The DISYS mission revolves around the power of teamwork to make the company “the go-to global talent productivity partner, by focusing on [its] core staffing expertise and creating innovative business solutions built on automation.” It has differentiated itself by featuring automation processes in all customer offerings, and in 2016, it even created an Automation Center of Excellence, a development hub that works on custom client solutions in the areas of robotics process automation (RPA) and scripting and automation testing best practices. In May 2017, a director of intelligent process automation came on board to lead the center.

NewsBreaks spoke with CEO and founder Mahfuz Ahmed, who shares how he has strategically facilitated the company’s growth, and with Deanna Murray, DISYS Industry Insights, about the ways DISYS serves its clients. Our conversations have been condensed and edited.

NewsBreaks: How did DISYS grow from a two-person basement operation into what it is today?

Mahfuz Ahmed: From its inception, DISYS has gained benefit from a business model firmly planted in the strategic study of data-driven analytics and business planning. This disciplined approach led me to recycle 97% of the company’s profits for the first 12 years back into the company to continually stimulate growth, invest in the expansion of services, and increase reach. Now in its 23rd year, DISYS has grown into a $300 million company. 

NewsBreaks: How has the company’s mission evolved?

Ahmed: The DISYS mission hasn’t really changed all that much over the years. While words have been tweaked here and there, the spirit of the statement has stayed the same. While some companies change their mission to reflect the times and trends at present, DISYS sees its chosen mission as timeless and at the base of all the company strives to achieve—whether it is filling the talent gap by finding top professionals or whether it is through developing automated solutions.

NewsBreaks: Tell us a little about how it expanded internationally.

Ahmed: The strategy and patience behind the national and international growth resulting in DISYS having 33 offices worldwide can also be attributed to the study of data and meeting the needs of current DISYS clients.

In nearly every instance where DISYS expanded into a new market—whether in the U.S. or internationally—it followed a flagship client into that specific region. With this seeded business, DISYS then invested in the surrounding community by hiring locally and building up additional clientele within that region. As business grows within a location, the company then invests further.

NewsBreaks: What is the process for signing up new clients?

Deanna Murray: DISYS is fortunate to have more than 200 clients, with many of them ranking in the Fortune 500. In many ways, DISYS clients are its best marketers and often refer new companies. DISYS also has a sales force employing experts who specialize in each of the five verticals the organization supports: healthcare, finance, hi tech, diversified, and energy. These professionals are based across the globe and are in constant study of the challenges those industries face and engage regularly with potential industry clients.

NewsBreaks: Could you share a few examples of how you’ve helped companies in these verticals?

Murray: This year, we are especially proud of the work we have done in the automation space through our Automation Center of Excellence. For one of our healthcare clients, we were tasked with fixing a cumbersome employee RSA token decommissioning process that was burdened with a high human error rate. At the end of the decommissioning and automation deployment, the process decreased errors by more than 90% and also increased process output from 10,000 token replacements per month to 40,000.

 We have also seen great success implementing help desk automation. With almost every client, customer service is a top priority, but is a very manual undertaking. For one of our IT clients, we developed a custom automation solution reducing the time help desk employees spent solving an issue by 80%.

One of our energy clients was handling thousands of bulk failure notifications throughout its systems—and there was a significant delay in when these notifications were received. The client was experiencing business development and revenue implications because of the latency between failure and notification of that failure. After evaluation, DISYS developed and implemented a system that avoids the previous unforeseen consequences due to lack of notification and allows for immediate notification upon a system failure. This deployment also greatly reduced SLA (service level agreement) breaches and failed transactions within the client systems.

NewsBreaks: Tell us a little about DISYS Labs. What kinds of projects does it work on?

Murray: DISYS Labs is the research and development arm of DISYS. It is where we experiment with new technologies, draw up new solutions combining our services portfolio and capabilities, and work toward groundbreaking innovation. It is also the “think tank” behind some of our future offerings and upcoming solutions.

Our DISYS Lab experts don’t necessarily wear lab coats and goggles, but they are tasked with dreaming up solutions based on the “known” quantities in technology and those that are “unknown” but possible.

NewsBreaks: How does DISYS recruit its consultants and subject matter experts?

Murray: As one of the leading staffing firms in the U.S., with a substantial presence internationally, the internal recruiters at DISYS are tapped into some of the best talent globally. All staffing recruiters within DISYS work in a specific industry and specialize in various types of recruitment. Since the recruiters are singularly focused on specific areas and industries, they are able to home in on top talent within each field/expertise and deliver the best of the best professionals to clients.

Through this process and also through working with top-tier clients in nearly every industry, DISYS engages professionals who are considered experts within their fields. These highly skilled professionals are afforded the opportunity to join the DISYS Expert Network to further their careers through offering up their knowledge to DISYS itself or to DISYS clients on an as-needed basis.

NewsBreaks: What can you share about future plans for the company?

Murray: Through new acquisitions, the unending development of technology and constant innovation, DISYS will continue to grow and deliver upon its mission. With the market’s constant innovation in automation throughout nearly every industry, DISYS has poised itself to contribute substantially to the advancement of its clients’ success and productivity with automated solutions.