John Iacone: Accomplishing the Impossible

In an Interview with Insights Success, John Iacone, CEO of International Integrated Solutions, LTD shares his inspirational journey and about his noteworthy contribution through International Integrated Solutions, LTD. Although initially he was trained as an engineer, he quickly took the path of entrepreneur. With the combination of technical, business and people skills, he discovered that he had a gift for developing innovative, one-of a kind solutions that solve big problems he founded IIS in 1990. After over 28 years at IIS, he and his teammates continue to accomplish the impossible —designing and implementing IT solutions that others said couldn’t be done. He describes that approach from day one at IIS has been: Mission Possible.
Below are the highlights of the interview between John Iacone and Insights Success.
Give a brief overview of your background and your role in International Integrated Solutions, LTD.
In the early 80’s I was a microprocessor programmer developing and designing OEM platforms with Intel’s Single Board Computer Systems. I soon decided to take my career into a different direction which was in Computer Sales. Going to work for an existing Reseller and aiding them in transforming their business into an Intel Solution Provider selling Intel’s new SBC technology turned out to be a Career event for me. It ultimately led me to meeting my partner who was even more technical then I and together the two of us were developing very large customers and driving the reseller’s business model to success. After 9 years and watching that reseller going public and being sold to larger distributors, both of us were convinced by one of our largest customers to go into business and start our own company. IIS was founded in 1990, I am presently driving the transformation of our business model to Cloud and Services led strategies.
How do you diversify your organization’s solutions that appeal to your target audience?
We develop solutions sets that solve major IT problems and help drive business outcomes for our customers trying to get to the Cloud. These solutions are vertical in nature and are sold in different industries such as Financial, State and Local Government, Retail, Manufacturing and Health Care. This allows us to focus on a small set of solutions that we are experts in.
Describe some of the vital attributes that every CEO should possess.
A clear vision on where you want to take the company is vital to success.
Recognize that the path to get there can and probably will change and you should embrace that change.
Look at failure as a success – at least you have learned what doesn’t work.
You need to want it bad enough to keep going until it happens and once it happens don’t hesitate to reset new goals or complacency will set in.
What are the experiences and lessons that you’ve learned across your journey?
Everything happens for a reason, you will from time to time have set backs and life has its ways of throwing brick walls in front of you. Some people crumble when they see those walls, others see them as a temporary problem and quickly learn how to jump over those walls. The more walls you jump over, the less that seem to appear and the stronger you get.
According to you which are the technological innovations will play the important role in shaping businesses in coming times?
Clearly technology is changing quicker than ever before, and the pace will keep on accelerating. Cloud technology started several years ago, customers are all over Cloud. We see customers wanting to get everything in the cloud, customers that have moved too much into the cloud and its now costing them more than they anticipated, customers that cannot move to the cloud because of performance, latency or compliance issues. Customers that have multiple Cloud providers for various reasons, Customers that cannot move their legacy apps into the cloud. Truly its all over the map.
When we look at technology Cloud is first in mind we build our solutions sets to help solve some of those challenges I just mentioned. Having people on our team that understand these challenges is imperative to our success.
Where does International Integrated Solutions, LTD sees itself in the near future and how do you plan to sustain its competency?
We are an engineering company from the roots up. Technology is our life and keeping up in this space is hugely important to us. Keeping our teams up to date is a high priority; we never skimp on training them and giving them hands on experience in the areas of importance.
What advice would you like to give to the young minds?
I have two young boys, one that is just starting his career and has his first job.
My advice to him is just outwork your competition and you will rise to the top!