The Great Recession not only hit The IT Management Group hard, it nearly delivered a death blow.
The downtown Ferndale-based small business had a healthy client list and a few employees before everything came apart between 2008-10. At its lowest point the company was down to its founder, Greg Atkins, and fighting to stay afloat. Then the economy began to turn around.
"We slowly started to add some customers," says Atkins, president of
The IT Management Group. "In 2011, we really took off and added some key customers."
That growth, mainly from small- to medium-sized businesses, allowed the 9-year-old firm to rebuild it staff, hiring four people in the last year. It's in the process of hiring two more now. The IT Management Group has enjoyed most of that growth from a variety of local firms with a few from outside of Michigan. The company now expects to expand its customer base outside of the Great Lakes region to continue fueling its growth.
"I would expect us to be more than double this size in another 18 months," Atkins says.
Source: Greg Atkins, president of The IT Management Group
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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