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Secure Path Networks
340 Fifth Avenue
Pelham, N.Y. 10803
 Westfair Online - Q&A from the Corner Office
Q&A from the Corner Office
Anyone who has ever opened a cable bill and grimaced – only to bury it under a stack of coffee table reading material – can relate to Tom Gesky’s business model. He founded the consulting company Secure Path Networks in 2001 after he recognized a void in independent telecommunications services. The company has offices in Manhattan, Pelham, Long Island and Massachusetts.
Q: Why is telecommunications a high line-item expense on a business’s budget?
Gesky: “There are a couple of reasons. First, the bills themselves are not all that easy to understand. People have an inherent tendency to avoid things they don’t understand even if they are paying for them. Most (bills) are glanced at, approved and paid. Another reason is that even though people hear about technology, some aren’t exactly sure how technology will affect them. Though they can make changes to their services, they may not know what to change. It could be a resistance to change or not wanting to sit on the phone with carriers … We certainly have the skill-set in house to see if a client has been overcharged from a carrier, but we tend to really look at what I call the ‘go forward,’ auditing
pricing and solutions instead of, ‘Are you getting overcharged?’ and getting a credit. We talk about putting the right technology in place and how phone and data are used. We discuss where carrier locations are and obtaining the right technology from the right carrier. That’s about 90 percent of our business.”
Q: Percentage-wise, how much can be saved by accurately billing telecommunications costs?
Gesky: “It varies per project and we get about 15 to 40 projects per month. It can be up to 70 percent to 80 percent if they have avoided (going over bills) for a long time. When you can combine a technological change with potential carriers’ rate change, there are really massive savings. The average sits somewhere in the mid-30s and can break 40 percent. Most clients fall in the 28 percent to 41 percent range.”
Q: You don’t charge for consultations. How do you get paid?
Gesky: “The majority of the time, we make the money from the carrier, which will pay us a commission. If (a client) is using a particular carrier today and we audit their bills, and we bring the audit to market and look at five other carriers, if one of those five win the bid and in essence, earn the business, the carrier will essentially pay us a commission. People who need to reduce business costs let us do the audit and we provide a consultation. We make sure that they don’t have
to pay for a transaction.”
The web site is Securepathnetworks.com.
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