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Class of 2024

CEO, Paragus Strategic I.T.

His Big Goals Promise a Big Impact for Employees, the Region, and Beyond

Delcie Bean

 

Delcie Bean had been repairing computers as a side gig from schoolwork from his early teens, and he was a high-school junior when he started taking his enterprise seriously, with business cards and a company name: Vertical Horizons.

The name would change twice over the next two decades, first to Valley Computer Works, then to Paragus Strategic I.T. The technology would change quite a bit, too, as would his business model (more on that later).

What hasn’t changed is Bean’s initial goal: to know more than his clients.

“When I started, it was residential computer support. A lot of it was just helping senior citizens,” he recalled. “I was just helping people who were less sophisticated than I was set up a computer and learn how to use it.

“I didn’t actually know all that much. I just had to know more than the person I was helping,” he continued. “I didn’t have a car; I didn’t have a license. So people had to come pick me up, bring me to their home, and I’d help them fix their computer. I got paid $10 an hour and fed very, very well; it was a lot of grandmas, so I got a lot of cookies and cakes and got invited to a lot of dinners.”

The company grew steadily over the next few years, first in a storefront in Amherst, then in a converted house on Route 9 in Hadley. By 2008 — still only 21 — Bean had accomplished enough to be named to BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty, one of the youngest-ever honorees. He also earned the publication’s Top Entrepreneur award for 2014 and its first-ever Alumni Achievement Award, given to high-performing 40 Under Forty alumni, in 2015 — both of those recognizing the impressive growth of what was now called Paragus Strategic I.T. and located in a larger building a half-mile east on Russell Street.

“How can we be the sherpas, the guides, for those small businesses and tell them what’s coming around the corner, what they should be thinking about, and what they should be preparing for?”

And now, Bean is a Difference Maker — not necessarily for the company’s still-upward trajectory when it comes to growth and expansion. No, it’s for the impact he’s had on IT workforce development in the region, and also for implementing an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) model that may create dozens of employee-owner millionaires over time.

“We think we can be a $250 million company in 15 years,” he told BusinessWest. “But in order to do that, we’re going to need to grow a lot, and we’re going to need capital. A lot of businesses in our position bring in a private equity group and leverage their dollars, but that means you work for them, and they make a lot of the big decisions, and it isn’t the same company anymore. And we decidedly did not want to do that.”

He also had no interest in selling the company, feeling he has more to give. “So the third option was to do what we did the first time we wanted to grow, and double down on the ESOP. In this case, we’re becoming 100% employee-owned.”

 

Keys to Success

Looking back, one of the biggest decisions in Bean’s career took place after he and a partner (whom he eventually bought out) settled on the name Valley Computer Works and bought the house in Hadley.

By 2011, the client base was about 60% residential (with about 4,000 customers) and 40% commercial.

“We got it running like a well-oiled machine. There was a touchscreen kiosk when you dropped it off — you checked off what services you wanted to get. We had it running like a car wash: ‘do you want this package or this package?’ And the whole thing was really efficient, but we weren’t enjoying it. It wasn’t giving me a lot of excitement,” he recalled. “But I loved the commercial stuff. I loved helping companies and working with businesses.”

Besides its Hadley headquarters (pictured), Paragus has a location in Worcester

Besides its Hadley headquarters (pictured), Paragus has a location in Worcester and ambitions to expand its footprint steadily from there.

So, one day, he woke up and decided his future would be in commercial support — and he made the bold decision to shut down 60% of his revenue at the time and build on the 40%.

These days, Paragus exclusively provides IT support to small businesses in an ongoing contract model, he explained. “We are their outsourced IT department, and we become an extension of their company, managing and taking care of whatever they need.”

Bean describes Paragus’ traditional services in terms of three pillars. The first is the help desk. “Your employees have a problem — they can’t turn their computer on, they can’t get into their email, their phone’s not working — and we’re the help desk. We’re the people you call to get those issues taken care of.”

