Carolina Business Equipment joins Florence Chamber, cuts ribbon

By: Andrew Boardwine

FLORENCE, S.C. — Carolina Business Equipment joined ambassadors from the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce on Thursday to celebrate the company’s new chamber membership with a ribbon cutting.

Carolina Business Equipment, at 1800 Second Loop Road, Suite 12, is an information technology provider that was established in 1975 in Columbia. Since then, the company has expanded to a multi-state, multi-office factory sales, support, service and training center.

Jim Buck, general manager of the Florence office, said the company has been serving Florence for more than 17 years.

“We’re an in-state provider,” Buck said. “We cover multiple lines, so it depends on what you’re looking for. We’re large enough that our buying power allows us to be extremely competitive. What I love to tell people is to look at what you’re paying now. If you feel like it’s too much, we’d love for you to contact us and give us a chance to look at what we can do for you.”

The company offers many services, including security and monitoring; on-site and remote support; network installation, support and design; hosted cloud offerings; backup and disaster relief; help desk; planning and auditing; and more.

Buck said joining the chamber was a way for the company to continue its growth and network with other businesses. He said the company originally had its main office in Columbia, but it decided to expand and add a Florence office to focus on the market in the Pee Dee.

“We decided that we had grown so much, actually we had grown so much in the state, that we wanted to have brick and mortar in Florence,” Buck said. “Joining the chamber was just the logical next step. We had been with the chamber before and they do a great job.”

Carolina Business Equipment can service and install IT equipment — such as servers, PCs, networking and firewalls — and desktop printing.