2008 CRN Fast Growth 100: Company Profiles

#1: NWN Corp.
Grow Fast Or Flounder
• By Craig Zarley

It's a great industry. It's a great time. There are opportunities everywhere."

That's the economic worldview from the president and CEO of the fastest-growing company on CRN's 2008 Fast Growth list: NWN Corp. In fact, Mont Phelps, CEO of NWN, a Waltham, Mass., solution provider that has seen its annual revenue skyrocket, sees fast growth as a necessity in today's IT market. "People that work hard are going to do really well," Phelps said. "Those that are trying to stand still and tread water are going to have problems."

NWN has done anything but stand still during the past few years. After a string of acquisitions, NWN now fuels much of its growth organically through its expanded geographic footprint. In addition to New England, NWN has a strong presence in the mid-Atlantic states, as well as in Texas.

Phelps looks for strategic acquisitions that fit in with the company's formula for success, including a focus on unified communications, information security, data storage and disaster recovery, and enterprise computing. He notes that NWN has strategically aligned itself with Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif.; Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif.; EMC Corp., Hopkinton, Mass.; and Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., and looks to buy solution providers that are strong partners with at least one of those vendors. Once acquired, NWN then leverages its strength with the other key vendor partners to organically grow its business in the acquired company's accounts.

"And we focus on the midmarket, the best part of the market," Phelps explains. "It's harder to grow than enterprise, but there is more opportunity."

He cites the financial market as an example. "When someone paints the whole financial services field with a broad brush, they don't realize that the local banks never got into this subprime thing. They are all at record profitability."

The public sector, too, has been a bright spot for NWN. Phelps said the company just won a $2.5 million telephony contract with the city of Raleigh, N.C. "Public sector involves long-term planning, and they're not on the same business cycle as commercial accounts," he notes. "Public sector is spending the money."

While Phelps is still looking for acquisitions in order to become a national player, he said that organic growth so far this year remains strong. Product revenue is running roughly 10 percent ahead of last year's, while services revenue is up between 30 percent and 40 percent, he said.

But the bottom line for NWN is that its success is multifaceted. Said Phelps: "If you do just one thing well, that's not going to get you where you want to be."

Next: Acuity Solutions