The second pillar is the proactive part of IT: the backups, monitoring, and security. “Obviously, that has evolved and changed so much in the past 10 years, but the core principle is that you need somebody looking after your network and being proactive and taking care of it.”

The third pillar is strategy, helping businesses figure out what technology they should be using, and how to use it more efficiently.

But about four years ago, a fourth pillar emerged at Paragus, which is AI and automation. “That’s all about using technology to make the business more efficient, more intelligent. How do we access more information to run a better business?”

As technology continues to evolve, especially on that fourth front, it’s critical that businesses have a strategic partner well-versed in IT and current trends, he added.

“AI and automation are changing everything. They’re going to have a huge disruption in the labor force in terms of who’s doing what jobs and how those jobs get done. And we’re going to be able to do things that, right now, we can’t do, either because we’re too busy doing the mundane, repetitive work, or because we just didn’t have the tools to be able to work on those things.

“So, how do we stay one or two steps ahead of our customer base,” Bean asked, “but in a way that we can figure out not only how this is impacting our industry, but how it’s impacting small business in general? Then, how can we be the sherpas, the guides, for those small businesses and tell them what’s coming around the corner, what they should be thinking about, and what they should be preparing for?”

Sensing a need for a stronger pipeline of talent into the IT field, in 2014, Bean created Tech Foundry, an educational nonprofit that provides in-depth training for promising individuals, particularly from marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds.

“We wanted to create a program that would take people who are having a hard time finding work, give them a career path, and then we can employ them,” he explained. “It helps us, it helps them, it helps everybody. It seemed very sustainable.”

“About 500 students have graduated from Tech Foundry. And many of them are earning significant salaries, way more than they ever could have imagined.”

Employer partners agreed, and a fundraising campaign brought in $400,000 to launch the program, which continues today — and recently expanded into Tech Hub, a facility in Holyoke where people can learn technology skills to help them advance in an increasingly digital job market.

“About 500 students have graduated from Tech Foundry. And many of them are earning significant salaries, way more than they ever could have imagined,” Bean said. “So it not only impacts that person, it impacts their entire family, because now you’ve just changed this person’s entire trajectory.”

 

Wealth of Information

In the early years of Vertical Horizon and Valley Computer Works, Bean said, it didn’t matter who owned the company because it wasn’t making any money.

“But there came a time when that changed, and the company was suddenly worth more. And that was the moment where it started to feel a little bit inequitable. We had the same culture; we were all working just as hard. Everybody was the first one in and last one out, and there was no hierarchy; we were all just doing what we could to make this company successful and serve our customers.

“But at the end of the day, as the company actually started to gain value, all that value was coming to me,” he said. “So, around 2013, I had this idea that I wanted to spread that value across the employees. We tried a couple of different models and finally settled on ESOP as the way we wanted to do that.”

The plan was to transfer 40% of the stock to the employees, a transaction that was finalized in June 2016.

“That was the first moment where I actually planned on running the business for many years into the future,” Bean said. “Up until that point, it was still kind of a side project; I was still a kid with no responsibilities. But when I made that decision to become an ESOP, I was like, ‘OK, this is actually a business, and I want this business to grow and thrive and succeed.’”

To do that, he needed to attract top talent who would want to stay, and that meant creating a desirable employee culture — with employee ownership as a key part of that. Which is why Paragus is now expanding its ESOP to become 100% employee-owned.

“I will no longer own any more stock than any of the other employees,” he told BusinessWest. “I’ll just be another employee owner. But we will have created the capital that we need to be able to execute on our acquisition strategy.”

That’s the heart of the plan: to continue to acquire companies in new geographic footprints, a strategy that Paragus piloted in Worcester with its acquisition of Comportz Technologies during the summer of 2021.

“The plan is to try to do an acquisition a year for the next five years or so and continue to learn and grow and figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and then continue to execute that strategy for as long as it provides value to the community, to the customers, and to the employees,” he explained. “Each year, we want to look for a new geographic market that we think has the right conditions for us to succeed and thrive.”

Meanwhile, Paragus continues to give back to the community, supporting many local businesses by donating goods and sponsoring nonprofit events and educational initiatives.

