Heidrick & Struggles: A Global Executive Search Firm

For more than 60 years since its founding, Heidrick & Struggles International Incorporated has made a difference in other business’ operations by providing the best and suitable executives in the industry. The company, which started through a business card has become a trusted global executive search firm and generates more than half a billion every year.

It was Gardner Heidrick and John Stuggles who founded the company. Both gentlemen were alumni of Booz Allen Hamilton and were committed to the same values in running their businesses. They have underscored teamwork, client service, integrity, excellence and quality. These values are instilled to their employees and have served as the foundations of the company. From the Midwest region where their business cards were sent to, the company has expanded their operations to cover the different corners of the world. The rapid growth of the business was brought about by the arrival of Gerard Roche in 1964. It was Roche, who led the company to expand exponentially over the years through his introduction of a methodical search for job openings. It was through his leadership that the company has seen rapid growth from the 1960s until the 1980s. He then later on served as the company’s Senior Chairman until 2009.

Today, the company stands as one of the oldest executive search firms and is considered as one of the most tenured of the five global executive search firms. Heidrick & Struggles is also the first leadership advisory firm in the world and based on their 2011 revenue, is considered as the world’s second largest publicly traded executive-search firm. They have been consistent in providing businesses the best candidates for senior level executive positions. The company claims to have served a wide range of industries and has aced the process of evaluating and identifying the most suitable executive there is.

One of the notable placement and assignment made by Heidrick & Struggles is the recruiting of Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt in 2004.

The Allegis Group: Finding the Right People for Your Business

The Allegis Group is the largest privately owned staffing company in the US serving a wide array of industries. Made up of a team of over 8,000 internal employees and 90,000 contractors working around the globe with customers, the Allegis group boasts of bringing expertise to emerging industries in the US, the UK, Canada, Europe, Puerto Rico, the Pacific Rim, and the Middle East. Dedicated staffing solutions offered by the company include IT staffing and consulting; technical, professional, and industrial staffing; outsourced sales solutions; human capital consulting and workforce management staffing; and managerial, professional, and accredited accounting and financial staffing.

The Allegis Group prides itself in offering specialized divisions and subsidiaries, a quick response time, and carefully screened candidates to set it apart from other staffing services. The company traces its roots to 1983 when staffing was virtually unheard of. Today, the Allegis Group is a billion-dollar company offering full-range specialized staffing and recruiting services to clients across industries.

S.C. Johnson & Son and the Hallmarks of Running a Family Business

S.C. Johnson & Son is an American private company that globally manufactures household cleaning supplies and various other consumer chemicals. Based in Racine, Wisconsin, S.C. Johnson & Son has operations in 72 countries across the globe, with more than 110 brands under its name. it is the biggest part of the Johnson Family Enterprises which also accommodates Johnson Outdoors and the Johnson Financial Group. S.C. Johnson & Son traces its roots to a parquet floor business that Samuel Curtis Johnson, Sr. bought in 1886 from the Racine Hardware Company.

Management of the company was passed along generations of the Johnson Company, a feat that is still considered unusual to this day. Despite the massive reach and size of S.C. Johnson & Son, it is remarkable that it has managed to remain a privately owned company. A fifth-generation Johnson, Dr. Herbert Fisk Johnson III is the current Chairman and CEO of the company after succeeding Samuel Curtis Johnson, Jr., his father, in 2004.

Some of the brands carried by S.C. Johnson & Son include: Grand Prix, Johnsons Brite, Bayfresh, Caldrea, Drano, Glade, Mr Muscle, Nature's Source, Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Seed by Soy Inspirations, Windex, Saran Wrap, Ziploc, Autan, Baygon, OFF!, Raid, and Kiwi. Some of the competitors that the company has been butting heads with through the years include: the Spotless Group, Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Procter & Gamble, Henkel, Colgate-Palmolive, Clorox, and Zep.

Principles that guide S.C. Johnson & Son were first summarized by Herbert f. Johnson, Sr. in 1927. These guiding principles were officially included in This We Believe, the company's statement of principles for global operations. This We Believe is the essence of who S.C. Johnson & Son is and how the company works with others and is related to the five stakeholder groups that the company is responsible for.

