ottawa`s companies ottawa`s companies

OTTAWA’S
COMPANIES
(From left) Jeff Lynt of inRound
Innovations, Dan Moorcroft of QMR
Staffing Solutions, and Frederic Boulanger
of Macadamian Technologies. Darren Brown, OBJ
■ FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
Page 12 ■ April 23, 2007, Ottawa Business Journal
Recognizing strong,
balanced growth
t is with great pleasure that I present the second annual edition of Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Companies.
It is our intention with this program to seek out and recognize privately held companies that can demonstrate strong
growth while remaining cash-flow positive. After consulting
with local accountants, we established somewhat stringent criteria to ensure companies that have made the cut represent the
best of what Ottawa has to offer.
To qualify, companies must be headquartered in the
National Capital Region or adjacent municipalities and have
completed three fiscal years with financials that had been verified by a third-party accountant with either a review engagement or audit.
Provided these criteria were met, we were open to any private
company in any industry. Each company was evaluated and
ranked based on its percentage revenue growth between the
first year and the third year of its most recently completed
three-year fiscal period. The company must also have been
cash-flow positive in all three years. To ensure we were attracting established companies of substance, we also imposed minimum revenue requirements. In year one of the qualifying period, each company must have had revenues of at least $100,000
and of least $750,000 in year three.
While we agreed not to publish specific financial figures,
since such information is confidential for a privately held com-
I
pany, I can say that most of the companies on the list enjoy
annual sales in the millions, even tens of millions in a few cases.
Not surprisingly, the majority of our applicants were once
again high tech firms, but I was happy to see that this year’s list
also boasts a gourmet burger chain, a commercial real estate
firm, a plastics recycling firm founded by a Cornwall entrepreneur, and a job shop machining company eager to dominate
the local market.
Several companies also requalified for this year’s list. They
are Macadamian Technologies, which held onto third place,
The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro, Fidus Systems, and TRM
Technologies. In addition, two other companies from last
year’s list, while not making the Top 10 this year, did requalify. They were Protus IP Solutions, with revenue growth of
57 per cent, and Chipworks, with revenue growth of 14 per
cent.
In the following pages, we feature a Q&A with the chief executives of the three fastest growing companies, QMR Staffing
Solutions, inRound Innovations and Macadamian
Technologies, as well as profiles of each of the 10 companies.
Read, enjoy, and learn what has allowed these companies to
achieve strong and sustainable growth.
Cheers
Leo Valiquette
Editor
■ COMPANY LIST
(Companies ranked by percentage revenue growth
over three-year period)
1) QMR Staffing Solutions Inc. 1,508%
2) inRound Innovations Inc. 181%
3) Macadamian Technologies Inc. 161%
4) Primecorp Commercial Realty 156%
5) Knor Plast Inc. 145%
6) Halogen Software Inc. 124%
7) Billet Precision Ltd. 103%
8) Fidus Systems Inc. 89%
9) TRM Technologies Inc. 83%
10) The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro 80%
Fastest
OTTAWA’S
GrowIng
COMPANIES
Three of a kind: Insights from the top
■ By Leo Valiquette
service firms. I wasn’t happy with the service I
was getting. Product development requires a
special set of skills – deep technical knowledge,
understanding of what makes a product succeed in the market – but I wasn’t getting that
kind of depth from my partners. I thought to
myself, “I can do better.” I left Corel in 1997,
founded Macadamian to be the best product
development outsourcing company in the
industry, and never looked back.
leo.valiquette@transcontinental.ca
KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS, identify a niche
market, put the emphasis on people.
These are the words of wisdom from the
senior executives of the three companies that
have topped the list for the 2007 edition of the
OBJ’s Fastest Growing Companies program.
With various think-tanks and industry
associations warning of impending labour
shortages as the baby boomers head into
retirement, it is perhaps not surprising that the
OBJ’s Fastest Growing Company specializes in
staffing services. QMR Staffing Solutions provides senior-level resources to government
and private sector clients across a broad range
of sectors including financial, HR and strategic
management. Second place inRound
Innovations takes a more specialized approach
with IT management needs that involves providing the right person with the right tool for
the job.
But the need to engage a third party to help
meet a business’s operational requirements is
also the bread and butter for the company that
has taken the number three position on the list
for the second year in a row – software development firm Macadamian Technologies.
Dan Moorcroft, CEO and co-founder of
QMR, Jeff Lynt, president and co-founder of
inRound, and Frederic Boulanger, CEO of
Macadamian, shared their thoughts on building a strong company in Ottawa.
OBJ: What career path led you to this business?
