When CIBER Information Services started in the Detroit area 25 years ago it wasn’t that important for the system integration consultant to have major operations in one location.
Instead the company focused on having a presence, no matter how minuscule, in a number of cities throughout the country. The plan of attack that started in five or six locations now exceeds 45 in North America, including its Providence office in the Foundry complex. The company, now based in Denver, has over 6,600 employees.
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As the geographic breadth of the company has grown, so has the depth of all its locations, and Providence is no different. The local office plans to more than double its 70-person staff in the next few years as they try to become a force in the information technology community in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts.
”Not only are we growing from within, but we are looking as well at potential acquisitions. We are always talking to other companies – always,” said Douglas E. Beimler, branch manager for CIBER in Providence.
CIBER also has four other locations in New England: Nashua, New Hampshire, Hartford, Woburn and downtown Boston.
Beimler said despite being an out-of-state company CIBER has been well accepted, including securing work with companies as large as CVS and Fleet.
”We are a medium-sized company that is on the cusp of being a large company. The beauty and one reason for the growth here is we are backed by a $1 billion national firm. We bring with us many resources,” he said.
SOURCE: CIVER annual report.
NOTE: Revenues reflect end of company’s fiscal year, June 30, 1998.
It wasn’t always so for Beimler, who started working in the Foundry building with very little ammunition. He was hired in 1994 by Practical Business Associates, which had a Woburn office. His job was to get a Providence location up and running, a job that started in a first-floor office he shared with another company at the Foundry.
”We just parachuted into the state and started from scratch,” said Beimler.
He said initially the company found work at smaller companies, using their experience in Massachusetts as a means of winning jobs. Within nine months, the company landed CVS, a major account that gave them some punch when looking for new business.
In 1996, CIBER was busy trying to expand its geographical presence and started searching southeastern New England for possible acquisitions. PBA was growing and concentrating on the same services CIBER was interested in. In May the company was purchased by CIBER.
Beimler was kept on board to lead the office, which is mid-sized compared to CIBER’s other locations, some of which total more than 300 employees.
CIBER’s specialties include: management consulting to align business/IT solutions (including E-business, data warehousing and middleware integration), enterprise applications solutions (EAS/ERP) implementation and outsourcing services, enterprise integration services consulting and professional staff augmentation services.
Beimler said along with increasing staff size in Rhode Island, the company wants to create a solutions center at its office to be used for project work. That will be key as more and more companies outsource entire projects to consultants instead of bringing the consultants into the businesses.
CIBER chief executive officer Mac Slingerlend said the company’s business model has changed substantially over the years because of a greater reliance on outsourcing.
”We used to be 100 percent pure professional service staffing. Now 60 percent of what we do is project work,” he said. “The customer is asking us to take charge of projects more. Basically, we are taking on a greater level of responsibility. We want that responsibility.”
Slingerlend said while growth for the company is important it has more to do with piling up resources than numbers. He said he is interested in acquisitions that provide cutting-edge technology and thinking, not companies that are searching for a focus.
”We get offers almost once a day from companies wanting to be acquired by us. For us to acquire your company you really have to fit into our business model. We don’t want to make acquisitions that will slow down post acquisition growth,” he added.
Slingerlend said while his company is interested in doing more in the Northeast its mission is not exactly geographically dependent. He said with the Internet and airplanes location is not everything.
”For example, we recently made an acquisition in Nashua, but those people do most of their business in California,” he said.
In the next few months, the company will be in the midst of reorganizing the structure of its organization to redefine its services and its presence. Currently the company has five different operating groups with varying names. There is CIBER Information Services, CIBER Network Services, SPECTRUM Technology Group Inc., Business Information Technology, Inc. and Summit Group.
”What we find is that we are causing confusion in the market place. It doesn’t allow us to present ourselves to the industry as a whole. Consequently in the next couple months we will be collapsing the operating names,” said Slingerlend.
While the company will go by one name, Ciber, Inc., there will be a number of “practices” within the company that will have concentrations (for example, Year 2000 issues).
All those specialties will be available to businesses in Rhode Island in need of IT solutions. Beimler is confident that what the company offers here will continue to grow thanks to a strong workforce.
He said proximity to colleges in Rhode Island and Massachusetts as well as the high tech hub of Route 128 is to CIBER’s advantage.
”We have been able to find good, qualified people. We tend to hire more experienced people and we haven’t had any major problems getting them,” he said. “One reason is a lot of people would rather live and work in Rhode Island than Boston. It is a quality of life issue.”
Even though the company has been focused on experienced workers, Beimler said with its growth CIBER plans to tap into more and more recent college graduates.
He is also excited about the encouragement and incentives being offered by the state as well as training programs on the horizon that will benefit the entire industry.
Beimler also realizes there are certain disadvantages of doing work in Rhode Island.
”The size of the market is not unlimited. In larger markets, like New York, there are really no limits to the work you can get,” he said.
But not putting all your eggs in one basket has been the strategy of the company. Instead of counting on one market’s growth, CIBER has been successful in counting on technology to guide them.
”One thing we know is that technology will not stop changing. The Internet is driving change faster than any single element and we look forward to growing with it,” Slingerlend said.