Graham Holdings Company: A Diversified US Conglomerate

Graham Holdings Company, previously known as The Washington Post Company, is an American company formerly known for owning the newspaper for which it was initially named. Originally established on August 4, 1947, it was renamed to Graham Holdings Company on November 29, 2013.

Graham Holdings currently owns Kaplan, Inc., an international provider of career and educational services for schools, businesses, and individuals. The company also owns Post-Newsweek Stations and Cable ONE. The company also used to own Newsweek and Newsweek.com but it sold the magazine in 2010 after several years of financial losses.

Although formally established in 1947 as The Washington Post Company, Graham Holdings’s history can be traced back to 1877, when the first Post was published. The company was first incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1889 and remained a DC corporation until it moved its place of incorporation in 2003 to Delaware.

As of 2010, it has about 20,000 employees and is headed by Chairman and CEO Donald Graham.

Microchip Technology: An S&P 500 Component

Microchip Technology is an American company that manufactures microcontroller, memory and analog semiconductors. Its product range includes microcontrollers, Serial SRAM devices, Serial EEPROM devices, KEELOQ devices, and radio frequency (RF) devices. They also produce thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as mixed signal, linear, and interface devices.

Microchip’s corporate headquarters is situated in Chandler, Arizona. The company has water fabs in Gresham, Oregon and Tempe, Arizona. By the end of the fiscal year of 2013, the company reported sales amounting to $1,581,623,000. The company’s primary competitors include Analog Devices, Freescale, Atmel, Infineon, Maxim Integrated Products, Texas Instruments, Renesas Electronics, and STMicroelectronics.

Microchip Technology was founded in 1987 when General Instrument spun off its microelectronics business as a wholly owned subsidiary. The spun off business became an independent entity in 1989 after it was acquired by a group of venture capitalists. In 1993, it went public in NASDAQ as MHCP.

In April 2009, the company introduced the nanoWatt XLP Microcontrollers which feature the world’s lowest sleep current. In that year, Microchip sold over six billion microcontrollers. A year later, in April 2010, the company acquired Silicon Storage Technology (SST). After the acquisition, Microchip sold some of the SST flash memory assets to Greenliant Systems in May of 2010.

As of 2011, the company has been shipping more than a billion processors annually. In September of that year, the company shipped the 10 billionth PIC microcontroller.

In 2012, Microchip purchased Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMSC). Among SMSC’s assets were the ones that it had previously purchased from Symwave, which was a startup that specialized in the manufacture of USB 3.0 chips. SMSC also included the assets of two hi-fi wireless audio companies, the Kleer Semiconductor and Wireless Audio IP BV.

As of 2011, the company has about 7,000 employees and is led by CEO and President Steve Sanghi.

Water-Gen: Bringing Precious Drinking Water to Soldiers

It is one thing to transport water to where soldiers needed it. But it is a totally different thing to bring them a machine that can make potable water. The Israel-based company Water-Gen has developed not one but three machines for three different situations: once can turn air moisture into potable water; another machine can purify the dribbles of an air conditioning unit; the third one can purify any kind of water source, even the ones suspected of being poisoned by the enemy.

In 2013, Water-Gen sold its innovation to the militaries of the US, Great Britain, France, Mexico, India and Israel. These sales increased Water-Gen’s revenues by 50% in 2013. This year, the company expects the growth in revenues to be at 300%.

Water-Gen was founded by a former commander of the special forces in the Israel Defense Forces. Since the founder’s background was with the military, Water-Gen focuses on the military as its primary market.

Water-Gen’s innovation is remarkable. It provides assurance to the military in an otherwise hostile ground – when they can’t decide if the source of water in the field is safe. Water-Gen’s machines were used in the military response to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in the Philippines.

Box: Surefire Way of Sharing Files and Managing Contents

Box Inc. is a file sharing and content management service company. Using the freemium business concept, Box offers a maximum of 50 gigabytes of free storage space for personal accounts. Initially, Box provides 10 gigabytes and any user can enjoy up to 50 gigabytes of free storage by downloading the Apple iOS version of the app. Box app is also available for WebOS, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone.