(From left), Don Stewart and
Jeff Lynt of inRound
Innovations, Frederic
Boulanger of Macadamian,
and Dan Moorcroft and Marc
Quesnel of QMR Staffing
Solutions. Darren Brown, OBJ
MOORCROFT: Both founders of QMR, myself
and Marc Quesnel, have served in professional capacities within local, national and international organizations throughout our careers.
Marc’s in-depth knowledge, obtained in senior
hospital administration and in the management resourcing industry, and my background
with operational and strategic corporate
development, led us to identify and understand our abilities to service our market’s
requirements. We formed QMR in 2003.
LYNT: inRound Innovations was born from a
customer/client relationship that existed
between the two partners of inRound, myself
and Don Stewart. We both worked for international firms that were top of their respective
industries. I held a senior position at a large
PC manufacturer and Don at an HR and
staffing firm.
BOULANGER: I founded Macadamian in
1997, and before that I was running an engineering group at Corel. At the time, we were
looking worldwide for engineering talent, and
were employing a number of engineering
OBJ: What philosophy or strategy did you
adopt that had the most impact on the growth
of your business?
MOORCROFT: As a niche provider of mid-to
senior-level resources within our industry,
QMR adopted an approach wherein we take
the time to get to know our clients and candidates. We have a focus and dedication on
delivery of value to stakeholders – our candidates, clients, and partners. Furthermore, we
provide our services in a highly professional
manner with a focus on being substantive as a
differentiator. Quality, not quantity, and value
for money has been the impetus for QMR’s
growth. We follow a philosophy of honesty,
fairness and transparency, and as a result,
we’ve been able to build a large network of
broadly-experienced professionals who help
us grow by referring new clients and candidates.
LYNT: inRound’s foundation was built upon
the guiding principle of “balanced operational
excellence,” striving to balance the expectations of our clients versus employees versus
■ FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
OBJ: What outside market factors have had the most positive,
and negative, impact on your business’s growth?
MOORCROFT: In terms of positive market factors, there has
been a massive shift in labour demographics that has impacted
knowledge transfer and continuity. Financial and management professionals are retiring from the workforce in record
numbers, so the demand to fill these vacancies has skyrocketed.
This trend will have a strong impact on the availability of the
appropriate knowledge base and labour for the next 25 plus
years. Further impacting this are issues like accountability in
the federal government and Sarbanes-Oxley in the private sector that have created a demand for qualified professionals.
The impact on growth of negative market factors has been
limited. However, there continues to be a high level of competition for a limited pool of candidate resources in Ottawa that
does have an impact. We continue to address these challenges
with comprehensive strategies, including a dedication to placing candidates as a partner at the table which has served to mitigate the negative impacts.
LYNT: inRound Innovations was started in 2002 just after the
high tech bubble burst and as they say, the best time to start a
business is in a downturn economy. This turned out to be very
true for us as it was a time when corporate spending was at an
all-time low and firms were looking for exceptional value for
their spending. inRound was built on the principle of having
our clients see considerable return on investment in a short
period of time. So, I suppose that you could say that inRound
took a negative market factor and turned it into a positive one.
BOULANGER: Negative impact, that’s an easy one – the tech
downturn. That was rough for everyone in our business. There
were two factors that had the most positive impact on our
growth – first, during the downturn, many of our customers
jumped quickly into outsourcing product development to
India, and some were successful, but some projects failed miserably. They learned the hard way that certain types of projects,
like product maintenance, can be done very effectively in India,
however others, like next-generation product creation, cannot
and are better done by a company like Macadamian. The other
factor that is driving our growth is an industry-wide acceptance
of outsourcing – that you have to have an outsourcing strategy
to succeed.
OBJ: As a business person in Ottawa, what do you consider to
be the region’s strong points as a place to set up shop in your
industry? What are its weak points?
MOORCROFT: Ottawa has a very strong economy buoyed by
continued growth across the technology, manufacturing and
professional services sectors, all of which have a strong presence
in Ottawa. Of course, the presence of the federal government
not only bolsters the economy, it also has a strong stabilizing
influence as well. Both the federal government and private sector have a strong requirement for professional capabilities that
QMR is very well-positioned to provide.
However, notwithstanding the federal government presence,
the private sector economy in Ottawa, from certain perspectives, is not indicative of being the fourth-largest municipal
economy in Canada. With relatively limited national and
international presence in Ottawa, private sector activity is
somewhat dampened. Additionally, while the federal government provides great business opportunities for local firms,
their procurement process is highly structured and can, at
times, be relatively complicated. Of course, this requires broad
understanding and patience in order to successfully acquire
contracts.
