GreatAmerica Launches Managed IT Peer Groups With Service Leadership

S-L GAMIT Groups First to Focus on Helping Office Equipment Dealers Profitably Grow Managed IT Services

GreatAmerica Financial Services has launched the office equipment industry’s first managed information technology (IT) services peer groups with the expertise of IT management consultant, Paul Dippell, and the team at Service Leadership, Inc., the largest provider worldwide of financial/operational IT benchmarking and best practices to C-level peer groups. Each Service Leadership GreatAmerica Managed IT Group (S-L GAMIT Group) is designed to help dealers achieve best-in-class managed IT services performance, as measured against peers. To date, there are four S-L GAMIT Groups established, encompassing over 40 of the most high-profile dealers in the country.  Most of these dealers are already active in managed IT, but vary in size and experience.

David Pohlman, COO of GreatAmerica Financial Services, says the value is not only the interaction with peers at the quarterly meetings, but the access to knowledge, current industry best practices and best-in-class metrics of the Service Leadership experts. “Our SL-GAMIT Group participants always have the proven expertise of Service Leadership in the room, allowing dealers to avoid trial and error, and instead benefit from best-in-class practices that will accelerate the profitability and growth of their businesses. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the highest quality training available for dealers serious about their future in managed IT services.”

Each SL-GAMIT Group is made up of C-level individuals from eight to twelve non-competing dealerships. In addition to quarterly meetings with member-driven agendas and facilitation by Service Leadership, financial and operational benchmarking is used to gain comparative insights to each other and against best-in-class, and track progress.

Service Leadership is publisher of the Service Leadership Index (S-L Index) series of financial and operational benchmarks of over 2,300 companies drawn from an exclusive master database of over 29,000 companies worldwide, the largest such benchmark in the industry. S-L GAMIT Groups participate in this benchmarking and Paul Dippell, CEO of Service Leadership, says, “C-level peer groups attract companies who are unusually intent on being top performers and who invest in their drive to that goal. As a result the S-L Index shows that peer group participants perform materially better in profit, growth and service quality improvement than do those who benchmark but do not participate in such peer groups.”

Paul Dippell of Service Leadership will be co-facilitating an educational session with GreatAmerica COO, David Pohlman, at ITEX 2014, on Thursday, March 13 at 8:30 – 9:20 am. The session, S4: How Do I Profitably Sell More Managed IT? Sales & Marketing Best Practices, features two successful dealers, and S-L GAMIT Group members, Jeff Boate of PERRY proTECH and Trevor Akervik of Marco, Inc.

About GreatAmerica Financial Services
Established in 1992, GreatAmerica Financial Services Corporation is a $1.5B national commercial equipment finance company headquartered in Cedar Rapids, IA. GreatAmerica provides financing and niche market-focused services in all fifty states and several U.S. Territories. Our commitment to understanding the industry has positioned us as the unparalleled leader in single invoice solutions (MPS, Managed IT, and other specialized billing options). We also offer innovative non-financial services to help our dealers evolve their businesses. GreatAmerica is dedicated to helping manufacturers, vendors, and dealers be more successful and keep their customers for a lifetime. For more information, visit www.greatamerica.com

About Service Leadership
Paul Dippell is CEO of Service Leadership, Inc. a leading global consultancy to independent IT solutions/services companies and technology OEMs, and publisher of the Service Leadership Index, the foremost technology solutions/services company benchmark of both financial and operational performance. Prior, at USBX Advisory Services, Paul founded its technology M&A practice. At All Covered, Inc., he led M&A and Acquisition Integration. He then founded a mid-market IT services firm with two private equity raises.  Additionally, he has held senior leadership positions at Xerox and CompuCom. Paul is a highly rated speaker at IT, Telephony and Office Equipment industry events worldwide.  Service Leadership, Inc. supports or operates more than 50 C-level peer groups of independent technology solutions/services company executives, making it the largest provider to technology executive peer groups worldwide. For more information, visit www.service-leadership.com.