“We’re a company that believes companies can be a force for good in the community and in the world,” Bean said. “For us, the world is too big a target, but the community feels really approachable. We serve businesses in the community, and we’re dependent on the community.”

And now it’s serving those businesses as a 100% employee-owned firm, which promises to change a lot of lives.

“I’d encourage businesses that are looking to grow, looking to transition ownership, looking to make a change, to keep that option on the table without just defaulting to selling out to private equity,” he added. “Oftentimes, the impact of that is losing jobs, losing revenue, and dollars leave the area.”

The opposite is happening at Paragus, which continues to benefit clients, employees, aspiring IT talent, and the community in myriad ways.

That’s the story — with many chapters in his young life still unwritten — of a Difference Maker.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Properly onboarding and offboarding employees is an important part of keeping a business running efficiently. It also takes a lot of time and energy. On Friday, Feb. 17 from noon to 1 p.m., Paragus Strategic IT will present a webinar demonstrating how to automate the employee onboarding and offboarding processes, ensuring simplicity and consistency every time.

This webinar will explore the various options and technologies available to improve the way employees are onboarded and offboarded. With high business turnover in the last three years, onboarding and offboarding automation can help save time, avoid mistakes, and ensure that things get done according to procedure.

Click here to register.

Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest, in partnership with Living Local, has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Episode 80: Sept. 20, 2021

George Interviews Delcie Bean, CEO of Paragus Strategic IT and the presenter for a recent BusinessWest Webinar

Delcie Bean

BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien has a lively discussion with Delcie Bean, CEO of Paragus Strategic IT and the presenter for a recent BusinessWest Webinar, sponsored by Comcast Business, called ‘Automation: The Time is Now.’ The two talk about the many ways businesses can benefit from automation of processes, everyday tasks, and more — especially during the ongoing workforce crisis — and how to get started. It’s must listening so join us on BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest in partnership with Living Local.

Sponsored by:

Also Available On

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Delcie Bean says business owners have always had good reason to consider automation and what it can do for their employees — and their bottom lines.

But today, they have more reason than ever, he told BusinessWest, adding that technology and urgency combine to make this a time for business owners and managers to stop talking about automation and commence doing it.

“The labor market is so terrible right now that many organizations, in addition to trying to hire and figure that out, are also just having to figure out how to be leaner and how to be more efficient,” said Bean, CEO of Hadley-based Paragus Strategic IT. “So as you look at the state of the economy and the state of the job market, you have to ask: ‘how can I do more with less?’”

These sentiments comprise the main thrust of a virtual seminar to be presented by Bean, in conjunction with BusinessWest and Comcast Business, today, Sept. 15, at 11 a.m. To sign up for the event, visit businesswest.com/businesswest-virtual-webinar.

The program is titled “Automation: the Time Is Now,” and subtitled “How Automation Can Streamline Your Business and Offset the Labor Shortage,” and those words effectively and succinctly describe the material to be covered.

Indeed, the 60-minute presentation will focus on the benefits of automation and the ways it can be utilized to save businesses time, trouble, and expense, said Bean, adding quickly that many business owners and managers are not fully aware of the many ways automation can benefit them.

“In the small-business space, it’s usually the most boring, unattractive tasks you can think of,” he said. “But it’s the things that have to get done behind the scenes that you never really pay much attention to but take up a fair amount of time and energy.”

As examples, he listed everything from the many steps involved in onboarding a new employee or client to the information that has to be gathered when someone signs up for something on a website and then moved to another system, to the steps involved in the approval process when employees want to request a new computer.

All of this should be automated, Bean said, and with emerging technology, specifically the Microsoft 365 platform, it can be, to the point where these tasks and functions now take a fraction of the time they once did.

But technology is just part of the reason why now is the time to automate, he added, noting that the ongoing labor shortage has given more urgency to such matters.

