KBZ’s Success Is All About The People

KBZ is bigger and better than ever! Thanks to the overwhelming success of our Partners, the ever growing demand for audio visual solutions and service, and (of course) our own hard work, vision and expertise, KBZ has recently  doubled its staff, added new support, service and training programs and moved to new facilities. “Our success goes hand in hand with our Partners’ successes, so it makes sense to provide them with the tools needed to grow and meet the market’s evolving demands,” said Ken Zorzi, President of KBZ. “To help them do that, we’ve concentrated more resources on our own long term growth strategy and added new staff, programs and facilities.”
 
Given that any strategy is only as good as the people behind it, KBZ’s growth plans have focused largely on human resources. The company has made a number of new hires and reorganized internally to maximize the talents of some KBZ “old timers.” After six years of successfully directing marketing, working in sales, and helping to drive the company’s growth, Kyle Zorzi will take on the mantle of Director of Operations. In his new role, Kyle will oversee all daily operations in Pennsylvania, remain involved with marketing activities, and continue to develop new programs and services that expand KBZ’s ability to support our Partners’ growth. “Kyle has amassed the experience and knowledge needed to help steer KBZ’s growth and development, and to bring the company to the next level,” said Ken. “We are thrilled to have him as our Director of Operations, and look forward to even greater successes under his management.”

New Hires, Old Hands Strengthen Support

We have augmented our inside talent with new hires to create three System Sales Engineering teams; each is assigned to a separate region and is dedicated to providing expert technical support and sales assistance for all the products that KBZ distributes and represents. The NYC/Metro region team is made up of Chris Audette, Systems Sales Engineer and Erica Carsello, Inside Sales Agent; the New England region is represented by Daryl Smith, Systems Sales Engineer and Jill Garrett, Inside Sales Agent; and the Mid-Atlantic team includes Brian Ricca, System Sales Engineer, and Bee Beckman, Inside Sales Agent. Chris, Daryl and Brian continue the great work they have done for many years as Sales Engineers with KBZ. Bee moves into the Inside Sales department after having served as KBZ’s receptionist for the past couple of years, and Erica and Jill have just joined us.

Among the other new hires at KBZ are a new office administrator, Tina Mikiewicz, and a new Customer Service Representative, Breana Kownurko. Josh Pack, another new KBZ member, will serve as Technical Support Specialist reporting to Shamus Doyle, who takes on the role of Technical Services Manager. Karen Roller, who recently joined KBZ as our new Marketing and Reseller Fulfillment assistant, will join Cindy Oliver in the marketing department. Cindy, who has driven our newsletter, web site and marketing efforts on an outsourced basis for 16 years, has joined us full-time as our Marketing Coordinator. Nancy Moffett, who has made huge contributions to KBZ’s growth over the past eight years, assumes the role of Purchasing Manager, and Dan Benstead, who had been your inside sales contact, will now serve as Inside Sales Manager.

Enhanced Technical Services, Marketing Programs

As part of our growth strategy, we have enhanced the popular ZCare specialized service program for TANDBERG systems and equipment with the introduction of ZCare Premiere. ZCare Premiere provides special benefits and services that include 24/7 support via cell phone and/or KBZ video line, the ability to open and view existing trouble tickets online, system testing, system service reporting and service renewal reports. A ZCare Premiere service plan helps ensure peak system performance at all times, and extends the lifetime of a TANDBERG system by quickly resolving unexpected challenges or problems with top notch diagnostic support.

In addition to service enhancements, our growth has brought with it improved Partner support. Our expanded marketing department recently introduced a new Partner support line up that includes the Platinum Dealer Co-op, ZBucks and Boomerang programs. The KBZ Platinum Dealer Co-op program has been updated and augmented to streamline the Co-op request and fulfillment processes. These Co-op program enhancements are designed to more quickly identify and process Co-op requests, which help our Platinum Partners fund their TANDBERG marketing activities. ZBucks, back after a two year hiatus, is a KBZ exclusive program that rewards dealers for sales of  TANDBERG, WideBand Solutions, and Glowpoint Video products. Rewards are provided through a Visa™ prepaid debit card that can provide instant access to funds via an ATM, or can be used to make purchases anywhere Visa is accepted. Boomerang is a recently introduced lead generation/sharing program that offers recurring monthly revenue to AV and IP integrators who generate Glowpoint leads that turn into sales. The program is easy: simply present Glowpoint to your customers and KBZ will take it from there. No installation, no post-sale support, and no billing/invoicing.

Inaugural Classes from KBZ University

And more good news for our Partners: in a move designed to step up TANDBERG Certification Training, KBZ has formed KBZ University and welcomed Frank Foti as its Director of Training. Frank will apply his teaching  experience, AV sales and integration expertise and his Masters in education to lead TANDBERG certification training and related video communications courses. Under Frank’s guidance, KBZ has already added fully accredited TANDBERG TCTA and TCTE certification training to its syllabus and has plans to add TANDBERG TCAP and TCEP training in ’08. KBZ U is off to a great start, having already graduated several dozen students from our Partner and Reseller community. We look forward to welcoming more students to KBZ U and offering new video  conferencing-related courses on topics such as lighting and audio design as early as the spring of ‘08.

As many of you know, we also recently expanded our TANDBERG training to include new training locations in the Northeast (currently in Bedford NH, and Newark NJ), and on October 30th and 31st we hosted our first TCTA class in the new KBZ headquarters in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The new corporate headquarters includes a spacious, configurable conference/training room outfitted with all the tools and equipment needed to conduct classes for up to 20 participants. We look forward to offering regularly scheduled training classes and vendor seminars at KBZ headquarters to take advantage of this great facility. Our new offices, double the size of our previous headquarters, not only gives us room for more training and service but also provides a bright, nicely appointed space for all the new marketing, sales and other staff we’ve added to support our growth.

“All of us at KBZ are really excited to be at the center of a market where a growing number of video communications applications are being employed in an ever broader range of vertical industries,” said Ken. “We believe that the additions to our staff, programs and facilities put KBZ and our Partners’ in an ideal position to maximize these burgeoning opportunities. We look forward to sharing our ongoing success with your ongoing success.”