Advantidge Inc. of El Segundo, California, provides turnkey ID card systems to their primary market, the U.S. Southwest. The company distinguishes itself with its high level of customer support as well as its drive to produce environmentally friendly products. Marking Time editor Kathleen Strickland spoke recently to Advantidge CEO Lawrence Grafstein about the company’s history and future plans.

Kathleen Strickland: When did you start your company?

Lawrence Grafstein: The company was founded in 2001, after several years in the business of distributing security ID-card printers. There was an opportunity for me to start my own business here in Southern California, where some of the manufacturers that we represented were looking for better coverage of the Southwest, specifically in the Southern California market.

KS: How many employees does Advantidge have?

LG: We’re a small business, typically sized for our industry. But, with our successful operating efficiencies and productive use of the most modern technologies, we are often perceived as a much larger organization. This is also true given the expanded level of support we provide customers (more comprehensive than our competitors). The time and attendance market is no exception.

KS: What are your major products?

LG: Our core business products are turnkey ID card systems— systems for issuing full-color printed ID cards with employee ID and other information in addition to, in many cases, a computer-readable form of their employee ID number—a bar- code, a magnetic stripe, and often these days a proximity card. That would be the core system. Working with that system, there are a number of other accessory products often used by the employees of our clients’ customers—the actual users of those time and attendance cards.

KS: So almost everything is based on the cards?

LG: Yes, to an extent. Certainly, ongoing supplies like the ribbons and accessories revolve around the card. We entered the market through the security side, building a strong, long-lasting reputation in the region over the years. But the manufacturers were looking for more than simple “card sellers,” as it is vital to them to work with organizations positioned to provide value-added services such as local technical training and support. Our ability to do so has elevated Advantidge as a top-tier player in the minds of our manufacturer partners and customers alike. As a result of this success and continued growth, we enjoy elite status with many of the largest, most prestigious manufacturers in the industry.

KS: Do you have a national market?

LG: Yes, absolutely. We are established as the largest Value-Added Distributor (VAD) in the U.S. Southwest. With our strong presence throughout the entire Western region and our track record for servicing organizations of virtually any size, Advantidge is well-positioned to handle business nationwide. In fact, our sales team is always first to the office each day to cater to East Coast and Midwest customers.

KS: Are you planning on diversifying your product line?

LG: Yes, certainly. One reason we’ve been successful is our ability to stay ahead of the curve and evolve our product lines to meet our customers’ precise needs. A perfect example of this is our new green line of products. Eco-friendly definitely extends to our industry, and with our early success in this rapidly emerging area, Advantidge is determined to continue leading the charge. Corn-based and fully biodegradable cards are just the beginning. It’s a very exciting time to share these innovations with customers and to play an integral role in assisting them in meeting their environmental initiatives.

KS: Tell me a little about the corn-based ID card.

LG: I think possibly the Southern California market has greater interest in figuring out ways to implement green technologies. The card market has always revolved around PVC. The corn card was the first product that we’ve been able to provide to our clients and bring to this market. We’ve since introduced a 100 percent recycled card.

We have one more exciting product that we’re getting ready later this quarter—a biodegradable card. The corn card and the recycled card are not biodegradable. They use materials that we expect to have a smaller carbon footprint. There are certainly issues that people are aware of in the green circles about using corn products—the competition for that natural form of energy. With recyclables, it’s a good alternative. With a biodegradable card, you literally can put it into the ground and it will decompose.

KS: Do you help dealers market the “green” items?

LG: Yes, dealer marketing support is crucial to our joint success. We supply them with specific sales and marketing materials, along with product samples. We find that you’re a better product “evangelist” when using the products personally. These combined elements help our dealers differentiate themselves from competitors—equally critical for us. We work hard not to be associated with “box movers,” those that simply sell product without any additional services. It’s important that we truly partner with our dealers to teach them how to educate and sell the products effectively.

KS: Is there any other way you differentiate yourselves from your competition?

LG: We believe we’ve been successful with the way we support our customers, specifically supporting them with manufacturers’ equipment. We’re an authorized service provider for all the major manufacturers of cartridges.

We provide unlimited telephone support for our dealers, whether working with the dealers themselves or their technicians onsite or their end-user customer directly, if the dealer prefers. We’re happy to help them either way and make sure whatever product or equipment we provide is successful.

