it’s like one establishing that trust. Um, you know,
and that comes with experience, that comes with, you know, people delivering
on promises and on on engagements and all those kinds of things. Um the other
is to really understand what it is you ultimately want in a relationship. Like
for me it’s very important that um at the end of the day I’m able to speak to
somebody and I’m not just you know if if I have any issues or for whatever the case is. It’s not hey go to our website
create a ticket and somebody will get back to you in 48 hours. Um so you know that’s very important. I
want to be able to talk to the people who are able to make decisions. um that will really impact what it is we’re
doing in our engagements. Um and certainly want to see accountability for
hey these are measurables that we’re that we’re uh that we have and are we meeting them are we not and if we’re not
why not and all those kinds of things. So you know that’s what I see but I’d say for a lot of it is kind of sit down
and really think about what it is you’re trying to get out of the relationship. You know, obviously everybody has an
idea of what the product is, but what’s important to you? Is it staying within budget? Is it the the product being as
as best as possible? Is it flexibility and being able to navigate through um
through different things that pop up? You know, some people want a very rigid structure. Um some people like a
flexible structure. So again, I think managing your own expectations, understanding what it is that you want
goes a long way. So finding a partner that works for you. Yeah. Um and I will say too, if there if
any of the participants have any questions, you can use the chat feature and we can address those questions as they come up too. Um well, let’s switch
over to the managed IT services side of the house now. Um, and before we get into that, Jeff, could you just sort of
describe like what are some typical managed IT services? So, we’re all talking about the same thing here.
Sure. So, yeah, IT services could be, you know, depending on what your background is could mean different
things, right? Um, for us, managed IT services is more about the hardware, the infrastructure,
not necessarily the software development side, but most of the other pieces, right? So, it’s about antivirus. It’s
about making sure your networks are secure. It’s about network performance and storage solutions, cloud solutions,
running the servers, maintaining servers for your applications. So, Lee and the team on the software side would build
the application, but those applications have to run on something, right? They have to be scalable. Um, so the IT
services would support those environments. Um, and then it depends on the company and what level of need that
they have. Uh but IT managed services is basically more of a proactive approach.
There’s companies out there that do help desk, you know, outsource help desk, call centers, things of that nature.
That’s really not what we’re talking about with managed services. The manage is kind of the key key word in that
phrase. So for us, it’s more about what are we proactively doing? We want to help you maintain your computer systems
so that you don’t have help desk tickets. We want to minimize those tickets, but we also give you a place to call, people to talk to, you know, ways
to send in emails, support, different ways um if you do need help that we’re there for you. But really, managed
services is we’re your outsourced IT department. If you are a company with a big IT department, you just expect it to
run, right? You no one’s there telling them what to do. you’re just expecting that they’re using latest technologies,
they’re using security protocols, uh, but they’re managing everything and they’re going to let you know if there’s
problems. So, if we were managing a company, we would let them know we need to upgrade XYZ. Here’s a rotation
schedule on PCs. Um, this is a better solution for you for antivirus or this
is a less costly option. Right? We we basically are charged for our services
as a mostly a flat fee depending on sizing. Um so we’re not trying to make
money on any software trying to sell you know option one, two or three. We’re looking for the best solution for that
customer and what they’re trying to do. But that’s really the managed services part of it.
Yeah. And does that fit your experience with what your vendor is providing to you all Pablo?
Yeah. No, it’s it’s exactly right. you know there there is some hey you know somebody calling my my emails not
working etc but a lot of it is really the anticipation it’s uh especially with technology moving so fast different
scams out there etc just kind of staying on top of you know whether it’s fraud
virus etc or you know Windows 10 was just sunset so our our IT uh service
provider was able to identify which machines needed you know were available to update which machines needed to be
replaced, come up with a schedule, give us the options of what to buy, all those kinds of things, things that I just
didn’t have to think about. They basically just presented me with my options, said yes, yes, no, and kind of
moved on. So, and part of what’s great about it is, you know, if they’re helping us solve
proactive problems because they’re seeing some of their other clients as well having some of these issues and
they’re like, “Hey, well, if it happened to them, it’s going to happen to Atlas. Let me make you aware of some of the things that are coming down the
pipeline.” might not affect you now, but it will affect you at some point. Yeah.
