Helping companies talk to workers

Look who's talking

When Wendy's wanted to launch a new inventory-management system for its more than 6,000 stores across the U.S., it tapped Covington-based TiER1 Performance Solutions to help develop a company-wide employee training and education program.

And as Federal Express revamped its entire sales strategy last year, TiER1 was called on to develop the online training tools needed to help the global firm's sales force buy in to the new approach.

"Every organization goes through changes every year," says company co-founder and chief technology officer Normand Desmarais. "Sometimes it's changes in certain core strategies. Sometimes it's in implementing new HR policies. If you're a large organization, those changes impact typically thousands of people. We help those organizations with the communications, training, education, collaboration and support they need around those changes."

Since launching in 2002, TiER1's client base has grown to boast top Fortune 500 firms such as Kroger and Macy's as well as the Department of Defense. Last year, the 40-member firm posted roughly $4.2 million in revenues and is on track to end 2009 just under $5 million.

WHAT'S HELPED FUEL your growth?

"Over the last four years we've invested heavily in trying to penetrate the federal government space. It really started paying off in the last year, and it's going to fuel a tremendous amount of growth for us in 2010. We've had some great success at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and we just landed three contracts with the Air Force. Mostly the work surrounds cyber-security training, and the contracts range up to $1.2 million. We're just getting started, and we expect this will lead to larger contracts in 2010 and become a big part of our business."

DID YOU HIT ANY bumps because of the recession?

"We were rolling along strong last year, but then around November we had four major clients - all of them publicly traded Fortune 500 companies - tell us they were basically done. It was a significant hit to our business, and it took us nearly six months to stabilize and recoup from that. It meant we had to slow down on our investment for the future."

WHAT HELPED YOU bounce back?

"We have a very diversified client base of 125 clients, so the loss hurt, but it wasn't detrimental. We also have tremendous employees, which was the second critical piece to survival. When we find talented people we'll bring them on, even if we don't have a position for them right away. The third piece was definitely the local support we get in the region from groups like Tri-ED and the Chamber of Commerce."

Lisa Bernard-Kuhn

The Enquirer/Michael E. Keating 

Normand Desmarais from TiER1 Performance Solutions in Covington