LYNT: Without a doubt, it has to be the industry organizations
that truly support young companies experiencing rapid growth
similar to inRound’s. Organizations such as OCRI provide
multiple levels of support, from networking to access to industry experts. Having worked very close with the economic development branch of OCRI, we see just how diligently they work
with companies considering creating a presence in Ottawa and
it excites us to know that each one of these firms represents a
potential client to inRound.
From a “weak point” prospective, it would probably have to
be the difficulties presented to small- to medium-sized firms
like inRound who are looking to engage in business with the
federal government, particularly in the IT space. Many of the
opportunities that present themselves require reference projects that are impossible for small firms to demonstrate; especially in their infancy like inRound. Partnering with the larger
firms was the only option but it can be very difficult to demonstrate value to these larger firms unless you offer a unique service not readily found in the local market. Thankfully inRound
has been able to carve out a niche in this over-saturated IT professional services market in Ottawa.
BOULANGER: One of the weak points is that Ottawa is only so
big – sooner or later, you have to look outside of Ottawa for
customers, ideas, and talent. This is why we have offices in the
U.S. and labs in Eastern Europe. The strong points are OCRI –
their support for the community, and providing opportunities
for the community to collaborate. I think Ottawa is one of the
best cities for networking and collaboration. And we have
incredibly bright, driven people here. And not just in engineering. People talk about the lack of sales and marketing experience in Ottawa, but there are great people here if you know
where to look, and what questions to ask.
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partners and versus shareholders. So as an example, while it is
extremely important that we exceed the expectations of each
stakeholder group, it is not done at the detriment of another
group.
We’ve grown our business by differentiating our approach to
designing solutions for our customers. Unlike many companies that focus their solutions on people or process or tools,
inRound’s philosophy is, when designing any solution, 50 per
cent of the effort should be focused on people, 30 per cent on
the actual process and 20 per cent on the tools – in that order.
inRound helps companies identify and give proper attention
to the people requirements (functional roles as well as qualified talent), the process in which they need to follow and then
drive automation through the use of our tools.
BOULANGER: Think big! I ask my managers to think about
how they will run their teams when we are 500 (staff) or 1,000.
That’s not to say we take on the overhead of 500 when we’re
100, but think about what systems you’ll need to be able to hire
that many people, or how you will handle creating that many
proposals and still be responsive. That kind of thinking has
helped us bust through the artificial ceilings we sometimes
impose on ourselves, and forces us to let go of things that others could do better – think as a team and not as individuals.
Ottawa Business Journal, April 23, 2007 ■ Page 13
■ FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
Page 14 ■ April 23, 2007, Ottawa Business Journal
OBJ: What is the most fundamental business lesson you have
learned that you would want to pass on to the next crop of
business leaders out there?
MOORCROFT: Know your industry to the nth degree and
understand the marketability of your value proposition before
you take the plunge into entrepreneurialism. Be sure to know
your industry’s best practices, and always strive for excellence in
what you do, how you do it, and how you treat others. Be honest and ethical. Do as you say you’ll do. Be assertive and don’t
wait for things to be handed to you. Be self-sufficient. Strong
and prosperous businesses are built one success at a time.
When starting a business, make sure to have sufficient financial resources. Be attentive to expenses both at work and at
home. Minimize debt and keep your overheads controllable
and sustainable. For instance, don’t seek to equip your offices
with unnecessary equipment or furniture. It’s not how good the
offices look, rather what you do in them that counts. It’s worth
it in the long run, if your goal is to enjoy the freedom and flexibility of self-employment.
LYNT: We have a couple of very simple business philosophies
… have passion for what you do and most importantly, never
give up! inRound’s passion is fueled by the desire to maintain
our status as subject matter experts in our respective disciplines. Having confidence in this provides us with the ability to
focus on the continued growth of our firm.
I would also have to mention that being a good corporate
citizen is essential to any firm’s success, especially in this community. There are so many opportunities for organizations
today to take part in charity and community events that not
only give back to the community but also provide great expo-
sure and networking opportunities. As we continue to grow as
a firm, so does our commitment to the community that supports us.
BOULANGER: Everyone says persistence, but I have to say it
anyway. In business you’ll constantly run into roadblocks and
challenges. If you have a vision you believe in, you need to have
the persistence and staying power to keep plugging away. One
day, whether it be five years or 10 years later, you’ll look back
and say “Wow – I can’t believe what we’ve accomplished.”