And from your what you said about having kind of a startup mentality that just definitely seems like an obvious choice
to outsource that and not try to manage all of that internally and deal with the headache of all the change and all the
variables that might be coming up. Yeah, absolutely. Again, it’s a numbers game, too. You know, we we just moved
offices. So, we had one person dedicated into uh you know, to our company. Now,
I’m going to have one person do 80 computer setups and all those kinds of things where our AT provider, hey, we’re
moving offices. Okay, they sent uh, you know, eight guys to to come and help uh
for a few days on the weekend and now that was taken care of. So, I’m able to scale and tackle problems that might
feel too big if we were kind of going at it alone.
And one thing Jeff has raised before is just that, you know, sometimes we hear from clients that, you know, concern
over having an outside company having so much access. Um, Jeeoff, I don’t know if you want to speak to that, just how like
that sometimes does come up in your all conversations. Then I’d be curious, Pablo, how you all respond to that too.
Yeah. Um, well, it’s a couple things. One, it’s similar on the software side, right? You’re you’re giving um company
secrets, you’re trying to develop things. It’s really about trust and partnership. Uh there certainly are NDAs
and legal agreements uh that are in place to protect the client and the tea
um or the managed services partner, but really it’s about the partnership um and
it’s making sure that we’re being smart with the assets we have. So we have a secured vault. So we store, you know,
information. We store passwords, things of that in a in an encrypted vault where
if something were to happen to Pablo or even or he got, you know, in in trouble or had to, you know, was sick for a
little while or something and someone needed access to something, we have vacation and never came back, you know,
or actually took a vacation. Didn’t want to have to be bothered every five minutes. um you know we can help with
those kinds of things and we can be a business continuity support but whether you trust your internal IT department
that you hired somebody um or you trust a company um you know it’s you’re
trusting somebody right and that’s that’s what you need to do is make that assessment um and a company like a
managed services partner is going to have a lot of policies in place we have a lot of security protocols and
platforms that we follow uh to do best practices. Um, so yeah, that’s usually
how we kind of describe it is it’s it’s a partnership. You trust us, we trust you, but we also have, you know, legal
support behind it as well.
Pablo, how do you feel about that with your side? And the way I see it is uh
you know we we’re in a lot of ways you’re you’re going to have more security than than us uh
because you’re you’re going to be protecting you know multiple multiple clients um as opposed to you know so
your your security has to be that much more stringent than ours uh just because of the different layers etc. And
obviously from a reputational standpoint um it’s huge risk for anything to be you
know for for any any breach or any information to be shared etc. So from that perspective
um yeah I’ I’d always kind of assumed you know we always ask the right questions like hey what are you guys
doing etc there but we know that we’re kind of aligned in hey the security protocols and what’s important and all
those kinds of things. Um and then you know just in in general um you know how
how the how how you work with us also will tell us a lot of things. You know
in theory people will say hey yeah we do the you know we do everything the right
way we protect you etc. But in practice, as we’re dealing with different information and different things,
whether it’s setups, you know, machines and all those kinds of things, I can tell how you’re treating every situation
will kind of inform me um as to how you’re actually doing things versus how you say you’re going to do them as well.
Um, one question we often get a lot on this topic is like billing arrangements and structures and and how that can be
structured. Um and maybe Jeeoff, I know you have a lot of thoughts on this. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? And I think that also leads into
like the cost effectiveness of outsourcing in some ways. Yeah. Um you know, a team has been
around about 30 years. Um network services is has grown in our, you know, managed services it over the years. Um
hasn’t been around 30 years, but it’s been around quite a while. And we’ve we’ve explored different different ways to work. And we are somewhat flexible
with our customers for a couple different approaches. and you know what works in their in their world or makes
sense to them. But what we found by the vast majority in where we’re really moving is more of a a flat I’ll say a
flat rate but it’s there’s some options and things right so if you want really basic support um we have some options
there and it’s a per seat type of a thing so per person right our goal is not to track how many help desk calls we
take and track our hours because our our goal is honestly just to have as minimal hours as we can because we’re doing
things right and you’re not having problems starting contact us. So, you know, for us, it it helps you. You want
want to get a flat rate. What we don’t like to do is make customers feel like they’re being nickels and dime. And so,
every month, the price goes up, it goes down. I had to make a call. So, now I don’t got to pay more or, you know, let
me just try to figure this out on my own because if I figure it out on my own, I don’t have to call somebody and now I
have to pay for it. So, we’ve really moved to more of that. look, you’re going to get the support you need and
we’ll work with you on on how big your company is, how many people probably would call in, the types of tickets.