“Rather than sacrificing quality or increasing stress and risking burnout, which can lead to even more turnover, businesses need to ask how they can leverage technology to help them solve some of this problem,” he said. “Reacting to the current situation, there’s never been a better time, both from the availability of the technology and the demand and the urgency of the situation, to look for ways to automate things.”

Overall, the virtual presentation is designed to educate and empower business owners to first identify those tasks and processes that can be automated and then take the steps to go about doing it, said Bean, adding that the program is targeted for businesses with 15 to 250 employees, which encompasses most of the companies in Western Mass.

“There is not an industry that isn’t applicable,” he concluded.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Delcie Bean says business owners have always had good reason to consider automation and what it can do for their employees — and their bottom lines.

But today, they have more reason than ever, he told BusinessWest, adding that technology and urgency combine to make this a time for business owners and managers to stop talking about automation and commence doing it.

“The labor market is so terrible right now that many organizations, in addition to trying to hire and figure that out, are also just having to figure out how to be leaner and how to be more efficient,” said Bean, CEO of Hadley-based Paragus Strategic IT. “So as you look at the state of the economy and the state of the job market, you have to ask: ‘how can I do more with less?’”

These sentiments comprise the main thrust of a virtual seminar to be presented by Bean, in conjunction with BusinessWest and Comcast Business, on Wednesdsay, Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. To sign up for the event, visit businesswest.com/businesswest-virtual-webinar.

The program is titled “Automation: the Time Is Now,” and subtitled “How Automation Can Streamline Your Business and Offset the Labor Shortage,” and those words effectively and succinctly describe the material to be covered.

Indeed, the 60-minute presentation will focus on the benefits of automation and the ways it can be utilized to save businesses time, trouble, and expense, said Bean, adding quickly that many business owners and managers are not fully aware of the many ways automation can benefit them.

“In the small-business space, it’s usually the most boring, unattractive tasks you can think of,” he said. “But it’s the things that have to get done behind the scenes that you never really pay much attention to but take up a fair amount of time and energy.”

As examples, he listed everything from the many steps involved in onboarding a new employee or client to the information that has to be gathered when someone signs up for something on a website and then moved to another system, to the steps involved in the approval process when employees want to request a new computer.

All of this should be automated, Bean said, and with emerging technology, specifically the Microsoft 365 platform, it can be, to the point where these tasks and functions now take a fraction of the time they once did.

But technology is just part of the reason why now is the time to automate, he added, noting that the ongoing labor shortage has given more urgency to such matters.

“Rather than sacrificing quality or increasing stress and risking burnout, which can lead to even more turnover, businesses need to ask how they can leverage technology to help them solve some of this problem,” he said. “Reacting to the current situation, there’s never been a better time, both from the availability of the technology and the demand and the urgency of the situation, to look for ways to automate things.”

Overall, the virtual presentation is designed to educate and empower business owners to first identify those tasks and processes that can be automated and then take the steps to go about doing it, said Bean, adding that the program is targeted for businesses with 15 to 250 employees, which encompasses most of the companies in Western Mass.

“There is not an industry that isn’t applicable,” he concluded.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Delcie Bean says business owners have always had good reason to consider automation and what it can do for their employees — and their bottom lines.

But today, they have more reason than ever, he told BusinessWest, adding that technology and urgency combine to make this a time for business owners and managers to stop talking about automation and commence doing it.

“The labor market is so terrible right now that many organizations, in addition to trying to hire and figure that out, are also just having to figure out how to be leaner and how to be more efficient,” said Bean, CEO of Hadley-based Paragus Strategic IT. “So as you look at the state of the economy and the state of the job market, you have to ask: ‘how can I do more with less?’”

These sentiments comprise the main thrust of a virtual seminar to be presented by Bean, in conjunction with BusinessWest and Comcast Business, on Wednesdsay, Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. To sign up for the event, visit businesswest.com/businesswest-virtual-webinar.

The program is titled “Automation: the Time Is Now,” and subtitled “How Automation Can Streamline Your Business and Offset the Labor Shortage,” and those words effectively and succinctly describe the material to be covered.

