Just another Friday at ABG

It looks like everyone made it through another week! To celebrate that accomplishment, let’s chat a little about what’s been going on at ABG Capital.

We first want to announce that we’re still looking to fill a few positions within ABG Capital and our Portfolio Companies. I mentioned these open positions last week, but we’ve listed them here again for you. If you think you might be a good fit for any of these positions, please email your resume to our HR Manager, Sharon Kolesar, at sharonk@abgcapital.com. She’ll be able to get you more information.

  • Technical Services Representative – VoIP Innovations
  • Customer Service Representatives – InspiraFS
  • Website Designer (with a concentration in website coding) – ABG Capital
  • Java Developer – ABG Capital

Now let’s see what’s been going on with the ABG Capital blog since we had two great articles posted this week. The first explored how Big Data can improve the customer experience. Whether you’re searching for something in Google or buying something from Amazon, you’re contributing to Big Data. When business owners and marketers explore Big Data they can find valuable information that helps them get to know their customers and cater to their needs. If you visit the article, you’ll find out more information on Big Data and your customers.

The second article that we posted this week was to help business owners find the perfect health plan for their employees. Having a great health plan, not only makes your current employees happy, but it’s something that potential employees are also looking at. The article is full of tips and useful information that can help any business owner narrow down a health plan that fits their business and best serves their employees.

Next week on the ABG Capital blog, we have a post on improving employee skills through MOOC’s. MOOC’s, or massive open online courses, have become extremely popular in the last few years. Hundreds of universities now offer thousands of courses to millions of participants worldwide ranging from business development to jazz appreciation.

Since it’s the end of May (can you believe how fast it’s gone??), we have some announcements to make from our company-wide Month End Meeting that was held today.

20140530_JAF.pngnames

 

  • May Honorable Mentions: Shannon Hogan and Chris Wallet (Inspira Customer Service Reps)
  • May Spotlight: Rhonda Taylor-Boles (Inspira Customer Service Rep)

 

On top of those awesome achievements, we’d also like to announce a promotion!

Trichelle Barish, a former Porting Representative at VoIP Innovations has only been here for a few months, but she has been standing out from the crowd. Her new position will be the Porting Coordinator and according to Barry Yancosek, the Provisioning Manager, she will be his “right-hand man”. She will continue to keep up with her porting responsibilities, but she will also start to train new employees, delegate workloads, interact with customers and vendors and help to maintain the overall department standards.

Congratulations to Trichelle for her amazing accomplishments in such a short amount of time! Keep up the great work and we know you’ll succeed at ABG Capital.

The last announcement that we have to make is that we are starting another office-wide Biggest Losers Competition! It will kick off on Monday, June, 2 and it will last for 8 weeks. The winner will receive a Grand Prize for losing the largest percentage of body weight and there will also be smaller prizes given out for weekly challenges along the way. We want to create a healthy office and this is one step closer to achieving that! Make sure you leave some supportive words in the comments section below!

Thanks for stopping by for another weekly edition of Just another Friday at ABG Capital. Have a great weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

It’s Friday and you know what that means… Your weekly ABG Capital recap! This week we have a good bit of things to share with you. Let us first give you an update on a few of our portfolio companies:

VoIP Innovations:

Last week while members of our Executive Team were in Orlando for the Gazelles Fortune Leadership Summit, we had two VoIP Innovations employees, Tim Linn and Joe Aponick, attend an invitation only training session with Sansay. They got to spend time with the Sansay Engineers and other engineers like themselves, from all over the country. We’re proud to say that both Tim and Joe are now Sansay Certified Technicians.

InspiraFS:

As you know, we have recently launched a brand new ABG Capital website. That’s not the only website that has seen a facelift! Inspira has been growing very quickly over the past few months and it was time for their websites to reflect that growth. So far, we’ve updated Total IRA and Pinnacle IRA. We’re planning to release a new Payday IRA website in about two weeks and their Twitter account is already up and running! You might want to take a second to go and follow them. 🙂 The main Inspira site is the next one in line to be updated and we’ll be posting more details and a completion date soon. In the meantime, you can visit them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+.

We’d like to mention a few more company announcements before we let you go for the weekend. We’re HIRING! ABG Capital, along with all of our portfolio companies are experiencing extremely rapid growth and we need more “A Players” to add to our team. Below is a list of the positions we are looking for. If you think you might be a fit, please email your resume to our HR Manager, Sharon Kolesar, at sharonk@abgcapital.com. She’ll be able to get you more information on these positions.

  • Technical Services Representative – VoIP Innovations
  • Customer Service Representatives – InspiraFS
  • Website Designer (with a concentration in website coding) – ABG Capital
  • Java Developer – ABG Capital

Giving back to our community is something that we value very much here at ABG Capital. We’re always doing something that can benefit the organizations we support. The biggest giving back initiative that we focus on each is granting wishes for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Last year we were able to grant two wishes and this year we’re shooting for three! The current fundraising effort we have going on is selling raffle tickets for a basket full of Martini related items. Unfortunately we can’t sell tickets for this basket to everyone in the world, but if you’re interested in supporting this fantastic organization on your own, visit the Make-A-Wish website and make a donation!

