Tom Leonard admits he knows little about the technical aspects of data warehousing, business intelligence and performance management.
But he does know the top 200 or so experts in those information technology fields nationwide.
Leonard and his partners have parlayed that information into a fast-growing, consulting-services company with a narrow but highly desirable focus.
Pawtucket-based American Partners Inc. connects companies across the country with specialists in using computer-based techniques to spot, dig out and analyze data in search of efficiencies.
More specifically, American Partners says consultants have a rare combination of expertise in financial matters as well as data warehousing, Oracle Business Intelligence applications and Hyperion, another Oracle Corp. software product.
“We have a niche market,” said Leonard, president of American Partners, which was launched in 2007 with the help of managing partner Justin Franks.
American Partners – a 12-employee firm located in Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket – posted $6 million in sales in 2009, up from $2 million in 2008. And Leonard and Franks say annual revenue could top $10 million by year’s end.
Rolling with the changing job market, American Partners has added recruiting veteran Ron Wnek as a managing partner to lead a new unit handling the growing requests from employers for permanent staffing.
Leonard said the strength of the company lies in the consultants, known as “subject matter experts” in business-intelligence parlance.
The company invests much of its efforts finding the independent experts in the field, and then wooing them to work with American Partners on an independent basis.
“These guys are hired guns,” Leonard said. “And we spend countless man-hours doing research on them and building relationships.”
Franks said American Partners considers these consultants the rock stars of the business-intelligence industry. They can fetch $100 to $200 an hour for their services.
“We are their agents in the marketplace,” Franks said. “We are their voice.”
After working in the staffing industry for several years in the 1990s, Leonard opened his own staffing business, The Jotorok Group, with Wnek in 1998. The Rhode Island business was sold to a foreign company in 2004.
Around the same time, Leonard met Franks, who had been working in the financial-services industry. They decided to collaborate, and helped by a $250,000 loan from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, they spent the next six months cold calling companies and consultants, trying to determine where the need for independent consultants was greatest.
At first, American Partners also focused on providing consultant services for companies in need of expertise with electronic medical records, but it quickly narrowed the focus to just business intelligence and performance management.
Leonard said the company has won over experts in this field because it pays on time and understands the consultants’ background. And “we do what we say we’re going to do,” he added. It’s all part of what American Partners calls the VIP Program.
In a way, the economic downturn has given American Partners a boost. Companies have turned their attention to cutting expenses and called upon business-intelligence systems to help them.
“People started paying attention to how their businesses were run,” Leonard said.
Franks said a typical transaction might work like this: A national bottle manufacturer calls because they want an expert to analyze where operations could be streamlined.
American Partners can reach into its database and call upon a business-intelligence consultant with a specialization in the manufacturing industry. In addition to the consultant’s rates, American Partners tacks on its own fee.
Some of American Partners’ 100 clients since 2007 have included Oracle, IBM and global management-consulting firm Accenture. Leonard said he’d like to reach out to local companies, too.
“Two and a half years of building relationships is now really paying off,” he said. •
COMPANY PROFILE
American Partners Inc.
OWNERS: Thomas J. Leonard, president; Justin Franks, managing partner; Ron Wnek, managing partner
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Provider of business-intelligence and performance-management consulting services
LOCATION: 1005 Main St., Suite 2205, Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: 12
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2007
ANNUAL SALES: $6 million in 2009
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