Hispanic Enterprise - December 2007/January 2008 - (Page 32) HIGH-TECH CHARACTER ABBA TECHNOLOGIES PROVES THAT REPUTATION CAN TAKE A SMALL COMPANY A LONG WAY IN A CHANGING INDUSTRY. By Jennifer LeClaire here are two ways to launch a business empire: Build it or buy it. Andrew Baca is doing both with Abba Technologies. Digital and IBM Corporation employees founded Abba Technologies in Albuquerque in 1993. The firm serves government and private sector organizations with fully integrated IT solutions. Key customers include the Air Force, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Baca, an IBM employee for 11 years, wasn’t part of the founding team. But he is head of the team that has taken the company to the next level. Baca switched allegiances from one of the largest technology companies in the world to one of the smallest technology companies in the world in 1997. Four years later, he and 17 other employees purchased the company for an undisclosed sum. It didn’t take the new president and CEO long to discover a new revenue stream. “We realized we were providing valu32 T able technology consulting for free as part of system purchases, says Baca. “So we decided to start charging a fee for our consulting services. We brought in consultants from world-class organizations like IBM, HP and EMC and built a professional services practice.” Baca has been building ever since. Soon after taking office, he launched a systems integration practice that includes the planning, design, implementation and project management of technology solutions. That turned out to be a smart move. According to market research firm IDC, worldwide systems integration services experienced its strongest year in 2005 since the peak of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. Under Baca’s leadership, Abba Technologies graduated from its 8(a) SBA status in 2004. The 8(a) program aims to help develop small companies owned and operated by socially and economically disadvantaged persons. Minority busi- nesses fall into that group. One of the 8(a) program’s business development tools is the award of federal contracts, which can help sustain small businesses. When Baca led the buyout, the previous owner was a member of the 8(a) program. But that status did not automatically transfer to Baca, creating a void that could have put the company out of business. “We had a lot of 8(a) contracts when we bought the company. Our competitors kept doing 8(a) business and we lost quite a bit of business,” Baca recalls. “It was a tremendous challenge to keep the company solid financially.” Baca began focusing on other segments of the market, leading Abba to eventually graduate from the program, a sure sign of the company’s strength and growth. “We had the foresight to start building the commercial and state government clientele and added the professional services practices that helped us weather December/January 2008 HISPANIC ENTERPRISE
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