Encore News

Peter Mauro, President and founder of Encore announces that Bruce Stopka has joined the company as Director of New Business Development and principal manager of the company in charge of corporate growth.

According to Mauro, “We are very pleased to have Bruce join our growing company. Bruce brings an enormous amount of experience in the IT staffing and consulting business. He will help Encore grow in terms of customer support and geographic expansion. Bruce will be directly responsible for the long-term sales strategy to develop Encore’s consulting service offering in new markets.

Bruce is the founder of Stopka Associates, a premier IT staffing company in Chicago that had 11 offices throughout the United States, Europe, and the Netherlands. He will bring that broad-based expertise to Encore. Bruce led Stopka and Associates to rank as one of the top 500 Fastest Growing Privately held Companies in the US and qualified for the INC. 500 Company designation. Also, he was a partner and VP of Sales for International Business Systems (IBS), and helped promote that company to twice qualify for the INC. 500 Company list.

Over his career in IT consulting, Bruce has built and maintained long-lasting client relationships on a local, national, and international basis. He has become particularly adept at establishing relationships with senior IT management. He has become one of that industry’s “go to” individuals for senior IT managers to network looking for new opportunities.

Bruce, his wife, and family are life-long residents of the Chicago area.

Encore has been chosen to deliver several task engagements over a multiple-month period applying its expertise in Microsoft BizTalk server technology.

According to Peter Mauro, President and founder of Encore, “We are please to be able to support First Solar by applying our skills as a Microsoft Solutions Partner in BizTalk. This technology has been perfected by Microsoft as a robust message processing software portal and Encore is very skilled at applying the extended features of BizTalk.”

Encore is based in Chicago with an offshore development partner called Insigma Hengtian Software Ltd. (“Hengtian”) based in Hangzhou, China.

Hengtian is a stable and mature organization formed by US and China based senior management and is substantially funded. Hengtian is a joint venture between State Street Corporation of Boston and Zhejiang University of Hangzhou, China through the University’s commercial enterprise, Insigma Technology Ltd. (“Insigma”). The joint venture is an outgrowth of an original Technology Center established in 2001 as an alliance between State Street and the University.

Zhejiang University is one of China’s top three academic institutions, with a reputation for excellence in Computer Science and Software Engineering. Insigma is a publicly listed corporation based in Hangzhou, owned 30% by Zhejiang University and the remainder publicly held. Insigma engages in technology development and product distribution for global technology clients.

According to Peter Mauro, President and founder of Encore, “We are pleased with our partnership with Hengtian as it enables us to bring a strong and economical software development and maintenance alternative to our clients.”

Encore is a CISCO-certified Partner qualified to provide CISCO technical skills in various CISCO infrastructure disciplines. Encore’s staff of technical systems and network engineers are certified in ICND, CISCO IOS, CCNA, and CCIE techniques.

Additionally, with its affiliation as a CISO Certified Partner, Encore is able to pass on best-in-class pricing and licensing terms to its clients who acquire CISCO hardware and software from Encore.

Through its affiliation with SoftwareONE, Encore provides software license procurement and software agreement management services to small, medium and enterprise-level customers worldwide. As a Microsoft LAR (Large Account Reseller), Encore has the ability to manage the full spectrum of Microsoft volume licensing programs, including Microsoft Select and Enterprise Agreements. Encore with SoftwareONE represents hundreds of other best-of-breed software publishers, including Adobe, Citrix, McAfee and Symantec.

Their software licensing specialists will take a consultative approach when recommending the best software licensing agreements for your organization. They make it their responsibility to advise you on the best long-term approach to acquiring and managing your mission critical software assets.

Encore is an active member of the SoftwareONE VARassist Partner Program with SoftwareONE, an industry leading LAR-VAR connect partner program. By engaging Encore and SoftwareONE, customers not only gain software licensing expertise, but full access to the SoftwareONE VARassist partner community, providing a full range of IT services.

Encore Consulting Services has been chosen by OfficeMax to staff a team from its Mumbi, India development center to support multiple production-base applications at OfficeMax.

The team of 10 software developers will support the design, implementation, and testing of enhancements to the production-based applications. OfficeMax chose Encore because of its competitive service fees and the fact that the offshore Encore facilities were ready to deliver the multiple-month contract.

The project was announced by Peter Mauro, President of Encore. According to Mauro, “OfficeMax is a long-standing client of Encore. We appreciate the vote of confidence and know that our offshore facilities will pass on a strong value proposition by applying its project management techniques called PMTech.”

Encore has been chosen to deliver several task engagements over a multiple-month period applying its expertise in Microsoft BizTalk server technology.

According to Peter Mauro, President and founder of Encore, “We are pleased to have been chosen by the Museum to remedy a project that had experienced delays. Our expert-level skills in BizTalk and relationship with Microsoft are the skills required to bring completion to this complex project.”

Encore is working with several IT staff members at the Museum to train the staff in BizTalk and apply programming skills to complete several technical tasks on this project.

Peter Mauro, President and Founder of Encore Consulting Services, Inc. and Francis Laliberte, CEO announced that Encore has opened a branch in Boston, Massachusetts.

Both Laliberte and Mauro are from the Boston area and have previous experience delivering consulting services in Boston through their affiliation with Keane, Inc. Mauro relocated from Boston to Chicago where he founded Encore in 2000. Mauro mentioned that, “We know the Boston financial and software markets very well. Encore should grow in Boston because of our ability to deliver quality, and diverse IT-consulting services at reasonable cost .”

The Boston facilities will be led by Bob Binney. Bob is a lifelong resident of Massachusetts.Prior to joining Encore, Bob was founder and CEO of Eastmark consulting firm in Boston providing professional IT services to the financial community within the Northeast for the past 20 years.

We are pleased that Bob has joined our team .

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Encore Consulting Services, Inc. has been tabbed as one of the elite providers of Supply Chain Management solutions to IBM Corporation's Small and Medium Business (SMB) marketing initiatives. With over 90,000 business-to-business relationships worldwide, IBM reaches much of their client base through extended relationships of Regional Systems Integrators (RSI), Independent Software Vendors (ISV), and consultants and integrators that make up this network. From this network, Encore was added to the SMB program as part of the top 0.5% of partners because of its knowledge of the supply chain industry, its balance of technical and functional skills, and its understanding of the particular requirements of the small and medium business community. "Our knowledge of the supply chain industry and history with SMBs enable us to provide a proven performance to our clients," notes Peter Mauro, President and CEO of Encore Consulting Services, Inc.

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We are pleased to announce that Encore has earned the distinction of IBM Premier Business Partner specializing in the WebSphere, Rational, and Information Management brands.

Learn more about Encore's partnership with IBM

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Encore Consulting Services, Inc. has been awarded a contract by the Public Programs function of Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield (“ABCBS”) to prepare the several processes used by the organization for ISO9000 certification. Encore’s senior ISO9000 consultants will follow a tailored and proven approach to analyze and prepare the functions for a comprehensive ISO9000 audit. The project is headed by Encore’s published expert in total quality and ISO9000 compliance, Dr. Manu Vora of the Illinois Institute of Technology.