CRN rates Marlabs in the top five among application developers

January 28th, 2005
Product sales contributed to growing revenue for most of the solution providers. But several companies demonstrated how to build a profitable company based on services. FusionStorm, No. 3 on the list, began its transition to the MSP model in early 2001. The model has clearly paid off: FusionStorm realized a 261 percent increase in revenue during the survey period.

John Varel, chairman and CEO of the San Francisco-based company, said while it took time to build up the business, customers are now turning to FusionStorm to outsource other aspects of their operations, such as application development.

Telecom services provider Partnertel, Atlanta, also has seen rapid growth from its managed services business. As margins began to erode in the telecom space, Partnertel executives developed a managed service to help customers monitor telecom inventory and billing. Partnertel CEO Steven Gareleck said the service can save customers a minimum of 20 percent of yearly telecom spending.

By placing the emphasis on revenue growth rather than size, the Fast Growth 100 List is meant to reflect the channel in all its diversity and turn the spotlight on some of those business models that are enjoying success in the current economy.

Small companies clearly have an advantage when it comes to growing fast, and the list includes five companies with less than $1 million in sales, most notably DataTech Enterprises, Fredericksburg, Va., which grew its sales 273 percent to $1 million. To qualify for the list, each company had to be an independently owned business since at least 2001 and have sales of at least $250,000.

But participants in the survey also represented many larger companies. The average participant reported $55 million in sales and grew 37 percent. Several large companies beat that average, including World Wide Technology, St. Louis, which reported $1.37 billion in sales and grew 71 percent over the period.

In the following pages, we profile 10 of the Fast Growth 100 solution providers. We not only looked at the top five leaders on the list, but also at companies that turned in above-average performances in some key subcategories.

We chose World Wide Technology as an example of a large company—with 625 employees—that still managed impressive growth, and Partnertel, a company that derives 90 percent of its revenue from telecom services but developed the innovative managed service noted above to spur growth.

Brainstorm Networks, Denver, is one of several companies that told us that education was an important vertical market. The solution provider, which has expanded into the VoIP space, gets about 65 percent of its revenue from the education market.

Daymark Solutions, in North Billerica, Mass., was a fitting example of a company with just a few employees that still managed impressive growth. And Edison, N.J.-based Marlabs made the cut by demonstrating excellence in its specialty: application development.

We discovered that these five companies showed up on several of the top-five charts presented below. For example, Marlabs placed in the top five among application developers, as well as companies with more than 100 employees. And Brainstorm Networks appeared on the top-five chart of companies specializing in telecom/IP, as well as those specializing in the education vertical.

Solution providers on the top-100 list are as varied as the companies they service, but they all have one thing in common: fast growth.