The Velocity Story:

Hungry, Humble, Smart

Hungry, Humble, Smart. Those are terms often used to describe the profile of a Velocity employee. Those are words also used to describe Velocity's approach to its information technology business. From client relations to solutions, Velocity is hungry, humble and smart; and clearly ready to demonstrate its passionate commitment to its clients.

Velocity creates an environment where clients benefit from worry-free, state-of-the-art facilities, equipment and networks that are fully secure, auditable, and compliant with today's business demands. Integrated with expert services from Velocity's highly-skilled professionals, its clients' IT systems run faster, better, and more securely while saving their companies time and money, allowing them to concentrate on what's most important to their business.

Grounded in ethics with a service philosophy founded on client intimacy, Velocity's heritage is one of the organization's cornerstones to service excellence.

Born as an IT consulting practice within a major accounting firm, Velocity, led by founder Tom Bruno, set out on a path in early 2000 to build a company that would ultimately be a provider of IT systems that facilitated efficient business processes. Bruno envisioned an organization that would improve a client's competitive advantage and deliver operational efficiency through the implementation of software solutions. But Velocity would be more than a solutions provider for clients; it would be an involved and committed partner.

Velocity calls it "client intimacy." Through it, Velocity builds, establishes and nourishes a unique and personal relationship with its clients: a relationship founded on trust.

"We strive to be a trusted advisor," Bruno says. "We aren't designed to be the low-cost IT shop, nor are we oriented to create high priced inventions. Our offerings are designed to be the best solutions priced right for our markets. And they are combined with people who our clients regard as integral team members, who serve as advisors on a broad range of issues; in some cases, issues outside the scope of our defined relationship. That's what we mean by client intimacy."

Velocity's approach to outsourcing has enabled it to develop deep and long-term client relationships, and Bruno credits Velocity's "quality people" - experienced, talented, dedicated, and passionate professionals who are trained and certified in multiple disciplines - for demonstrating Velocity's heritage each and every day. What type of person delivers that powerful Velocity message to the marketplace? Bruno says they're "hungry, humble and smart." That philosophy is inherent in Velocity's employee recruitment and continuous evaluation process.

"Hunger describes career aspirations and the balance between wanting to do a great job and focusing on career advancement," Bruno says. "We're looking for - and value - the individuals who want to truly leverage his or her skills and bring a lot of benefit to the total organization. We are very attracted to those who are naturally high-spirited, high-energy and have solid organizational skills. These qualities separate out the top performers, and when we see it, we know we have found a person that will be a good fit and great to work with."

Velocity also places a premium on humility. It's a quality that's valued not only within the walls of Velocity, but also externally with clients and business partners.

"People who are pleasant, good-natured in general, and truly care about what other people are thinking and feeling are much more effective in their efforts to gain trust with colleagues and clients," Bruno says. "Relationships are so important. A solution provider who is liked and respected is far more effective at gaining cooperation and delivering value to clients. It's been proven time and again in our client satisfaction research. And in the end, that's what it's all about: satisfying the client."

In Velocity's lexicon, the third key quality, smart, is much more than education. It's about the aptitude to apply knowledge in a practical, useful, problem-solving way. System knowledge is important but is only one part of the equation. When a technologist understands and can visualize the interrelations between systems and people and the threads that extend from systems through the processes, organizational structures and business strategies of a client's business, then he or she is able to optimize business software for an organization.

"Academic and technical knowledge is essential, but when we meet someone that has applied that knowledge to solve significant real-life business challenges we know we have someone that can make a measurable difference for our clients and our company," Bruno says.

Hungry, humble, smart. Those words define Velocity's top performers. They form the foundation of Velocity's heritage.

Velocity's Evolution (Top)

With a passionate commitment to client intimacy, Velocity's consulting origins served as the launching pad to a dynamic evolution in the information technology marketplace - including its venture into application hosting. Velocity leadership examined closely the successes and failures of other hosting companies and it arrived at a key strategic conclusion: The cost of infrastructure was such a stunning drain on resources that it critically and negatively impacted client relations and service quality.

Velocity's approach to hosting would be different. Basing its decisions on its heritage of client intimacy and deep relationships, Velocity offered the best of both worlds: software solutions and a hosting environment without the burden of infrastructure maintenance. The state-of-the-art infrastructure would be provided by one of the world's leading communications and IT providers - Verizon. There was no doubt Verizon would meet the technology hosting needs of Velocity, but an unexpected bonus was the effective marriage of two organizations that share common values: a deep and personal relationship with clients.

Another key and successful chapter in the Velocity story is the organization's expansion of another strategic relationship, this one with Lawson Software. It was a decision based on Velocity's commitment to another tenet of its heritage: controlled and focused growth.