After a few months, we tend to adjust that if need be. We can work with you, go up or down. Um, but really, we we
just have some some standard rates and we found that that works the best if it’s five people. So, if it’s five people or 20 people or 100 people, it
just scales based on the number. Um, and then there’s licensing fees we pay for
because we want to use our antivirus and our remote management tools and things of that nature so that it’s a stable
environment and a triedand-true uh systems. So, yeah. So, that’s that’s
really seemed to work really well. It’s an easy conversation to have with customers. How many people do you have? How many servers do you have? Kind of
get an inventory of of things and then be able to give them a pretty flat rate and say, “Here it is. This is the price
per month.” Um, and you don’t have to worry about calling us. You can call us 100 times. calls twice and we kind of
expect there might be more calls at the beginning till we do more of our proactive work and then get it down to a
really, you know, smooth operation, but then as Paul said, there’s situations where they’re one-offs, right? We have
to replace 80 computers. um you know and so those types of things we take out of
that unlimited those might be projectbased work or depending on the the client the arrangement if we’re in
more of a pro environment that it may just be covered because we just know every few years we’re going to have to do this expense and it’s just you know
spread out over over multiple years. Um and then we have some clients that require really high levels of security.
And so there’s extra firewall. There’s extra work um in protection and security
tools and software that we would do and duplicate backups and triplicate backups on multiple hosted platforms. You know,
multiple cloud environments. And so we have some higher level uh options as
well for companies that do need those extra levels of security. So, we have a couple different pricing models, but
mostly we’re getting to that point where it’s a per person per server cost and then it’s either your standard cost or
pro kind of security plus type cost. And has that been your experience,
Pablo? Just with your current company, there’s just different models you can opt into. Yeah, absolutely. You know, they’ve
they’re currently our contract is on a per headcount basis for, you know, the the typical support. Then they also
manage our 365 contracts, our um AWS uh
servers and all those things and their standard costs. And you know what I found to be you know beneficial is just
you know proactive communication. You know don’t wait for hey AWS is charging
more and all of a sudden you have an invoice that’s you know significantly different than what you’re used to
getting. Communicate that ahead of time. Hey this is coming down the pipeline. These are the options what we can do. we
can scale back, we can keep it the same, etc. So they, you know, you understand, you know, ultimately what when you’re
outsourcing, you want somebody to treat the the engagement, the relationship as
if they were in-house. And when I have somebody that’s working for me in-house, what I’m, you know, for those who are
senior level, it’s like, hey, it’s not about doing, it’s about anticipating what’s coming down the road so that there’s no surprises. We try to avoid
the surprises because that’s where you can get yourself into trouble from a cost perspective or an operational perspective. So, you know, the
communication is really really vital for especially when you’re making decisions. When you’re when it’s six of you,
decision only affects six people. When you’re making decisions that affect 110, you know, if you make one mistake, it’s
110 mistakes. So, you have to make sure that you get it right. Yeah. And speaking of the 10 years in
that you are now, do you have any advice for someone who’s maybe just starting their own business and how to start this
process of, you know, you get your core business function down, but then you need to look for all these other service
providers who can help you with some of your um with some of your tech needs and otherwise. What would you what kind of
advice would you have for someone just starting out? Yeah, I would say rely on your network to really
vet. So there there’s a lot of vendors in in all different areas and all different roles just like there are a
lot of recruiters out there and I would say rely on your network to really talk about you know and in those conversations hey I looking to outsource
my IT etc and you can while people are um sharing uh who they know or or or
their exper you know they’re also going to be sharing their experience and it can help you really um identify the
pitfalls of either one you know kind of if you can leverage off of people’s
experience and mistakes to kind of avoid them. Inevitably, there there will be, you know, like anything, um there will
be mistakes that happen and things that go wrong, but same thing if you hire somebody. You know what I mean? There’s
pitfalls to everything, but I’d say leverage off your network of of the people out there that have gone and
done it and see how they’ve done it and then develop your own approach because sometimes what might work for somebody
else might not work for you. But it’s kind of good to to to talk to people about their experiences.
