The Eastern Ontario Business Journal is excited to reprise the fastest-growing companies program this year.
Once again, our top businesses are a diverse bunch, representing various sectors and industries in the region. They all have one thing in common: their revenues have grown substantially over the past three years, despite the backdrop of the pandemic and all its disruptions.
Judging by what they tell us, they’re also currently struggling with many of the same issues: shortage of labour, inflationary pressures, and supply chain bottlenecks.
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“We are seeing clients face a wide variety of unprecedented challenges tied to high inflation and rising interest rates, a tight labour market, and the pressures of paying back COVID-19 related loans, to name a few,” said Ryan Moore, partner with MNP. “Given these challenges, small businesses are having to make important decisions with respect to the cost of financing, competitive pricing that takes into account inflationary pressures, and effective human resource investments. We are spending a significant amount of time with our clients to help them navigate these headwinds to ensure they are positioning their businesses to be adaptable and to be able to capitalize on growth opportunities.”
Read the full feature in the Eastern Ontario Business Journal fall 2023 issue.
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City Flats Asset Management Inc.
Kingston
1-4 years old
5-9 employees
1,658.41% three-year revenue growth
City Flats specializes in developing high-quality, community-minded real estate. We focus on delivering successful investment outcomes and strong risk-adjusted returns on multi-residential real estate investments.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
As co-founders, we were heavily involved in the doing of every task/managing of every detail of our business in the early days. It has been challenging to find our way, managing the growing workload and separating ourselves from the day-to-day as we continue to grow our team.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
The biggest lesson learned so far is the importance of growing a strong, dedicated team of core employees who share the same vision and values.
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Theia Markerless Inc.
Kingston
1-4 years old
10-19 employees
1,542.9% three-year revenue growth
Theia develops and sells video-based tracking of human movement. The company’s principal market is for the evaluation of performance and assessment of injury risk for high performance athletes.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
While it has been straightforward to sign up external sales channels, it has been a notable challenge to motivate and train these channels.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
Our external sales channels were not as ambitious and motivated to learn new technologies as we had expected.
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Wonton Crunch Inc.
Smiths Falls
10-14 years old
5-9 employees
627.71% three-year revenue growth
Wonton Crunch manufactures wontons for the retail service like the major grocery chains.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Our company, like most other companies, has experienced post-pandemic problems of acquiring new employees. Our biggest hurdle has been finding new employees willing to work full time. Shipping has also been a problem with inconsistent pickup and drop-off to retailers.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
Automate as much as possible in order to stay competitive. It’s better to take on a variety of companies with the same product to do business with on a daily basis, this increases productivity and consistency.
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Imperium Social Ltd.
Kingston
5-9 years old
5-9 employees
244.78% three-year revenue growth
Imperium Social is an award-winning digital marketing company. It is most recognizable for its sub-brand Blue Collar Marketing.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Imperium’s growth has been exhilarating yet challenging over the years. Our biggest obstacle in the early days was lead generation as a generalist agency. After selecting a niche, it has been ensuring the right team and systems are in place to meet the high demand of our sub-brand, Blue Collar Marketing. As a digital marketing agency, delivering consistent services and responsive customer service is vital. So we have needed to adapt immensely with the growing number of active projects in our pipeline.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
The biggest lesson we learned was that niching down doesn’t limit your potential client pool, it allows you to experience rapid growth. Since then, it has been recognizing that the strength of our company is anchored in the capabilities of every team member. Additionally, having robust systems in place and understanding financials has allowed for sustainable scaling without setbacks.
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Plan A Kingston & Quinte
Kingston
1-4 years old
50-99 employees
229.6% three-year revenue growth
Staffing, strategy and technology company based in the senior care sector. Specializing in long-term care and retirement facilities.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
The changes and challenges surrounding the post-pandemic workforce. It seems it’s no longer a custom to read pertinent details about the organization, location or job description of the role that one is applying to. Due to this, much time is spent reviewing incomplete applications. In addition, much money is spent on advertising and job boards only to have the same applicants apply to multiple job postings. In an attempt to capitalize on the already spent dollars, we ensure to reach out to the applicants via phone and email follow-ups on several occasions only for the applicant to be unreachable.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
The biggest lesson learned is that every thing, moment and person is an opportunity to continue learning, growing and gaining new perspectives. As an entrepreneur, one must ensure to continue evolving with both introspection and extrospection.
