Navigating the new normal

As organizations struggle to do more with less, TM Floyd & Company provides a much-needed helping hand.

As organizations struggle to do more with less, TM Floyd & Company provides a much-needed helping hand.

As organizations scramble to meet the unprecedented IT and tech staffing demands of sudden change, tech services provider TM Floyd & Company is in the catbird seat. Since 1976, the Columbia, S.C.-based firm has provided innovative support to clients of all sizes throughout the country, from 10-person firms to members of the Fortune 500.

The company’s roster of elite technology specialists deliver extensive industry-specific expertise to clients in healthcare, state government, insurance, and financials, as well as to retail and manufacturing enterprises—and their history, culture, and leadership has them ready for this moment.

“In terms of our internal operations, we established the ability and policies for remote work many years ago,” company CEO John Starmack said. “We’ve had to utilize that capacity nearly every year as far back as I can remember. We've dealt with a thousand-year flood, hurricanes—we get ice here occasionally that pretty much shuts the city down—and we’re now dealing with the pandemic. This isn't anything new for us. We've been prepared and have done it many times in the past. The majority of our clients are in essential markets, and so far they're maintaining current operations, although new initiatives may be on hold.”

Nonetheless, the crisis is opening new opportunities for TMF. “We just spoke with a company that had to furlough a couple of hundred of their staff because of our current circumstances. They aren’t a client of ours yet, but they reached out to us to help them find jobs and projects for these good professionals. It's a different type of opportunity for us, and an interesting one,” Starmack explained.  “We’re well-positioned to help organizations cope and adjust to this new normal because we are onshore only. All of our consultants and all our expertise is entirely here in the United States.”

In addition to their Columbia HQ, TMF has offices in Charlotte and Dallas. “We’re aware that there have been some organizations within the United States that depend on offshore help. Our understanding is that they are rethinking those strategies. We're hoping we can be at top of mind when they start considering the impact of offshoring because we're a very good onshore alternative. Nobody knows how it's going to pan out, but if nothing else, we try to talk to people about the need for a backup.” The need to ensure consistent services from firms operating in countries undergoing lockdowns is becoming a serious global concern for organizations taking that route. “Our onshore presence is an important differentiator for us,” he added.

Flexible, collaborative, and committed to clients’ success

“We work very collaboratively with clients to identify their current needs and help position them for the future,” Starmack said. “We do that with a number of different delivery models that we tailor for each client, such as on a project basis, service-level agreements, staff augmentation, contractor hires, and direct placement. Our teams work with clients on site, in our development centers, remotely from home, and in hybrid environments. We’re very nimble and flexible. We can establish offices and development centers in different locations if that's part of what a client needs. Over the years we've done that at a multitude of locations to help clients in different areas.”

TMF uses industry best practices to deliver comprehensive technology services across legacy to web to mobile platforms, including strategic planning, technology assessment, program and project management, software development, and systems implementation, monitoring, operations and support, for starters.

“Prior to COVID-19, many clients didn't allow remote work. When states started instituting shelter-in-place regulations everyone was scrambling to establish the necessary infrastructure to equip their entire staff to work remotely. They needed broadband, cybersecurity, and remote connectivity,” Starmack pointed out. While infrastructure will be fundamental going forward in this new era of change, there’s another urgent challenge that TMF is uniquely positioned to meet.

“You're going to have to learn how to manage and provide oversight of all your remote workers. That requires many different skills, techniques, and processing,” he stressed. “Organizations are going to start facing big challenges around collaboration, productivity, status, direction, communications, keeping their staff—especially technical teams—from feeling isolated.

“As time goes on, those challenges are accompanied by a lot of other frustrations that are going to become greater and greater. At TMF we've been helping clients establish, operate, and manage remote work teams since the early 2000s. In the new normal those new ways of operating will not be new to us. We feel that's our biggest opportunity going forward. We can provide all of that kind of expertise and those services.

“Right now, it's still a novelty, but it will be our reality. We are in a 9/11 moment; that day changed the way we travel, our security, and our perceptions, and the pandemic is doing that right now. The way work is done will never be the same.”

Starmack is fond of saying that TMF is one of the best kept secrets in America, but their recent addition of a sales team and social media communications team is about to change that. “Our first client from 1976 is still a client of ours today, and many of our clients have been with us well over a decade,” he revealed. “In business, longevity is earned. We’ve earned it by being dependable, flexible, competent, and trustworthy. Trustworthiness is the most important thing. That's our strategy. When more organizations learn about us and give us an opportunity to engage with them, we will bring our experience, expertise, and our commitment to bear on improving their success.”

He added, “Success at TM Floyd means meeting all your commitments. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Innovation for us is taking that success definition one step further with continuous learning. Innovation means understanding the context in which our work is done, and helping to achieve a better future for our clients as well as for all of our consultants on the team.”

As the IT consulting and staffing industry continues to change, TMF adds significant value by enabling organizations to focus on core competencies, knowing that their technology needs are met. “When you hire technology staff but you're not in the technology business, how do you keep them motivated? How do you keep them trained and current? How do you keep them challenged? Why not focus your resources, efforts, and energies doing your business, whatever that might be. Offload the technology services to experts like us.” For TM Floyd, the new normal is old hat, powering them into a very, very bright future.