The second is humility. If you haven’t realized early on just
how much you don’t know, you’re doing something wrong. Go
find the people whose strengths are your weaknesses, and get
them on your team. Go find people who have been there, done
that, and tap their brains. You’ll be amazed what happens to
your personal growth and the growth of your business. ■
Ottawa’s 2007 Fastest Growing Companies at a glance
■ By Julie Fortier and Roman Zakaluzny
objnews@transcontinental.ca
QMR Staffing Solutions Inc.
Year founded: 2003
Employees: 7
Product: Professional-level employment
and resourcing services
Revenue growth: 1,508 %
Anyone who doubts the significance of the
exodus of baby boomers from the workforce
need look no further than QMR Staffing
Solution’s outstanding growth numbers.
“There’s a need in the marketplace for a
niche provider of service. Given the decline of
the 20 to 64 age group and increase in the 65and-over bracket, there is a massive knowledge
transfer out of corporate organizations in both
the government and private sector,” said Dan
Moorcroft, CEO of QMR.
QMR provides senior-level resources to
government and private sector clients across a
broad range of sectors, including financial, HR
and strategic management on both a contract
and permanent basis.
When asked what has been going on with
the company, Mr. Moorcroft answered, “What
hasn’t been going on?
“We’ve grown tremendously over the past
four years. We’ve expanded our client base and
our candidate consultant base, we have experienced a large growth in revenue and physical
presence in Ottawa,” he told OBJ.
President Marc Quesnel said QMR has
been focusing on diversification this past year.
“We have built a team to focus on staffing professional-level accountants in the private sector, which we did before, but didn’t focus on it
as much as we are now,” he said.
Mr. Quesnel was an account executive for a
large international recruiting company when
he and Mr. Moorcroft noted the recruitment
market did not properly service fields such as
accounting and financial management.
Mr. Quesnel said as with other industries,
specialization is becoming more and more
important to clients.“We understand accounting and corporate strategic planning. If you
strive to be the best at one thing, that’s how
you get to be the best, through specializing,”
said Mr. Quesnel. “Dan and I both have an
entrepreneurial spirit. We saw where the
demographic shift was going and that there
would be opportunities there.”
“We knew that there was an opportunity to
quantify and qualify that knowledge back into
the workforce on many different levels,”
explained Mr. Moorcroft.
According to Mr. Moorcroft, another secret
to QMR’s success is how the company treats
their clients. It comes down to mutual respect.
“We’re two guys who are as good as our
word,” he said. “What we say we’ll do is what
we deliver. And if we can’t deliver, we say that
too. As people progress in their careers, retire
and then want to re-integrate back into the
workforce, they want to deal with ethicallyminded people who will work with them as a
partner.”
inRound Innovations Inc.
Year founded: 2002
Employees: 8 full time, 10 subcontractors
Product: IT professional services
Revenue growth: 182 %
Ottawa’s second-fastest growing firm says getting there was a balancing act.
“We want to be profitable, (but) we don’t
want to be profitable at the expense of our
clients,” said Jeff Lynt, one of inRound
Innovations’ two co-owners. “We don’t want
to be gouging them. We are constantly gauging
that.”
Shareholders, clients, employees and partnerships are all treated equally at inRound, he
said.
To keep clients happy, the IT consulting
firm treats each one differently.
“I don’t think we have two clients for whom
we have done the same thing,” said co-owner
Don Stewart. “There are a lot of companies
who think that for every client, all you have to
do is go out there and buy the same tool, but
that’s not the case.”
Although it finished in the top three this
year, rapid growth is nothing new for
inRound. Mr. Stewart said it’s been planned,
controlled, and expected from the earliest
stages of the five-year-old firm.
“We took the time at the incubation stage to
make sure we had the processes in place before
we took on any new clients, to make sure that
any client we bring in gets the same level of
satisfaction,” he said.
Success has seen them become Ottawa’s goto guys in the IT support management industry. In turn, being the public face of support
management has spurred more success.
“We’ll often get calls from (CTV) wanting
to know what’s going on in the business.
People now recognize us as leaders in the management support business,” said Mr. Lynt.
“OCRI, for instance, will contact us when
dealing with companies that are moving to
Ottawa.”
While inRound fulfils staffing needs for
clients if required, they said they evaluate each
client individually, often suggesting alternate
Knor Plast founder Eric Lang. Darren Brown, OBJ
strategies.
“We’re not just a bums-in-seats kind of
approach,” said Mr. Stewart.
“We’ve had examples of that in the past,
with companies asking for so many more staff.
We come back to them and say, how about we
give you one person and a tool? You’d think
we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, but it’s
optimization.”
Finding talent for a growing company is a
challenge, they said, but one that comes with
rewards for successful applicants.
