NCS Keeps Steady Hand On Growth

CS Technologies, a Manassas, Va.-based custom- system builder, has seen strong, steady growth in the 20 percent range over the past several years, which it says is a testament to its strategy of keeping existing customers happy while cautiously adding new ones.

“That’s manageable. If you get much faster growth than that, it gets more difficult,” said Mark Christopher, NCS’ vice president of finance and administration. “Not to say we’d turn down business if it came to us, but our growth has been at a rate that we’ve been able to manage in the course of the last year.”

Like most custom-system builders, though, NCS, which provides systems for government, education and corporate markets, has struggled with lengthening refreshment cycles in its account base. Christopher said many state and local governments are now waiting four or five years to replace systems vs. three previously.

The company still managed to grow unit sales 43 percent last year to 2,219 units per month while increasing revenue 24 percent to $35 million. It did that by not only adding new customers but also new product lines.

Working closely with Intel, NCS tripled sales of custom notebooks last year to 412 units per month. The company also began building Web appliances—about 200 per month—last year on a contract manufacturing basis for ISVs that provide the software and brand the appliances.

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NCS is now mulling whether to develop a business for ruggedized servers that could appeal to its government and military clients.

Unlike tier-one vendors, NCS has avoided the downside of growing too quickly and then having to downsize when things get tough, Christopher said.

“In the late ’90s, other people were booming. We weren’t booming,” he said. “But we’ve never laid anybody off.”

Now the company, which employs about 80 people, has begun reaping the benefits of the economic upturn, but its strategy remains the same: steady as she goes.