Situation:

The company possessed a reasonably strong intellectual property right to technology that enabled desktop and laptop computing systems to process, on a timely basis, very broad information searches and high density data queries that normally require very large scale processing facilities.  The company had determined in the post-911 era that the technology was ideally suited for anti-terrorism and law enforcement applications.  A core business unit had been assembled and applied software (1.0) had been completed and tested.

Business Challenge:

• Organize the company’s governance structure and membership, executive team, technical team, marketing/sales team and business operating systems to be capable of executing a high-growth business plan based upon contracts with numerous governmental law enforcement agencies.
• Establish the technology and service product offering as the most efficient and cost-effective law enforcement tool of its kind available to all law enforcement agencies around the globe.

Solution:

Cadre established a plan that included a number of initiatives. First, Cadre helped the company create an active, diverse and business-savvy board of directors.

Cadre recommended selecting a CEO that had direct experience in guiding a growth company, with credibility in the law enforcement community and who could assume a very hands-on approach to key activities, decision making and could act as the “closer” on all significant contracts.

Another important recommendation was to integrate a marketing and sales process that was oriented toward referral business in light of the very close-knit nature of the law enforcement community leadership.

Also, the company re-tooled its approach by developing a re-occurring business model that was established on multi-year contracts with built-in incentives for the renewal of service contracts.

Results:

Based upon a modest capital investment, the company achieved break-even status within 18 months and achieved average annualized growth of over 25% for a period of 7 years, realizing both strong top line and bottom line growth.  In the 8th year, at a high valuation, the company merged with a larger company that offered different tools and services to the law enforcement community. In the company’s 11th year of operation it was acquired by a multi-national technology and analytical firm for $470M.  Total investment in the company prior to its merger was $11.3M.