“We empower our employees,” said Mr.
Stewart. “I hate to use the WestJet philosophy,
but people who work for us have the opportunity to become owners.”
All indications, he said, are that inRound
will make Ottawa’s Fastest Growing
Companies list again a year from now.
“It’s cautious growth,” Mr. Stewart said.
“Every time we bring a new client into the fold,
we have to provide them the same level of
service. We don’t look at it as a cookie-cutter
approach . . . we live that (philosophy) internally as an organization.”
Macadamian Technologies Inc.
Year founded: 1997
Employees: 76
Product: Software research and development outsourcing
Revenue growth: 161 %
If there was ever a company that understood
combining soft skills with business smarts, it’s
Macadamian Technologies and its president
and co-founder, Fred Boulanger.
The motto at Macadamian is simple: Say
what you do and do what you say.
“Macadamian is all about collaboration,
flexibility and innovation, that is valid in and
out of the organization. Say what you do and
■ FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
do what you say: this is something that we live
by,” Mr. Boulanger told OBJ.
“When you say what you do, you come
across as credible, but when you do what you
say, you become reliable. This is what our customer wants and that’s why they come back.
Most of our clients are repeat customers
because if we say something, we are true to our
word.”
Macadamian was also honoured with an
award for being one of Ottawa’s top 10
employers by the HR community last year. Mr.
Boulanger, a former software development
manager at Corel, got together with chief software architect Francis Beaudet, and vice-president of engineering Stephane Lussier to start
their own software research and development
outsourcing firm in 1997. Business at
Macadamian has been brisk, with the acquisition of local firm Maskery in August and plans
for further expansion.
“In the past year, we firmed up our strategy
of becoming a source of ideas as well as a
source of engineering power. Maskery is in the
user-experience field and that allows us to get
in at the inception of the idea and help customers define and understand user needs and
user perspective in a product,” Mr. Boulanger
said.
Last March, Macadamian also made the
milestone of opening an office in Silicon
Valley, which will be its U.S. sales and marketing headquarters. The company has also
expanded its Romanian operation significantly.
“We have big ambitions and we’re not done.
We want to be a big success story and it
requires us to take risks,” Mr. Boulanger said.
He also added there are plans to expand further into the U.S., as well as the global market
in the future.
“In the outsource product development
business, what we are doing is totally different
from what a lot of companies are doing out
there right now. The difference is now a source
of ideas for customers. We can be a trusted
advisor to innovate the products their user will
be passionate about, and that is our trump
card,” he said.
Primecorp Commercial Realty Inc.
Year founded: 1998
Employees: 19
Product: Commercial realty estate investment brokerage and advisory
Revenue growth: 156 %
Looking at OBJ’s list of top commercial real
estate deals for 2006, it’s easy to see why
Primecorp Commercial Realty Inc. made it to
the list of top-10 fastest growing companies.
“Primecorp did seven of the top 12 deals in
Ottawa for largest commercial real estate deals.
No company has ever achieved this before,”
said Aik Aliferis, co-founder and partner at the
commercial real estate, investment, brokerage
and advisory firm. To date, Primecorp has
completed over $2 billion in transactions in 30
markets while headquartered in Ottawa and
has offices in Montreal, Toronto and Halifax.
“We grew from $275 million in 2004 to
$588 million in 2006 in terms of transaction
value. We sold more buildings in 2006 in the
Ottawa region than any other company,” Mr.
Aliferis told the OBJ.
In 1998, co-founders Mr. Aliferis, Steve
Lerner, Nicolas Pantieras and Sam Firestone
came together to form a sort of super group in
the commercial real estate world. “Our common vision brought us together and led us to
the opportunity to create a new company,” said
Mr. Pantieras.
Ottawa Business Journal, April 23, 2007 ■ Page 15
Billet Precision co-owners Joe Schuster and Joanna Bertrand. Darren Brown, OBJ
The thing that makes them different,
according to Mr. Aliferis, is their commitment
to relationships with clients.
“All our clients deal with one of the four
founding partners no matter where you are.
That is a big part of the success,” he said. “Our
clients know us, they know us well, and we
know them well. The level of respect we provide and the commitment to the relationship
that is shown is reciprocated no matter what
kind of investor.”
As a result, 50 per cent of the four partners’
time is spent travelling, something few other
firms are willing to do.
“They call us, we go. If you called us today
and needed us for a meeting in Toronto this
afternoon, we’re there. You need us in Halifax,
Vancouver or Edmonton, we’re there,” Mr.
Aliferis said.
