Originally Printed in The Business Ledger - January 9, 2006
Naperville consulting firm acts as CIO for smaller companies
Computers have evolved quite a bit since 1979—and Jody Jankovsky can say that he’s been with them every step of the way. Jankovsky, managing partner and system analyst for Black Line Consulting in Naperville, first began working with computers when he was 12 years old.
At that time there was no such thing as a PC and computers were mainly considered something for hobbyists. Windows was a thing of the future and men like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were just beginning to develop their ideas and slug it out in Silicon Valley.
Jankovsky worked in his garage with his father and uncle in Aurora where they did contract work for local businesses. The first project he can remember was building a computer for a local dentist.
“The first computer we built was the size of a desk,” he said. “The parts were mail order and you had to put it all together. I was hooked, though. I knew that computers were what I wanted to do.” He continued to work with his father and uncle throughout his high school years until he decided to attend Illinois State University in Bloomington as a computer science major.
Jankovsky admits that a lot of the program was just review for him as he had already been working steadily with computers for five years. However, he decided to minor in accounting, which he said was difficult and would eventually prove extremely useful when trying to get his own company off the ground.
While in college he did some freelance consulting work for a few companies in the Chicago area. It was at this point that he would learn some of the most important lessons of his career.
In 1988, Jankovsky was contracted by a manufacturer to develop software that would track pennies. He accepted the job for a flat rate, but when the job was finished he kept providing “add-ons” at no cost. “I learned about process then and I really lost my shirt on that deal,” he said. “I did the math later and figured out that I ended up working for about 25 cents an hour. The only benefit is that I learned that lesson when I wasn’t even
in the work force.” However, Jankovsky knew that his hard work would pay off and because of these early lessons he was able to avoid such mistakes later when it really mattered.
So with a solid amount of computer and business experience under his belt he was able to form his own company.
In 1993 Jankovsky started Advocate Consulting Group, what would later become Black Line Consulting—the original name was too confusing for many potential customers in this market as they automatically associated it with the health care organization. With an already built-in client base, he started as a one-man operation, pulling double duty of customer maintenance
“The greatest challenge was going from being an engineer to growing a business,” he said. “You have to be able to adapt. Half of new businesses fail within the first year. You basically have to grow or die.”
Black Line grew, and it continues to grow today. Now the firm houses a team of 14 employees, including nine engineers and the first employee Jankovsky ever hired. It has branched out to include full-time customer service client development positions. It boasts a clientele of more
than 100 businesses and is planning to add more on this year. “We have a very aggressive growth strategy for 2006,” he said. “We realize that technology is at its pinnacle. If you want to stay competitive you have to add technology. Now companies are reducing people cost and putting more of
it into technology.”
Black Line aims to be a one-stop-shop for customers as well, offering networking, software and corporate services. The corporate service is called the “Small Business CIO,” a program that allows Black Line to meet with smaller companies that don’t have the resources to compete with corporate companies and provide services that a typical full-time chief information officer would.
“What we do here is we plan for growth,” said Jankovsky. “If they want to increase sales by 50 percent we figure out what they need to do strategically and set them up with the software that they will need. Most small to medium sized companies don’t have a CIO.”
Jankovsky believes that there is a plenty of business in the suburban area and that he has an advantage over the majority of his competition.
Black Line has more engineers available to customers than most smaller firms, he said. And while he can sympathize with the small two-man crew that is driving all over the Chicago area to keep its customers happy, he would rather see them come and work for him. “We are trying to recruit these small groups,” he said. “They can bring their customers and continue to be an engineer. Maybe they are like me and think that they can do the job better. That’s fine, but now I’m your competition.”
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