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Convergence Design Services
Arnprior
1-4 years old
10-19 employees
107.821% three-year revenue growth
Offers complete design solutions for aerospace, electrical vehicle/robotics, AI, Smart IoT 5G, acoustic, mechanical, hardware, software and production/certifications.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Balancing hiring the best technical engineers to fit our culture while managing complex electrical/mechanical projects for everything from aerospace/military (CanArm3, lunar, tanks, airplanes) to electric vehicle/robotics designs. Having a strong engineering team in place to help our customers succeed in their project goals translates to larger work packages. Ultimately what happens is Convergence becomes a supportive on-demand engineering team for any company.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
Always invest in talent, equipment and partnerships. Finding the best talent and always having a line of sight to your next-level team player while growing your current team’s skill set. We will support our team’s personal development growth for anything from PMP certification to complex analysis tools. Also we always ensure our engineers have access to the most modern test equipment to allow them to learn and grow so we re-invest in complex equipment like EMI chambers, thermal chambers, spectrum analyzers/high speed scopes, 3D scanners, EV build stations, etc. Convergence would not have been successful without partnering with other like-minded engineering teams in a collaborative approach. We have amazing partners in software (Arcane4), industrial design (Studio63 and Momentum) and rugged mil/aero systems experts (STL Engineering). We all work together for a common goal of creating the strongest technical solution for our customers for their budgets/timelines.
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Wills Transfer Limited
Smiths Falls
50+ years old
100-249 employees
31.71% three-year revenue growth
At Wills Transfer Limited we provide innovative logistics solutions that contribute to our customers’ success.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Our biggest challenge during this period of growth has been related to people. Specifically, attracting and retaining suitable staff for our operations. This was complicated by the occurrence of COVID, which affected the labour pool at a time when we needed more staff.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
Our biggest lesson learned, which coincides with one of our core company values, is that people matter. We need to have good facilities and good equipment, but, ultimately, how well we provide our services comes down largely to the quality of the people we have in our facilities operating our equipment. If we have competent, well-trained, engaged employees, we will provide a better service than if we don’t.
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SnapCab Canada
Kingston
10-14 years old
20-49 employees
20% three-year revenue growth
Snapcab is an office pod and elevator interior manufacturer. We provide businesses custom telephone booths, meeting and work spaces for employees and elevator interior paneling.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Process improvement in the manufacturing environment while the company is experiencing fast growth can be quite challenging.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
It is important to focus on the business processes very early on while the company is still growing to ensure that we can scale up very quickly with increased sales.
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PiiComm
Plantagenet
15-19 years old
50-99 employees
2.04% three-year revenue growth
Established in 2007, PiiComm is a trusted managed mobility services provider to companies all across Canada. Customers choose PiiComm to simplify the managing, scaling and protecting of their enterprise’s mobile devices.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
When experiencing rapid growth, scheduling becomes the foremost challenge. For instance, one of our managed mobility services involves deploying new mobile devices for our clients. This necessitates having sufficient physical space to accommodate potentially thousands of devices, along with trained personnel to stage, kit and securely ship each one. Without meticulous scheduling, we risk running into space and personnel constraints.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
Taking good care of your people is paramount. As someone from a small-town background, I’ve always held this belief, but during high-growth phases in business, its importance becomes even more evident. Most business challenges can be resolved relatively swiftly, but people-related issues tend to be multifaceted and long term. Whether an individual is grappling with personal challenges or facing difficulties at work, we’re committed to providing support. Moreover, our facilities are located in a rural area of Eastern Ontario and we actively invest in the broader community, extending our impact beyond our employees. PiiComm engages summer students, offers bursaries in partnership with local high schools, and makes annual contributions to the United Way of Eastern Ontario.
