Chairman & CEO, Perficient
In which sector is your company most closely aligned?
Systems Integration
What does your company do?
Perficient is the leading global digital consultancy. We imagine, create, engineer, and run digital transformation solutions that help our clients exceed customers’ expectations, outpace competition, and grow their business. With unparalleled strategy, creative, and technology capabilities, we bring big thinking and innovative ideas, along with a practical approach to help the world’s largest enterprises and biggest brands succeed.
How long has your company had a presence in St. Louis?
Perficient has had a presence in St. Louis for over 20 years. Through an acquisition in 2001, we expanded our offices to St. Louis, and in 2010, we designated St. Louis as our corporate headquarters.
What makes the St. Louis region an ideal home for your company/organization? Why do you choose to operate your business here?
St. Louis has a very active and advanced technical community. It has a strong business community with several large, Fortune 1000 corporations that need digital solutions to optimize their business and reach customers. The close proximity of numerous quality universities and impressive local talent pools provide a strong recruiting basis to hire quality talent. While Perficient is a global company with more than 40 locations across the world, our clients are primarily based in the U.S., making the central location of St. Louis ideal for time zone alignment with our U.S. and Latin America locations.
What has been the most valuable resource (person, tool, organization) for helping your company grow? How did you find it? How do you utilize it?
Perficient’s most valuable resource is our people. Every Perficient colleague is making a difference in the work they do for our clients, our fellow colleagues, and in our communities. Our people are change makers and committed to making a positive impact on the world. The opportunity to make a difference elevates us in the marketplace and distinguishes Perficient as an employer of choice, and we’re committed to investing in our people and their experiences.
We are also on our own digital transformation journey, and this includes exploring ways to improve, optimize, standardize, and scale. We are constantly evaluating core processes across the colleague experience and operations lifecycle and are focused on identifying opportunities to simplify our everyday operations, optimize colleague career development, and deliver excellence to our clients. Our Perficient Academy learning center and Growth for Everyone initiatives are just two of several recent developments we’ve introduced to help our company and our colleagues grow.
What advice would you give new tech companies that are trying to navigate the current market?
My advice is to be agile, nimble, and adaptable. It’s pivotal to your company’s success to keep your portfolio, capabilities, and delivery fresh and relevant to your clients. Listening to your clients and letting them help guide your portfolio is key to being at the leading edge of technology.
Remaining competitive in the market requires the right mix of adaptability, talent, and capabilities. It’s crucial to attract, hire, and retain talented experts who can confidently deliver excellence. When you adopt an agile mindset and seek out the brightest minds in the industry, you can propel your tech company to the next level.
What new practice or policy did you put into place over the pandemic that has positively impacted your company?
Perficient has made a promise to challenge, champion, and celebrate our people, and that includes fostering an employee experience that enables colleagues to grow professionally and thrive personally. One of the newest initiatives we introduced is our Flexible Time Off (FTO) policy that replaced Paid Time Off (PTO) for most U.S. employees. FTO lets our people decide what works best for them as they strive to balance their professional obligations with personal interests and needs.
Tell us about the next big thing in your technology sector. How will this affect your business?
In the technology sector, I think there will be a continued importance of personalized digital experiences across all devices. Consumers have come to expect a personalized digital experience, and Perficient can help organizations meet their end-users where they are and deliver a more meaningful experience that brings customers back for more.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to change our way of life, and we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. However, it takes careful planning, training, and execution to create truly intelligent solutions. At Perficient, we’re thinking about how we can leverage AI in the experiences and solutions we create. It’s important for us to have a strategic perspective that puts AI at the forefront.
What is the accomplishment you are most proud to share from 2022?
One of my proudest accomplishments is the global growth Perficient has continued to achieve. In 2022 alone, Perficient expanded our existing global footprint in India and Latin America through two acquisitions that welcomed more than 600 colleagues. We’re building a deeply talented team of strategists, designers, and developers around the world. Our fully integrated delivery model and global depth in the United States, Latin America, and India ensure we can serve enterprise customers with the quality, structure, and support they desire and require. We’re making great strides in global expansion and collaboration across the company. Our brand presence is stronger than ever before, and our brand awareness grows every day – regionally, nationally, and globally.
What exciting development is on the horizon for your company in 2023?
Ongoing global growth. We are working to build our depth across the world because the future of our organization is global. We aim to bring true end-to-end digital transformation solutions and deliver projects fully from any of our global locations. Perficient’s differentiator is our global mindset and our talented colleagues, and we are committed to building global depth that enables us to provide tremendous value to our clients and scale for the future.
How can people learn more about your company or get involved in what you are doing?
Visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.