The services of Box revolve primarily on uploaded files that are shared and collaborated. Aside from personal accounts, Box also offers business and enterprise accounts. The features such as unlimited storage, customized branding and admin controls are available depending on the type of the account. Third party integration is also available through Google apps, Salesforce and NetSuite.

Some of the most notable investors that placed confidence on Box are NBA ball club Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and US Venture Partners. The total funds raised in four years from angel investment, Series A and Series B funds were $14.6 million.

Box purchased Increo Solutions in October 2009. Increo Solutions has developed a collaborative online document along with the needed media viewing tools such as Embedit and Backboard. With this acquisition, Box was able to offer new features in January 2010 which includes an integrated content viewer which can embed files anywhere within the web.

In 2011, Box launched another round of fund raising activities which was attended by Emergence Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Meritech Capital Partners. Box closed a total of $48 million, which included $10 in debt financing offered by Hercules Technology Growth Capita. Another round of funding activities was closed by Box later that year with investments from salesforce.com and SAP totaling to $81 million.

In the mid-2012 Box collected another $125 million I investment funds from General Atlantic and other previous investors. After this round of fund raising, Box was valued between $1.2 and $1.5 billion. A public document that came out in October 2013 reported that Box has the potential to raise as much as $100 million. These successes that Box had in raising funds indicate the level of trust investors have placed on the potential of this company.

Forrst: Helping Designers and Developers Get Better

Forrst was established as a community where designers and developers can help each other in honing their craft through intelligent critics and shared knowledge. Earlier in 2014, Zurb acquired Forrst and effectively overhauled the company for a fresher look and new and better features. Zurb imposed more responsive designs to Forrst which work well on mobile devices.

Reviews about Forrst indicate that the company works like a “dribble” for designers and developers. Groups and individuals can post their work on the Forrst platform and expect feedback. This strategy, which works well for Forrst, is a part of the Expo education program of Zurb.

Forrst was founded in 2009 by Kyle Bragger. Forrst attracted thousands of users, including Colourlovers, which purchased the company later. After implementing a number of changes and updates, Colourlovers sold Forrst to Zurb. Forrst weathered two ownership changes this year, indicating its surviving instincts. According to Zurb, Forrst is doing right and is back to a good place.

ZipDial: Turning Missed Calls into Moneymaking Connections

In a small home in Bangalore, India, a group of brilliant and passionate entrepreneurs turned a phenomenon into a huge business opportunity. This phenomenon – called missed calls – is ignored and was never thought of in the past as having a potential.

Using missed calls as a business concept seemed unusual. However, missed calls have been observed as a prevalent behavior in India because most people use prepaid cellphones. Calling and texting cost money, so people would rather use dropped calls to send a message since drop calls are free. For instance, a person who wants to tell his friend that he is home safe would rather call and hang up to send the message than complete a call and pay the charge.

While the “pager behavior” failed, the “missed call behavior” thrived. So did the company, which the founders named ZipDial. Eventually, ZipDial owned the space.

ZipDial provides advertisers with phone numbers that can be placed on newspaper ads and billboards. Any customer can make a drop call using the flashed numbers. Thereafter, ZipDial will send a message to the customer about deals, promos, or anything that the advertiser wants to get across the customer.

Aside from the advertisers, telecom service providers also love ZipDial’s business concept because it creates traffic that never existed before. Moreover, ZipDial gives advertisers real time survey results from their “followers.” According to reports, ZipDial is outperforming the advertising that occurs on Twitter or Facebook.

Recently, ZipDial announced that it has reached 400 million missed calls, a milestone that shows how ZipDial is making waves in the market. Furthermore, ZipDial expects continuing growth as the mobile phone market is also hitting the 700 million subscribers mark. Next year, there will be an estimated 20 million additional first time mobile phone users.

A number of more established companies have tried ZipDial and are satisfied with the way the company has helped increase their market shares. Among the first benefit from ZipDial’s innovation are Greenpeace, Gillette and Disney Channel.