Mr. Pantieras said big plans are ahead for
the firm, including expanding into more international markets, but it must be done in a
manageable way.
“A lot of opportunities have come our way,
but we must evaluate every opportunity
whether it is geographic expansion, or adding
other service offerings for our client base.
We’re very careful in our growth, and we do it
in a measured approach.”
“We want to be really careful that we manage our growth while providing the level of
professional services that we are known to
provide for our clients,” Mr. Aliferis said.
Knor Plast Inc.
Year founded: 2000
Employees: 40
Product: Plastic recycling
Revenue growth: 145 %
Thirty-six-year-old Cornwall entrepreneur,
Eric Lang, remembers when the light bulb
went off. A manager at medium-sized company, part of his job was to figure out how to deal
with the company’s garbage. “I started looking
at what we were throwing out just for fun one
day. I found we threw out over $100,000 worth
of inventory that year that we didn’t know had
value. I could have been selling the inventory
for 20 cents a pound, and we were landfilling
it,” he said.
In 2000, Mr. Lang started Knor Plast and in
six years, the market has changed very much in
his favour.
“When we started, a lot of what we were
recycling was just saved from landfills, and a
lot of recyclables were being shipped to China
and India. But every year, I see a decrease in
export and an increase in domestically recycled material,” Mr. Lang said.
Knor Plast buys plastics from manufacturers, melts it down, re-extrudes it into pellets
and then sells it back to companies. Mr. Lang
said with the high cost of commodities like oil,
the market is finally getting to the point that
it’s economically viable to reuse plastics in
Canada. The company has gone from recycling 5.3 million pounds of material in 2004 to
19.8 million pounds in 2006.
This year has been challenging, as Mr. Lang
is also working on his MBA at the University
of Ottawa while running the business. “We got
to the size where I hit the wall as far as being
able to accomplish everything. I had to hire
managers and people who knew more than
me, which is hard to do when you’re an entrepreneur,” he said.
But, he said, it is all part of his plan. “I started the company with the intent of creating a
large multinational. Everything I am doing is
in the mindset that if we don’t act like a large
multinational, we’ll never get there.”
Mr. Lang is looking towards the future with
plans to break into the post-consumer municipal recycling market.
“We are looking at all of eastern Ontario for
a multi-municipal recycling program, either
by providing them with better markets or
working with them in a large recycling centre.”
Mr. Lang is also looking at recycling plastics
from old computers. “We’re looking at that as
a niche that most companies don’t have. I want
to start that right outside of Ottawa,” he said.
Halogen Software Inc.
Year founded: 2001
Employees: 98
Product: employee performance and talent
management software
Revenue growth: 124 %
The value of a good product can’t be overstated.
Five years ago, Halogen Software Inc. developed its employee performance and talent
management suite of products, launching
itself to the top of the market.
It’s remained on top, CEO and president
Paul Loucks said, by always adding improvements to the software.
“If you have a product that’s simple to use,
you have the recipe for success,” he told the
OBJ.
“The product solves a real business problem,” he added. “(And) we’re constantly getting input from customers on improving the
product.”
Formed in 2001 when Ottawa’s high tech
house of cards was in the midst of tumbling,
Halogen somehow found a way to survive,
then prosper.
Currently boasting some 1,000 customers,
85 per cent of them U.S. based, Mr. Loucks
said he saw nowhere to go but up.
Clients that make use of Halogen’s software
the most have between 200 and 5,000 workers,
including many hospitals that use Halogen’s eAppraisal, geared towards the healthcare
industry.
“We were fortunate along the way,” Mr.
Loucks admitted.“You have to have some level
of good luck to be successful.”
Spun off from a larger consulting firm six
years ago, Halogen was afforded some protection during IT’s tough period. It was at that
time that it moved into the employment management software sector.
“The competitors weren’t gaining ground
on us (then),” he said. “When the industry
moved out of the slow state, we gained ground
on them.”
However, he gave full credit to workers for
persevering throughout the recession.
“(It’s) about the employee team that you
have,” he said. “The team is great at executing
the business plan. They’re dedicated, and
they’re passionate about what they do.
“It’s been a good execution.”
Revenue growth of 124 per cent does not
come without challenges. Fortunately, an
entire floor in Halogen’s March Road building
became available, just as pressures to grow
were forcing its hand to find more space.
Hiring good staff, soon to break 100
employees, is also a challenge, but “not insurmountable.”
“It’s easy for a company showing success to
recruit people,” Mr. Loucks said.
Halogen’s focus today, he said, is to beat the
competition on a daily basis.
“We have a very long run ahead of us in
terms of capturing the market we already sell
to,” he said.
