Company: Kanbay International, Chicago, Illinois
Company Description: Founded in 1989, Kanbay (NASDAQ: KBAY) is a global IT services firm with more than 6,200 associates worldwide. Kanbay provides management consulting, technology integration & development, and outsourcing solutions through a global delivery platform. Kanbay is CMM Level 5 assessed headquartered in greater Chicago with offices around the globe.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best MIS & IT Organization

Nomination Title: Driving Toward Accelerated Growth Through Innovation In Professional Services

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

2005 revenues of $230.5 million and a three year revenue growth rate of 40 percent are both compelling indicators of how Kanbay's current growth strategy is producing both dramatic and consistent results.

Although Kanbay International, Inc. was acknowledged to have deep domain knowledge as well as technology expertise, and it had distinguished itself as a leading global IT services firm focused on the financial services industry, its clients were demanding more holistic services such as management, operational, and integration consulting.  Even though it had some of the world's largest financial institutions as clients, it feared being pigeonholed as a specialty boutique. It needed to broaden its offerings.

The company had to make transformation and growth a key objective so that it maintained relevancy with clients as well as positioned itself to succeed within new marketplaces. Kanbay had grown organically.  However, organic growth failed to accelerate the velocity of its expansion dramatically, while limiting the company's ability to transform vertically.  The company needed to add both horizontal and vertical capabilities, including new services and new industries served in order to become the worlds most efficient provider of end-to-end solutions.   If Kanbay had followed the same 'organic' growth path that its
onsite/offshore IT consulting competitors had taken, it risked losing key clients by failing to help them achieve their operational goals in a timely fashion.

In the last year, Kanbay has adopted an acquisitional expansion strategy allowing it to grow vertical and horizontal domain expertise quickly.  In mid 2005, Kanbay acquired Accurum, an IT services provider to the capital markets industry.  The acquisition added additional breadth of services.  By the end of 2005, Kanbay had announced its intentions to acquire Adjoined Consulting, a leading provider of strategic and operational consulting, technology integration and outsourcing ' services that would broaden scope, such as supply chain management, while also adding vertical expertise including consumer packaged goods and industrial products, communications and media, and life sciences.  The promise of the acquisition was a breakthrough combination of allowing Kanbay's service offerings to be more robust while deepening service offerings to a wider set of industries. This acquisition was subsequently finalized in March, 2006.

Kanbay is on the path to successfully integrating and indoctrinating its newly acquired western staff into the offshore outsourcing world.  They are becoming experts in global sourcing to facilitate continued client success.  The company is doing this through in-depth training.  One metric uncovers the fact that Kanbay staff training days have increased from 11 days annually to 13 days annually.

As an adjunct of the effort, the company is fostering stronger 3rd party relationships that will add incremental revenues.  By year-end, the company's 3rd party revenues grew 48%.  One factor to this is the formation of a strategic partnership with ASG, a leading provider of application productivity solutions.

The result is a company with 6,270 employees in 21 international sites, three offshore delivery centers and two world class data centers, helping over 245 clients successfully overcome key business obstacles. The most recent quarter was especially positive given the performance in Kanbay's core financial services business. Kanbay, on a stand-alone basis, signed 11 new clients in the quarter, the largest number of new client wins in the last four quarters, and Adjoined signed an additional 11 new clients. Kanbay is now the only
professional services firm capable of offering agile, integrated suites of management consulting, technology integration and development, and outsourcing solutions through a global delivery platform. 

As an indication of the advanced achievements in 2005, the company has been consistently recognized as one of the promising growth companies in the industry, having been ranked in the top 10 of BusinessWeek's Top 100 Hot Growth Companies  and one of only two IT companies to be listed in Forbes' list of '25 Fastest Growing Companies'.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, http://www.youraddress.com:

a) Forbes List of 25 Fastest Growing Companies
http://ir.kanbay.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175622&p=irol-nwsArticle&ID=814857&hightlight=
b) Kanbay Named to the 2006 'Global Services 100' List of Most Innovative
Technology Services Companies
http://ir.kanbay.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175622&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=810183&hightlight=
c) Kanbay Named One of IT Week's Top 50 Technology Innovators of 2005
http://ir.kanbay.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175622&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=794930&hightlight=
d) Kanbay Named a Leader in the International Association of Outsourcing
Professionals' Global Outsourcing 100 Ranking
http://ir.kanbay.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175622&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=822560&hightlight=
e) American Banker and Financial Insights Name Kanbay a Top 100 Financial
Services Technology Provider
http://ir.kanbay.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175622&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=780308&hightlight=

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:

Raymond Spencer, co-founder, chairman and CEO directs global operations, leveraging management, planning, finance, team-building, conflict resolution, advocacy and training expertise. His management experience includes 25 plus years of directing international projects in 18 countries, including the US, Australia, India, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore.

He is known as an entrepreneur with vision to drive an organization toward success through creative, insightful and purposeful vision, as illustrated by his efforts to drive Kanbay to accelerated growth.

Prior to founding Kanbay, Mr. Spencer served 20 years with the Institute of Cultural Affairs, a UN-recognized organization focused on rural and community development.