Kolter Solutions

Kolter Solutions

• Rank: 8
• Headquarters: Orlando, Florida
• Top staffing segment(s) served: IT
• 2020 US staffing revenue: $9.1 million
• Compound annual growth rate: 49.4%
• Website: www.koltersolutions.com

What’s driving Kolter Solutions’ growth? It’s the culture and the environment.

Kolter Solutions aims to create an environment where internal workers can thrive and external consultants are well
taken care of.

Culture starts with the hiring and goes through ensuring each worker continues to be valued as an individual. The company hires for character first; those with the right character can be taught the mechanics of the business, Kolter Solutions’ President and founder Roger Whiteman says. Internal workers can grow, and the firm makes sure its benefits are good. It also offers training and doesn’t shy away from spending the money on resources people need to be successful. But it’s not just the internal workers; the company also has a focus on its consultants working externally.

“We try to have more contact points and take better care of our consultants in the field than a lot of firms do,” Whiteman says, adding that a firm’s consultants are its best sales force. “If they love the company they are working for, they are going to talk about it.”

It’s also a hot market. Tracy Dickerhoff, senior managing partner, notes demand for IT professionals that Kolter Solutions supplies has surged. “The demand for IT talent has never been higher.”

Kolter Solutions places high-level consultants who drive projects at the firm’s small and midsize clients. The company’s core competency is filling project management roles. These are the people companies look to when going through a digital transformation; these projects are the linchpins for success at the firms.

Kolter Solutions’ competencies also include business intelligence analysts, cybersecurity professionals and application development professionals.

Whiteman founded the company, in 2010 when he already had 20 years of experience in the staffing industry. Initially, Kolter Solutions was just him working out of his living room. He then brought in others he knew from the industry - he had known Dickerhoff for 25 years - to build the company, and it evolved from there.

And as with other firms, Kolter Solutions faced Covid-19 and the difficulties brought by the pandemic - going fully remote. Whiteman says the company has a hybrid model now, with workers coming in three days a week.

Before workers came back to the office, however, Kolter Solutions took several steps to ensure their safety. It added an air filtration system, started temperature checks and set up sanitization stations around the office, among other measures.

One change brought by the pandemic: Remote working opened up the doors to more clients and professionals. A company may not need to have a brick-and-mortar location to serve a customer. “It’s really thrown off all the doors and boundaries from where we can do business and with whom,” Whiteman says.

For the future, Kolter Solutions is continuing to look forward, and part of that is getting back to the basics as far as training, Dickerhoff says. That means a focus on soft skills and good old-fashioned customer service. He notes companies are in a tight spot now with the scarcity of personnel in the market; in some cases, companies are down to one developer when they used to have five. There’s a lot of concern. By getting back to the basics, Kolter Solutions aims to help clients get those positions filled.