How to Grow Integration Revenues 383%

Four years ago, Accent ESI (Electronic Systems Integrators) stopped growing.

While the Bonita Springs, Fla.-based integration company was doing very well riding the wave of the Florida housing boom, its growth had stifled for reasons that had nothing to do with market conditions. Like many CE pros, Accent’s co-owners Rob Olson and Curt Rothenberg had overseen five years of solid growth specializing in the new home construction market since starting the company in 1999. They were a couple of guys whose expertise lay in designing and installing home electronics.

This business was relatively simple and housing was still booming. Accent ESI had grown to $3 million with up to 20 employees and the company was a fixture on the CE Pro 100.

But then the growth hit a plateau and they couldn’t figure out why.

“We had hit the wall with growth. We were flat-lining … just like a dieter who loses that first 30 pounds and can’t lose anymore,” recalls Rothenberg.

The duo soon realized that in order to re-ignite growth, they needed professional help. So they did something very rare in the custom electronics industry … they actually hired an outside consultant to help them analyze their internal processes and business metrics.

That consultant is Dan Robbins, who evolved his role as a temporary consultant to the current president and CEO. In just four years and in the midst of the greatest recession since The Great Depression, Accent ESI grew to a $14.5 million company with 70 employees working in three states.

How?

In a nutshell, the growth is attributed to an astute analysis of internal business processes and diversification into other product niches and geographic niches. The added bonus to the move is that it gave both Olson and Rothenberg an exit strategy for themselves.

Revamping Internal Processes

Akin to Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley character on Saturday Night Live, conducting an internal analysis of your company starts with looking in the mirror and asking yourself some tough questions.

That’s exactly what Robbins -- whose background included running several privately held, growth-oriented companies offering products, services and turnkey solutions in the fields of electronics and communications since 1978 -- was tasked with doing.