Definitely. And no no decision is final also. You know, you can yeah switch it up as needed too. One one
thing on the the network it or the managed services side um too is just your location like are you remote? Are
you going to have a physical building? Um do you want people on site? Um
because that that is one other thing that we have run into with questions. You know we have some offices where
they’re like you know they own 20 different build like a maybe say a dentist office they own 20 offices or 50
offices across the United States. Um and so how do you how do you physically
support that right or and that sort of thing whether it’s internal or you know outsourced and you know with the tea we
have a lot of the the managed remote services we can do just about everything
other than plug cables in um you know remotely and so we often will use local
local companies at different areas to come in to bring headcount in um for some of our larger clients we can send a
team you know if there’s a bigger project we can send a team on site somewhere if it’s not, you know, where
our team actually is located. But that’s something that comes up now and then. Um, and then we also kind of find that
in some cases it’s worth sharing a resource, so to speak, in a more of a hybrid approach, I guess, is a better
way to say that, but we have the IT support. We manage everything, but they might want one or two internal
employees, you know, junior IT guys that are on site that are physically there to help and they become kind of a partner
with us and they could, you know, walk around and plug in monitors and plug in desktops and show people how to use
something and, you know, walk them through the process. You know, I was with one company and they they just, you
know, the co 101 person on staff at it that could figure out how to turn the conference room on, you know, and set up
all the stuff in the conference room and then they would help us with re reformatting computers or, you know, be
a hands-on. Um, but then we can also bring them into the fold and they can learn a lot and they’ve got a lot of
expertise to draw on um, you know, when there’s when there’s heavier tasks that are needed.
So, are you guys remote and um obviously you have office buildings as well, but kind of in a hybrid mode?
Yeah, you know, it it really depends on on the role, division, etc. I’m fully
remote. So I’m based out of Florida and while our headquarters is in New York, but we have a satellite office in
Cranford, New Jersey. And as you mentioned, you know, having that resource to go, you know, go there
physically and and whether do setups, you know, whether it’s looking at the IT room and all those things is vital to
us. It’s not necessary every day, but it’s vital to us. And the other thing to consider other than locations is hours
of operations. You know, we have some people that get in early. There is 7:30, you know, etc. So, they’re going to need
answers if there’s an issue. They’re going to need answers, you know, as quickly as possible. And then we have some people that are, you know, get in
late, but per perhaps uh work later. You know, they’re working to 7:00 7:30 and they need answers if something goes
wrong that might be fatalistic to what they’re trying to achieve. So, that’s something else to consider when you’re
looking at, you know, kind of this kind of relationship as well. What are my hours of coverage?
Yeah, it’s a good point. Yeah, makes sense. Especially multiple time zones, too. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. We’re not
there yet, but yeah, I can only imagine having to deal with West Coast time zone. Yeah. Well, that leads me into my last
question, Pablo. What’s next for Atlas? Uh, what’s planned is growth. Um, you
know, I think we’re we have 10 divisions now. I all of those divisions I think
can grow and we hope to expand uh not only by adding other divisions, but
adding other offices as well in different locations. So I think this next six months is is going to tell a
big part of of which how quickly we do that. But the idea is to grow. We want to grow aggressively. We kind of still
have that startup mentality of hey everybody hands on deck. Um you know we
still have that mentality of let’s try new things. Um if they work great, if they don’t work let’s move to the next
one so we can continue to learn and just you know grow operationally.
Excellent. Well, we’re glad to be your partner with that along the way. I appreciate everything you guys do.
Yeah, and thank you for joining us today, Pablo. We’ll stay on for a few minutes afterwards if anyone has any questions that they want to drop in the
chat. But Pablo, we really appreciate you joining us today. And Jeff and Lee, thanks for jumping on as well.
Thank you all so much. Thank you guys. – Generated with https://kome.ai