A Crash, a Solution and $400K in Savings

When the stock market crashed and the recession hit in 2008 and 2009, Andlinger & Company had to find a way to stay afloat. 

The private investment firm found a solution that saves them thousands of dollars a month. In the years that have passed since the crash, the total benefit may have reached $400,000.

Who is Andlinger & Company?

Based in New York City, the firm has been in business since 1976. With a presence in the US, Canada and Europe, it has a long history of helping manufacturing and technical businesses succeed. 

“We buy companies and try to work with the management to grow the businesses,” said Company President Rick Andlinger. “We only invest our own money.”

Andlinger & Company competes with institutional investors such as mutual funds and insurance companies, which often have strict requirements for their clients but little understanding of their day-to-day systems and operations. That’s where Andlinger shines.

“We only have senior people that are partners and we’ve all been involved in business before, so not just finance types, but actual operations types, business managers, sales specialists …” Rick said. “We have resources internally that we can work with managers of our companies. We’ve all sat on that side of the table.”

Finding Another Way

In 2009, Andlinger saw its competitors crumbling under the stress of the market crash. It was having similar struggles, but was committed to finding a way through the panic.

“We decided to slim down our physical office and move our operations to our Florida office,” Rick explained. “We were able actually to save a huge amount of money by going with Davinci. It provides all the flexibility we need and the responsiveness. That was the reason we got rid of the physical office.”

For Rick, putting a dollar figure on the savings was relatively simple.

 “If you put the salary cost of a full-time receptionist in New York area, it could be $60-$70k,” he explained. “Davinci costs less than that. Essentially, we’re looking at hundreds of dollars a month vs. multiple thousands of dollars a month. So how much are we saving? A lot. Could we be saving $50k a year? Yeah, probably.”

Live Answering Service and Additional Voicemail Boxes

Since signing on with Davinci, Andlinger partners have been in touch with their valued clients 24 hours a day. From the beginning, the investors used both the live answering service and the additional voicemail box feature. No matter the time of day, Davinci pushes messages directly to the appropriate officers within moments of a call being received. 

 “If I’m not able to answer the call or a partner isn’t able to answer the phone when a call comes in, the message is pushed right to us in a matter of minutes,” Rick said. He added that Davinci staffers learn about his business as they answer calls, and are quick to reach out to him with questions.

“It’s responsive, and it takes away a lot of the annoyance of having somebody just listening to calls coming through,” he said. “It also takes away a lot of the annoyance of some of the junk soliciting calls that come through.”

In his role as investor and advisor, Rick has found many opportunities to recommend Davinci.

“I tell them it works very well for us, that the cost structure makes sense for us, and if I’m recommending it to somebody I think it would work well for them,” he said. “Our demands are relatively limited but what we do, we want it done well, and Davinci has done it well.”

About Rebecca Palmer

Rebecca Palmer is a strategic marketing professional and expert business journalist based in Salt Lake City, Utah.