"The decision was founded on the belief we could be more successful in a shorter period of time by dominating the Lawson market, rather than expanding into other providers' spaces, such as SAP and Oracle," Bruno says. "We needed to be number one in a particular software technology, and we're now firmly established as the preferred provider for Lawson outsourced applications."

Velocity evolved by being focused on producing a net reduction in the expense of running critical IT systems and developing risk mitigation strategies through high-availability computing environments. Velocity's solutions also reduce the time and resources required to support and maintain these systems.

The Transformation (Top)

As Velocity grew to dominate the Lawson space, the organization demonstrated a commitment to controlled, organic expansion. But Velocity leadership revisited its heritage to determine its next steps and, based on its dedicated approach to client intimacy, concluded that a larger company, one with a greater range of resources, would prove to be a better client service provider. Velocity launched an effort to look for strategic acquisitions that would fit its dynamic, but well-grounded, business model.

"If we see an organization aligned with our goals and that has a great relationship with its client base, we'll consider combining forces," Bruno says.

2007 proved to be a pivotal year in the Velocity transformation. The company partnered with one of the largest equity investors in the US, Tudor Investment Corp., to provide the financial resources needed to fund strategic acquisitions. Much like the Verizon relationship, Tudor has made information technology its business. The result is a partnership of two like-minded organizations that has driven Velocity through a dramatic growth cycle, highlighted by a three-fold increase in Velocity staff and a five-fold increase in infrastructure. Bruno admits the transformation has not been without some pain.

"We've made even more of a commitment to communicating with our clients to address issues as quickly as possible," Bruno says. "We firmly believe that if you communicate, you don't negatively impact trust, which is the basis of client intimacy."

Throughout the transformation, Bruno and Velocity have reached out to clients. They have made special efforts to foster face-to-face relationships and clearly communicate Velocity's plans to ensure the company's financial strength, long-term viability and expansion of service offerings.

"It's imperative that we listen to our customers and find out how our IT solutions can help them solve their problems," Bruno says. "IT is so linked to process and structure and the threads between business strategy and purpose certainly wind their way through to IT systems. We want to understand what each client is trying to accomplish, what its organization looks like, and then position the technology to be an enabling force that supports the client's business goals and strategies. So we are more than just informational technologists. We are true management consultants."

Velocity is also dedicated to more strategic and affordable enterprise software solutions. Although Bruno says dedicating the right amount of time and resources to implement new business software is warranted, it actually costs orders of magnitude more than it should due to redundant actions.

"Implementation can drag out and budgets can get chewed up, so the true value isn't achieved," Bruno says. "We're committed to permitting our clients to leverage the body of intellectual property we continue to amass in order to drive down system deployment costs and timeframes. You don't always have to recreate the wheel."

Velocity's Strategic Plan (Top)

According to Bruno, Velocity's future will be driven by client needs and the IT marketplace. A major Velocity goal: To take enterprise software and surround it with best-of-breed complimentary software, driven by what its clients require in its key industry sectors.

First and foremost, Velocity holds a dominant position with a major enterprise software provider - Lawson - and strengthens Lawson's software solutions with those of other complementary technology providers. In short, it means combining the best of the available worlds to develop optimal efficient and affordable solutions for its clients.

Bruno also sees true "on-demand" solutions for clients, as described this scenario: A healthcare client wants its enterprise software to interface with another utilized technology solution - Kronos, perhaps. The enterprise software provider may wish to perform the application hosting, but it has a severe limitation as it can only provide support for its own software. In the not too distant future, a Velocity client will visit the support portal site and engage the interface at the touch of a button, and thereby take full advantage of the interfaced solutions. As Bruno says: "That will truly redefine on-demand: customizable solutions based on clients' needs."

Looking ahead, Bruno sees a wealth of strategic opportunities all with the goal of providing clients with solutions that - affordably and effectively - deliver real value, no matter the industry. He sees continued commitment to Velocity's On-Demand suite of offerings. He sees the potential of cross-industry alliances with providers that fit with Velocity's client intimate approach. Above all, he sees an organization anxious to grow for the right reasons, one that will be driven to serve its constituencies even better, and one that continues to enthusiastically embrace its own heritage as a trusted client advisor.

"One of my great satisfactions is when I'm with a client who tells me we've got terrific people and we're delivering high-quality services," Bruno says. "Our clients' success is Velocity's reason for being."

It's about being hungry, humble and smart - whether it's maintaining a level of service to clients, developing a robust suite of cutting-edge solutions or partnering with technology providers. It's the Velocity story. There are new chapters on the horizon.