Tell us about your company and specifics on your product/service.
SolutionsIQ has been operating for 29 years in this region providing IT services. Hundreds of our former employees are now part of IT operations in enterprise and government throughout this region.  Our 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Redmond, Washington, was designed specifically for advanced Agile development processes.

Our services break out into three major categories:

• Talent: Recruiting, placement, and contract staffing services for technical staff. We also provide an enhanced managed-teams service, whereby we offer more comprehensive technical and HR oversight. These teams can reside either at our facility or our customer’s.
• Software (delivery): A variety of outsourced development services. The flagship offering is a fully provisioned and supported Agile development team. These teams can reside onsite with our customers or take advantage of our development center.
• Knowledge: Consulting and training. We provide Agile training and consulting in the form of public training classes and customized programs for organizations interested in adopting Agile methods or accelerating efforts already underway

How many employees do you represent?
Approx. 400

Who are your clients/customers?
SolutionsIQ has been in the area for so long that most of the region’s name brands have been a customer at one time or another. We tend to have a higher concentration of technology companies, given that IT spend is a greater portion of their operating budget. Also, excellence in IT practices, especially software development, is more frequently considered a core competency requirement.
Some examples:

• Amazon
• Corbis
• Expedia
• Federal Home Loan Bank
• Freightliner
• Infospace
• Microsoft
• Safeco
  

What makes your organization unique?

1. Hybrid services. Most regional players don’t have the size or the range of services that SolutionsIQ offers. This allows us to provide comprehensive programs that help a customer develop competency and fulfill their work requirements as part of one integrated program. For example, if you are an early stage technology company needing to meet some product delivery milestones and build out a core competency to develop your product independently, but don’t have the budget and capability to do both, you can contract with us for the following services:
1. Have an SIQ development team get started to rapidly make progress
2. The team would include SIQ and client employees for training and knowledge transfer
3. Embed coaching and consulting to help the client with release planning and management
4. Work out a staffing strategy to help them hire to their specific competency profile.

2. Results-oriented Agile consulting and training. We are experts on Agile development both as practitioners and consultants. No one that I know of is able to provide hands on practitioners as consultants and trainers. This gives us a results orientation that is sometimes lacking in pure training.
3. Deep profiling for staffing and recruiting services. We do what we call a deep profile of our client’s job specifications that allows us to p precise targeting and comprehensive screening before presenting candidates.
   

Who would you say are your main competitors?
Since we have three distinct service lines, we have different competitors.
For staffing services, we run into Excel, Volt, Tek systems, as well as many other regionally based providers.

We don’t run into many Agile development delivery competitors, although I expect all of them will at least present themselves as Agile, since widespread adoption of Agile practices is currently underway.

What sets you apart from your competitors?
My response to “what makes us unique” serves this question as well.

How have you strategically responded to the competition?

1. Providing a hybrid integration of complementary services
2. Deciding to become the premier provider of Agile consulting and training services

What challenges do you anticipate in the industry/company?

1. Technology is always changing, and keeping up-to-date is a challenge.
2. Keeping outstanding employees interested and happy with so many attractive jobs in this area is also a challenge.
   

What risks will your company face due to industry changes?
The move to offshore providers is a risk that we need to manage.

Where will the major source of your business be in the next 5 years?

1. Outsourcing will continue to accelerate, so I believe there will be demand for vendors to help customers meet development requirements.
2. I do think that more and more, development will be done by technology companies that provide Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and commercial Web applications, and not by the enterprises that consume those services
3. Systems integration and technology consulting will be needed by enterprises
4. I expect that our Agile consulting and training will continue to grow outside of our region
   

What are the best opportunities at your company for new hires?
We are always looking for SDETS (software development engineers for test) and experienced .NET and Java developers. Agile experience is a big plus, but we train our staff.

What value do you see in being a member of the Washington Technology Industry Association to meet goals for your organization? 
This is the premier group for technology affiliated companies in this region. There is no better way for us to stay in touch with what is happening in the marketplace.

For more information, please contact SolutionsIQ at Info@SolutionsIQ.com or 1.800.235.4091.

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