MBJ

Date: April 22-26, 1996

Title: Taking It Off the Top, Shaving Expenses Fills SDS's Bill

Author: Adam Fiebelman

Publication: The Memphis Business Journal

You Can't Find A Place To Save A Million Dollars. But There Are A Million Places To Save A Dollar. " This is a motto of SDS & Associates, Inc., a local firm that specializes in helping businesses and organizations reduce overhead expenses. Chartered in 1993, the Firm has thus far kept a low profile, developing a sizeable client base by word-of-mouth and an old-fashioned kind of salesmanship. According to Mike Siano, founder of SDS, the company's clients have been pleasantly surprised to find out how much can be saved in a variety of expense areas. These areas, he says, include telephone/communications, utilities, business insurance, property and sales taxes, freight, Mail and deliveries, as well as cleaning, maintenance, computer and medical supplies.

If it is humanly possible to find a million places to save a dollar, Siano will try to live up to his company's motto. He possesses what seems to be a boundless energy and clearly takes great enjoyment in this endeavor. "My dream was to do what I am doing. I have waited a long time in my life to do this." he says. Early on in his career, says Siano, "I was corporate," spending 10 years working for a health-care corporation. Then, as he says, he was drawn into a family tradition of sales and entrepreneurship. He worked for a few years at his father's business, an appliance distributorship, where his already strong desire to start up a venture grew stronger. While working at his father's firm, he studied auditing and accounting. Shortly, in his spare time, he says, he was helping a small number of clients find cost savings. Eventually he took the big step of going out on his own, making a full-time career of auditing and expense reduction. "I knew I would have to be very involved in the business," he says. Initially, he worked out of his home. With his first few successful contracts, however, he reached a position where it was feasible to rent a small office. In time, he says he came to an important realization: "The only way I am going to make it is to duplicate myself two to three times over." Currently, in addition to Siano, SDS & Associates includes two expense reduction analysts, Cary Iverson and John Cochrane. The company has begun to cover one of its walls with letters of recommendation from clients, including The Memphis Group, Inc., Farrell-Calhoun paint, Hardin SYSCO Food Services, Inc., V.Alexander & Co., Inc., Pallet Supply Co., Inc., NSA International and Shelby State Community College.

"We are in the process of auditing over $2 million in expenses on a regular basis," Siano says. "The growth (of the company) has been absolutely phenomenal." Expense Reduction, he says, "is a huge industry." He describes the company's associates as auditors, consultants, and "brokers of information." "We will take any subject that our customer wants to look at," he says, and find ways to reduce costs. SDS's most common area of work, for example, is telecommunication expense. The company usually signs a three-year contract to audit bills and implement any necessary changes. These might include changing the services a client receives from its vendor or changing vendors altogether. He displays the pricing schedules and service lines of a number of local and long distance telephone service vendors- an endless and confusing stack of information. It is an area few companies have the time to explore, he says. And it is where one can find considerable savings. By distilling that type of information and making it simple for the customer to understand, says Siano, SDS can then implement changes in how a client purchases services and supplies and what they purchase in the first place. SDS has every incentive to provide cost reduction, says Siano, because its revenues are drawn from the margin of savings. "The money comes right out of what (clients) are paying before they hire SDS," Siano says. SDS, in turn splits savings 50-50 with its clients. Siano says he makes certain that clients understand that SDS is fully independent from any vendors or services and that the company protects the confidentiality of all the expenses.

SDS's current East Memphis office is sparsely furnished and decorated; After all, Siano points out, its business is reducing expenses. But he believes his company's mission extends beyond improving balance sheets. "I say I am in economic development." Says Siano. The more money he helps companies save, he says, the more they will be able to maintain or expand local employment.

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