One of the complaints we hear from dealers is that they shy away from these systems even when the customer is looking for it. They’ve worked with this technology in the past, and it was never really successful with the implementation. The equipment had issues or the end-user was never comfortable with it. Clearly, it’s not the focus of the time and attendance dealer to become an expert in these systems. The role we have had to play is to help them present themselves as experts, knowing that they have us backing them up. Everybody runs their business differently. Some people want to have that knowledge in their hands, in their heads, and we work with them one-on-one by telephone. Others don’t even want their people to have to mess around with it when there’s customization or specific training needed for the end-user. We’ll set up a conference call to work with the end-users directly and make sure they’re up to speed on whatever maintenance is needed. That’s really the role we started out creating with the goal of filling that void for the market.

Manufacturers have been incredibly pleased with the way we’ve taken care of that for them. In many cases, when people ask for references, we tell them to ask the manufacturer. We know in most cases, specifically in this region, they’re likely to point out that Advantidge is not only one of their largest customers, but that we have a great reputation for support and making sure that our clients are successful in using their products.

KS: Support for your own clients and theirs?

LG: We’re very flexible in the way we provide that support. In many cases, we are working with our technicians or someone from the information team at one of our time and attendance dealers. In other cases, the dealer is more or less coordinating communications directly between us and the end-user after equipment has been delivered, or even with a pre-sale to help guide the customer to the right equipment for their application—again so that the dealer doesn’t have to spend time on becoming an expert on yet another peripheral or another technology.

KS: People have different attitudes about how much they need and want to learn.

LG: You need to be flexible and respectful of that. You won’t succeed in a customer-driven business by handling every client the same way. At Advantidge, our thinking is 180 degrees away from “off the shelf.” A significant part of our success comes from listening to the customer and customizing solutions to meet their individual needs.

KS: Do you keep in contact with the clients to check on the systems?

LG: Yes, there is a good level of contact, though we find that by thoroughly supporting the customer during the pre-sale stage and immediately after the sale (during setup and configuration), only minimal contact is required because the systems usually work quite fluidly. At that point, contact mostly pertains to additional supply orders, giving us a great opportunity to ensure that all equipment is working properly and that no issues are overlooked.

Another area we pride ourselves in is having top-notch, well-informed salespeople on our team—with a solid technical and product information knowledge base. Rather than handing customers off to other departments, which seems to be the norm these days (and disliked by customers), our people can provide specific support and in some cases guidance or ideas about how to resolve issues or prevent issues from occurring.

KS: Is there a particular market that is especially receptive to your products?

LG: The focus we have now on providing green accessories, eco-friendly solutions, has started to become a user-driven market. Very few companies that are providing these technologies are able to educate their dealers about the products and what differentiates them from the normal industry products—specifically in the time and attendance market, where we have a long established history of providing these card solutions. They’ve been very receptive because it helps give them an edge over their competition. In many cases it’s not something end-users would have thought of on their own. But when dealers were able to suggest it—as an option—to them, a number of companies, particularly here in the southwestern United States, became interested in incorporating green solutions and make it a priority for anything that they’re purchasing. It’s been a windfall.

KS: What is your business philosophy?

LG: We have a phrase we’ve used for years—360-degree customer service. Customer service is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot. People often only associate it with service or support for a specific order, for example. We look at customer service as part of the pre-sales process and the relationships that we have with our customers, which we expect to be ongoing relationships. We bundle customer service into support: order processing, the sales process, it’s all part of customer service for us.

KS: A holistic view.

LG: Exactly—the 360-degree approach to customer service. Everything is included in customer service.

KS: Is there anything else you’d like the readers to know about your company?

LG: There are two things that I can think of.

First, with the introduction earlier this year of our corn cards and then the recyclable cards, we have a commitment to the environment and to our clients and to the end-users of this product—to help make the planet cleaner without any loss of quality to the customer. As we mentioned before, everything does revolve around the card, but if we can improve the eco-friendliness of the card, that would be step #1; step #2 is to improve all the accessories that go along with those cards, to display them or to use them. We offer a neck lanyard both in polyester or the more exciting bamboo fabric weave. Bamboo is an easy-to-grow environmentally friendly plant for replacing PVC or polyester. The company’s commitment on the eco-friendly side is quite serious. Advantidge is taking a leadership role in the industry by being the first with these introductions, one after the other. It’s been a very warm reception so far.

Second, we were awarded placement in the prestigious INC 5000 for 2008. We want to thank all our existing customers for the ongoing relationships that we’ve had which helped us get there. And we’re looking forward to continued growth and appreciate the recognition from INC magazine.

KS: Congratulations—that’s quite an honor! Lawrence, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you on behalf of Marking Time magazine.

LG: Thank you, Kathy.