“There are 48,000 (U.S.) companies with
between 200 and 5,000 employees,” he said.
“About 2,000 of them have performance management software in place, so we have about
46,000 more to go.”
Billet Precision Ltd.
Year founded: 1994
Employees: 40
Product: Job shop machining
Revenue growth: 103 %
Billet Precision Ltd., a job shop machining
company out of Nepean, is growing so quickly, it doubled its workforce in the short period
since it first applied to be one of Ottawa’s
fastest growing companies in early March.
Days before revenue growth levels of 103
per cent vaulted Billet onto the list of the 10
fastest-growing firms in Ottawa, the company
bought out rival Otal Precision.
High growth forced Billet to expand and
find more real estate, which it found with a
second location close to the airport, said company co-owner Joe Schuster.
“(Otal) was a well-established machine
shop, and we were looking for a permanent
location,” he said. “We bought the company
lock, stock and barrel: all their employees,
their location, and all their machines.”
■ FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
Page 16 ■ April 23, 2007, Ottawa Business Journal
The buy meshes with Billet’s bid to be the top precision
machinist in the region, he said.
“We want to be the number one job shop machine shop in
eastern Ontario,” said Mr. Schuster who, along with Joanna
Bertrand, manages some 40 workers, up from 22 before the
purchase. “I think we have a ways to go, but by continuing to
serve the customer, training the employees, and keeping the
machines up to date, (we’ll) get there.”
Business is good these days, said Mr. Schuster.
“We make parts to print,” he said.“A customer in the telecom
sector or the medical sector will send us some CAD (computer-aided design) blueprints, and we work to their specifications,” with either metal or plastic.
What sets Billet apart from competitors, Mr. Schuster said, is
its investment in top-of-the-line machines.
“The machinery we do have is high-end equipment,” he said.
“The processing we can provide our customers is unique, (and)
my competitors can’t provide that. For example, we were the
first in our area to provide a multi-tasking lathe,” imported
from Japan.
“These machines are worth well over $500,000. Our competitors may buy one that’s worth $100,000.”
Finding new workers is sometimes a challenge, he said, but
young apprentices are proving valuable, and they are often
more open to changing technologies, he said.
Growth is on the horizon, he said, here and elsewhere.
“As a whole, it is growing,” he said. “We’re doing work for
companies abroad as well. We actually sell to China, Thailand
and France. Fifty to 60 per cent of our business is outside
Canada, and the U.S. is our biggest customer.”
Fidus Systems Inc.
Year founded: 2001
Employees: 60
Product: Electronic design services
Revenue growth: 89 %
Self-proclaimed electronics junkie Fidus Systems is growing so
quickly, it may soon have to specialize to sustain growth levels,
its top executive said.
With gradually increasing workforces in both Canada and
San Jose, president Michael Wakim said the company is evolving.
“We were generalists,” he said, explaining how in the past, the
electronic design services company was more of a catch-all
firm, taking any and all projects. “We (weren’t) fussy.”
Things are changing, however.“The bigger you get, the harder it is to grow at the same percentages,” he said. “Now, we’re
trying to become experts in specific technologies.”
Fidus is finding itself honing some skills over others. Areas it
finds itself loving more and more are maritime navigation
equipment and board design for high-speed memories, he said.
“The world is going insane with very, very high-speed memory,” said Mr. Wakim. “We’re quite knowledgeable in that area
right now.
“Another we’re really enjoying is maritime navigation. We’ve
developed equipment in New York for tracking commercial
ships. That’s been just an amazing project, and we want to
become experts in maritime surveillance. That’s different than
in previous years, we never would have focused on something
like that.”
That’s not to say Fidus won’t continue being a catch all.
“We’re finding areas we like a lot, and focusing on those. But
in our business, we still have to be flexible. We still cover a lot of
domains, but while trying to become experts in certain areas.”
Asked how Fidus saw growth of 89 per cent, the Lebanonborn Mr. Wakim credited Canadian values.
“I think it’s an ongoing trend for companies to seek partners
to help them with design,” he said. “It’s not just us: there’s two
or three other software companies doing well, helping other
companies with design.
“I think Canadians are just trustworthy,” he added. “That’s
why I think a lot of companies are staying in North America to
help with design.”
This year marks the second in a row on the list for Fidus, an
accomplishment Mr. Wakim said will be challenging to threepeat. The specialization might help, he said, and retaining quality employees is getting ever more important.
“I think the two keys for the future for us, is to keep it a place
where people really want to work, and develop the expertise we
have in certain technologies,” he said.
