The Growth Story

FrontRange Solutions' growth rate over a sustained period of time clearly speaks for itself. "Frontrange has grown every single quarter for the last seven quarters [in terms of] revenue and profits," CEO Michael McCloskey said. "It's by far the most exciting time in the company's history. "My guess is we will grow in the 40 to 50 percent range this year over last year. We have a lot of new products coming to the market [and] we have a very sustainable product line."

The Company

Founded in 1989, FrontRange Solutions develops software and services focused on solutions tailored to the mid-market. It has more than 1 million users.

"We target the small to medium enterprise … and we do it with enterprise-class products, but in a way that is very inexpensive [with a] lower cost to deploy and with the application functionality that large enterprises have."

When asked about the success, McCloskey shifted gears and said he views his company as something of an untold story.

"Our Greatest Challenge"

"Our greatest challenge is to get more notoriety and to get more recognition in the enterprise solutions marketplace. If we could get people to recognize who we are, then I think we could prove ourselves and prove the values we offer as a company. We're not quite as well known from a marketing point of view as many other larger companies."

Case studies and examples of customer satisfaction are part of educating the marketplace for FrontRange.

"The key for us is creating awareness through different media types — through print [and] … Web marketing."

Huge call centers do not represent the company's sweet spot. The target market includes facilities with between 25
and 75 seats.Core Competency

When asked to define his firm's greatest core competency, McCloskey stated it's being able to identify high-growth areas. Huge call centers do not represent the company's sweet spot. The target market includes facilities with between 25 and 75 seats

"We have CRM, service management and voice products and we're good at identifying problems in companies and then devising solutions around those problems. When people are buying these solutions, I think they are buying them for branches or divisions of large enterprises. That's one area that's done extremely well for us.

"[This includes] the small to medium enterprise companies … [that] need to have some contact center functionality — a call center — or they need to be able to provide exceptional customer service. The problem is they don’t have a huge amount of money or huge IT organizations. That's why we can [offer] a product like ours that is very inexpensive relative to the competition but also has a tremendous amount of functionality that you can run right off your server, so you don’t have to add additional equipment or do anything else."

The IPCC Product

The company's IPCC product includes features such as real-time and historical reporting; an agent dashboard; advanced skills-based routing; a Web-based application builder; and a virtual agent.

"We're just working with two very large companies that should go live with [the virtual agent] this week. We are definitely seeing people take a look at and deploy the virtual agent. The cost savings that you get through that kind of technology is really fantastic."

Providing Products Down Market

When asked about the most exciting opportunity for the firm, McCloskey said it is the chance to offer FrontRange products down market.

"The thing that’s prevented a lot of companies from being successful is the complexity and the cost of these solutions. We may still see consolidation in terms of vendors in the future. But I believe the real impact will come from advancements in the actual technology.

"We've taken IVR, ACD, PBX, skills-based routing, voice recording, quality management and written that [into the] software. We're going to have these huge, legacy hardware platforms out there and try to tie them together, and that really creates a big problem for the customer. The industry is in a transitional period and solutions like ours are going to be the future of the industry."

Reaching the Home Agent

McCloskey also believes FrontRange will be able to reach the home agent market with its hosted solution.

"We have not as aggressively yet targeted that market because … it's a relatively young product and we want to spend a quarter or two making sure that we just get it all proven and where it's operating very well. The home agent market is growing very rapidly and we're extremely interested in taking some forays in there. We will begin to launch some activity into the home agent market probably around January.""The home agent market is growing very rapidly and we're extremely interested in taking some forays in there. We will begin to launch some activity into the home agent market probably around January."