ABG Capital Martini Basket

Speaking of our giving back initiatives, today is the day that we’ll be heading to the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies to volunteer. We went last year and it was such a great experience. We’ll be cleaning headstones and helping to construct the Avenue of Flags in preparation for their Memorial Day services. Stay tuned for pictures of the day. We’ll be posting them on our Facebook page later today.

Next week, you can expect to see some great blog posts showing up on the ABG Capital blog. The first will be on how Big Data can help to improve the customer experience and the second will be on choosing the best health plan for your employees. If you don’t want to miss these great posts, then simply enter your email in the subscribe box and you’ll get them delivered right to your inbox!

That’s all we have for you this week, we hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

We should have really changed the name to Just another Thursday at ABG Capital for this week’s post! Since tomorrow is Good Friday, we realized that there are going to be numerous people out of the office, so they might miss this post. We don’t want anyone to miss this, so that’s why we decided to post it today.

As we mentioned in last week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital post, we have a few job openings that we’re still recruiting for. If you or someone you know is interested in working with us, please send your resume and cover letter to sharonk@abgcapital.com. The positions we have open right now are:

  • Technical Service Representatives
  • Customer Service Representatives
  • Web Developers (please know that we’re looking for experienced candidates for this position)

In other exciting office news, WE GOT A PING PONG TABLE! The idea of getting another game for the office has been bouncing around for months. It’s gone from air hockey to foosball but we finally decided on Ping Pong. All in all, we say it’s a pretty awesome choice! Check out these pictures of the table in action!

ABG Capital Ping Pong Table

The last piece of ABG Capital news we want to share is that part of our team spent all last week at a VMware Boot Camp. Members of our IT, Engineering and Development teams attended the 10 hour-a-day sessions to learn exactly how our VMware software works. We place a high value on training and development so losing these employees for a week was something that had to happen. Understanding how to properly work with the VMware software is what will bring ABG Capital and its Portfolio Companies to the next level. In June we’ll have a second group of employees attend this Boot Camp, which means we’re going to have an office full of VMware experts!

We’re glad you made it to the Just another Friday (Thursday) at ABG Capital. We hope you have a fantastic weekend and a very happy Easter!

Just another Friday at ABG

Welcome back to another great Just another Friday at ABG Capital. This week we got a few more pieces of artwork added to our office. There are only a few more projects left to complete before the office is finished. Here are some of the projects we have coming up next: a giant collage of employee pictures, a Make-A-Wish wall (to remind everyone in the office that this is a cause that is near and dear to our hearts) and a sports wall to represent the four major sporting activities we have each year (Bowling, Kickball, Softball, Football). Below are some pictures of the new things we added to our office walls. We also want to mention that Sir Speedy has been printing and installing all of this artwork. They have been fantastic to work with and have done a great job with everything. Thank you to everyone at Sir Speedy!

ABG Capital Mission Statement

ABG Capital Portfolio Companies

ABG Capital C.O.R.E. Values

Yesterday two of our employees went out with Jeff and Jason Tapolci for their Lunch with Leadership. Chris Wallet and Jenn Williams have been with us for more than 30 days (which is usually when we have our Lunch with Leaderships), but they were just recently able to go. Both Chris and Jenn are working for Inspira and we’re happy to have them as part of the ABG Capital family!

ABG Capital Lunch with Leadership

Jeff Tapolci, Chris Wallet, Jenn Williams, Jason Tapolci

As we mentioned in last week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital post, we have a few job openings. If you or someone you know is interested in working with us then please send your resume and cover letter to sharonk@abgcapital.com. The positions we have open right now are:

  • Technical Service Representatives
  • Customer Service Representatives
  • Web Developers (please know that we’re looking for experienced candidates for this position)

As we close out this week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital, we’d like to get your opinion on something. We posted an article to our social media sites yesterday that talked about France making it illegal to handle work emails on mobile phones or computers after they leave the office. This may seem absurd to some of us, but it’s affecting 200,000-250,000 employees in the French workforce. What would you do if you had to abandon all forms of communication that tied you to your job once you left your office? At ABG Capital, we always need to be available for any issues that could potentially affect our customers. On the positive end of the spectrum, making this kind of ruling could help employees create a better work/life balance and reduce the number of burnt-out workers. While making it illegal to send emails after work hours might seem ludicrous, it could be the future of something that creates a healthier workforce!

What benefits and drawbacks do you see with having a ruling like this in place? Let us know in the comment section below!

We’re off to play our Annual Kickball game. Check our our Facebook page later to see pictures! Have a great weekend everyone. 🙂