He added that with Fidus being named one of Ottawa’s top
Ion Aimers, founder of The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro. Darren Brown, OBJ
employers last November by its peers has also helped in attracting quality staff.
TRM Technologies Inc.
Year founded: Dec. 1990
Employees: 15 full-time, 60 subcontractors
Product: IT consulting and professional services with focus
on IT security and infrastructure
Revenue growth: 83 %
Adapting to a changing environment allowed TRM
Technologies Inc. to thrive in a revamped high tech sector in
Ottawa, according to president Ted Martin.
Competent adaptation, as well as a broadening of the 17year-old firm’s focus over the years, has allowed TRM technologies to grow from the “boutique firm” it was when it began to a
growing firm with expanding revenues.
“We recognized the change in the market environment and
responded to it,” Mr. Martin told the OBJ. “Between 1990 and
2002, we were very much a boutique firm, focused on solutions
delivery, i.e. project-oriented work.
“(But) Y2K was kind of the last hurrah for significant projects in this town, and business shifted away from project-oriented work to staff augmentation work,” he said.
Instead of providing turn-key solutions, TRM focused on
solutions, he said: supplying the right people to work sites,
engineering and architecture activities, project management,
and elsewhere.
“In order to respond to the changing market, we changed
our business model,” he said. “We made an investment in the
professional services business by hiring a seasoned executive
and acquiring recruiting and sales management software tools.”
The strategy, combined with successful efforts in getting
itself on the federal government’s list of preferred clients, has
paid dividends. The IT consulting and professional services
firm has posted high double-digit growth figures for most of
the last few years, and has been included in the OBJ’s list of
Fastest Growing Companies two years running.
“Keeping in mind we’re focusing on a couple of key areas: IT
security and IT infrastructure,” Mr. Martin added.
Main clients include the federal government and Crown corporations, he said, as well as some private companies.
“We have a presence in almost all government departments,”
said Mr. Martin. “We have some small activity in the private
sector, and some small amount in the U.S.”
While the company changed tactics at the start of the decade,
it’s fully aware it may have to do so again in the future to keep
up with market changes, he said.
“Our fundamental philosophy is to engage in new and
emerging sectors of technology, to keep the work interesting,”
said Mr. Martin. “In the ‘90s, we were involved in the communications technologies that ended up being the Internet. When
that matured, we migrated into the securities world. That’ll be
interesting for the next few years. Then, we’ll move into other
areas as they evolve.”
The Works
Gourmet Burger Bistro
Year founded: 2001
Employees: 120
Product: Family restaurant chain
Revenue growth: 80 %
Don’t be fooled by the placement of the Works Gourmet
Burger Bistro in the top 10 list this year. Although the burger
chain placed second on the list in 2006, owner Ion Aimers said
he couldn’t be happier with the way things are going.
“This year was a little slower,” he told the OBJ. “(But) we had
a real banner year in terms of giving back to the community.
We gave away a large amount of food to neighbourhood
groups and charities. We’ve been blessed to be adopted by the
Ottawa community.”
With growth planned for 2007, The Works is sure to top the
list again. A new location opened in Kanata in January and
there are plans to open another in Orleans this fall. “Our
growth plan was five stores in five years. But we don’t grow for
the sake of growing, we do it because there’s business to support the locations,” Mr. Aimers said. And that is an understatement.
With line-ups often out the door for one of the 434 different
burgers, Mr. Aimers can’t seem to open locations fast enough
and is looking at franchise possibilities.“The second part of our
growth plan is 50 stores in 10 years,” he said.
Always listening to what customers want, Mr. Aimers introduced two new patties to the chicken, turkey, vegetarian, lamb
and beef burger choices. One is a low-fat elk burger, which
comes from a free range farm in Carp, and the other is a vegetarian tempeh burger, which is an Indonesian soybean patty.
“We re-invented the burger, bringing it back to how it was
made in the old days, but now we are offering a new-aged spin
on it to make it healthier. That’s what people are looking for,”
Mr. Aimers said.
Some of the new burgers added to the menu this year
include the Bubba Gump with shrimp and Growler 5-0 for
Lowell Green’s 50th anniversary on the radio. The most important burger on the menu, however, is the Guardian Angel. Last
October, Mr. Aimer’s sister passed away from cancer and she
helped designed the burger. For 2007, $1 from each sale of that
burger will go to the Regional Cancer Foundation. They also
raised $33,000 for the RCF by giving away burgers for a day in
January.
“I feel a big responsibility in taking care of not only our
employees but our customers and the community. We are a
neighbourhood restaurant above all,” Mr. Aimers said. ■