2007 Fast Growth 100: Company Profiles

E-BRILLIANCE

An increased focus on partnerships helped e-Brilliance move up nine slots on the Fast Growth 100 this year. The Conshohocken, Pa.-based solution provider, which debuted at No. 24 on the list last year, garnered the No. 15 spot this year in large part by leveraging strategic relationships with software partners and burnishing its trusted adviser status with customers, said Mike Axelrod, president of e-Brilliance.

"We've definitely focused on partnerships more than we have in the past," he said.

It's certainly working: Net sales jumped 270 percent over the two-year period covered by the Fast Growth survey, to $5.3 million in 2006.

Founded in 2001, e-Brilliance is a 50-person firm whose goal is to be a full-service consultancy to its customers, mostly financial services firms in the Fortune 1000.

The company is focused 100 percent on services, Axelrod said, and has tight relationships with software partners such as SOA Software, Composite Software and IBM Global Services. A typical engagement will see e-Brilliance's partner get the software sales while the solution provider gets the integration and implementation work, he said.

Clients trust you more if you're willing to turn down work that's out of your area of expertise, said Chairman Anthony Schweiger. "You have to have a willingness to say 'No, that's not what we do,' and make a referral," he said.

As Axelrod puts it: "It just doesn't work trying to be all things to everybody."

J2EE and .Net application development have always been a strong suit of eBrilliance's, Schweiger said, but the firm has forged tighter bonds with its customers by also developing strong chops in business analysis. When e-Brilliance puts together a team for a client, members are selected specifically for that client, Axelrod said, explaining that financial services firms need IT consultants who are conversant with issues like wealth management, tax policies and procedures and accounting methods.

"It's not about getting hooks into the client," Axelrod said. "We're making sure that the people we're bringing to that client really are a great fit."

Timothy Long

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