Unlike many e-business integrators that have created vertical practices, Centrifusion has bucked the trend.
The Chicago-based company has avoided building in-house vertical-focused teams in favor of developing expertise around certain technologies. When the vertical-business expertise is needed, Centrifusion either depends on the customer to provide it or contracts with other solutions providers and consultants with the key skills.
“We have a strategy group that is positioned very different. We are not vertically focused at all; what we have is a technology focus breakout,” says Dan Dokmanovich, CEO of the company he co-founded with Mike Pflieger in 1993, which started in the mainframe area, moved to client/server and then onto Internet technologies.
The company focuses on four areas: content management, personalization technologies, Java application servers and globalization technology. “The strategy we build is around those offerings,” says Dokmanovich.
Centrifusion has about 140 employees and plans to hit the $18 million mark this year, up from $14 million last year. It is eyeing $32 million in revenues in two years.
Key to its technology focus is the companys education arm. In 1995 it started a Java training school that allowed it to catch the early wave of Internet- and Java-based development. Dokmanovich credits Centrifusions Java training for generating about 20 percent of the companys leads.
“Java training allowed us to show proficiency in the marketplace,” he says. Among the platforms, the company has specialized on offerings from ATG, BEA and IBM.
Centrifusions partnering attitude is one of survival, too. ” The way we look at it is, if we go out and become vertical and compete with these guys [vertical experts], it doesnt work out for our best interest,” Dokmanovich says.