Indeed, the 60-minute presentation will focus on the benefits of automation and the ways it can be utilized to save businesses time, trouble, and expense, said Bean, adding quickly that many business owners and managers are not fully aware of the many ways automation can benefit them.

“In the small-business space, it’s usually the most boring, unattractive tasks you can think of,” he said. “But it’s the things that have to get done behind the scenes that you never really pay much attention to but take up a fair amount of time and energy.”

As examples, he listed everything from the many steps involved in onboarding a new employee or client to the information that has to be gathered when someone signs up for something on a website and then moved to another system, to the steps involved in the approval process when employees want to request a new computer.

All of this should be automated, Bean said, and with emerging technology, specifically the Microsoft 365 platform, it can be, to the point where these tasks and functions now take a fraction of the time they once did.

But technology is just part of the reason why now is the time to automate, he added, noting that the ongoing labor shortage has given more urgency to such matters.

“Rather than sacrificing quality or increasing stress and risking burnout, which can lead to even more turnover, businesses need to ask how they can leverage technology to help them solve some of this problem,” he said. “Reacting to the current situation, there’s never been a better time, both from the availability of the technology and the demand and the urgency of the situation, to look for ways to automate things.”

Overall, the virtual presentation is designed to educate and empower business owners to first identify those tasks and processes that can be automated and then take the steps to go about doing it, said Bean, adding that the program is targeted for businesses with 15 to 250 employees, which encompasses most of the companies in Western Mass.

“There is not an industry that isn’t applicable,” he concluded.

Daily News

SPRINGFIELD — Delcie Bean says business owners have always had good reason to consider automation and what it can do for their employees — and their bottom lines.

But today, they have more reason than ever, he told BusinessWest, adding that technology and urgency combine to make this a time for business owners and managers to stop talking about automation and commence doing it.

“The labor market is so terrible right now that many organizations, in addition to trying to hire and figure that out, are also just having to figure out how to be leaner and how to be more efficient,” said Bean, CEO of Hadley-based Paragus Strategic IT. “So as you look at the state of the economy and the state of the job market, you have to ask: ‘how can I do more with less?’”

These sentiments comprise the main thrust of a virtual seminar to be presented by Bean, in conjunction with BusinessWest and Comcast Business, on Wednesdsay, Sept. 15 at 11 a.m. To sign up for the event, visit businesswest.com/businesswest-virtual-webinar.

The program is titled “Automation: the Time Is Now,” and subtitled “How Automation Can Streamline Your Business and Offset the Labor Shortage,” and those words effectively and succinctly describe the material to be covered.

Indeed, the 60-minute presentation will focus on the benefits of automation and the ways it can be utilized to save businesses time, trouble, and expense, said Bean, adding quickly that many business owners and managers are not fully aware of the many ways automation can benefit them.

“In the small-business space, it’s usually the most boring, unattractive tasks you can think of,” he said. “But it’s the things that have to get done behind the scenes that you never really pay much attention to but take up a fair amount of time and energy.”

As examples, he listed everything from the many steps involved in onboarding a new employee or client to the information that has to be gathered when someone signs up for something on a website and then moved to another system, to the steps involved in the approval process when employees want to request a new computer.

All of this should be automated, Bean said, and with emerging technology, specifically the Microsoft 365 platform, it can be, to the point where these tasks and functions now take a fraction of the time they once did.

But technology is just part of the reason why now is the time to automate, he added, noting that the ongoing labor shortage has given more urgency to such matters.

“Rather than sacrificing quality or increasing stress and risking burnout, which can lead to even more turnover, businesses need to ask how they can leverage technology to help them solve some of this problem,” he said. “Reacting to the current situation, there’s never been a better time, both from the availability of the technology and the demand and the urgency of the situation, to look for ways to automate things.”

Overall, the virtual presentation is designed to educate and empower business owners to first identify those tasks and processes that can be automated and then take the steps to go about doing it, said Bean, adding that the program is targeted for businesses with 15 to 250 employees, which encompasses most of the companies in Western Mass.

“There is not an industry that isn’t applicable,” he concluded.