Jeffrey Davis, Chairnan of the Board and CEO, Perficient, Inc.
Jeffrey S. Davis is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Perficient, Inc., where he leads daily business operations and directs the development and execution of the company’s global growth strategy and initiatives.
He became the Chief Executive Officer of the company and a member of the board in 2009 and became Chairman of the board in February 2017. He previously served as the Chief Operating Officer of the company following its acquisition of Vertecon in April 2002 and was the company’s President from 2004 through 2021.
He served the same role of Chief Operating Officer at Vertecon from October 1999 to its acquisition by the company.
Before Vertecon, Mr. Davis was a senior manager and member of the leadership team in Arthur Andersen’s Business Consulting Practice, where he was responsible for defining and managing internal processes, while managing business development and delivery of all products, services, and solutions to a number of large accounts.
Mr. Davis also served in leadership positions at Ernst and Young, LLP in the Management Consulting practice and in industry at Boeing, Inc. and Mallinckrodt, Inc.
Mr. Davis is an active member of the board of directors of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of St. Louis, is a member of the University of Missouri Trulaske College of Business advisory board, and sits on the board for St. Luke’s Hospital.
He holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri.
In this 3,335 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, the Perficient CEO details his plan to rapidly grow shareholder value.
“Perficient has been around for more than 20 years, and we’ve really pivoted to digital consulting over the last several years, as have many firms in the industry, but I would say we’ve moved that needle quite far. We really consider ourselves to be a digital consultancy.
Although our primary demand market is domestic U.S., we have a global footprint with many colleagues located outside the U.S. in our global delivery centers, doing development work for our clients here in the U.S. In total, we have 4,500 colleagues around the world.
We partner with many of the biggest technology companies — many of them household names — which gives us the opportunity to collaborate across almost any technology stack.
One of the things that makes us particularly unique is our true end-to-end delivery capability around digital solutions. By that, I mean that we have agency and creative capability on the front and in the back, we have integration, transactional, and analytics capabilities. So we tend to focus on long-term relationships where we can deliver that whole portfolio. The average tenure of our top 50 customers is over nine years.”
Perficient has used podcasts to spread its message:
“The podcasts are going really well. In general, we get a lot of great consumption of our thought leadership pieces, whether that’s a blog or some other form, but the podcasts obviously are the newer launch.
In the first three months since launch, we’ve had more than 3,800 listeners, and we’ve averaged 540 new listeners each month over that period. We’re really excited about the reception with those.
Podcasts are another medium for us to reach out, build awareness of Perficient, and help educate our clients and prospects.
In some cases, that’s the first interaction people have with Perficient. They are truly resonating very, very well. The Intelligent Data podcast, in particular, investigates the value of data technology across industries.
So listeners discover what’s possible with digital and how we can help make those possibilities a reality.
Another thing that we’ve recently launched that we’re really proud of is Perficient Bright Paths. It’s designed to advance STEM education and career opportunities for underrepresented constituencies and communities, specifically around women and minorities, and close the employment gap in the technology industry.
Our first fully funded Bright Paths program launched in Detroit in March with a membership of 25 women. At the end of each of the Bright Paths program, we hope to hire qualified graduates to join our teams and work on some of our largest client accounts.
We’re also engaged in Mark Cuban’s Foundation, AI Bootcamps, to host AI training sessions.
We’ll be working with the foundation to fully fund and educate underserved high school students in the Dallas area and train the next generation of AI leaders.
On the M&A front, we’re super excited about the most recent acquisition we completed. The acquisition of PSL was completed in June of last year.
Located in Colombia, that acquisition significantly expanded our nearshore delivery presence, something that’s in super high demand right now, primarily because of the beneficial time zone and language alignment…
PSL, our largest acquisition to date, which brought about 600 people to Perficient who are primarily located in Medellin, but also Bogota and Cali, Colombia.
It’s a really mature organization. The team, which we now refer to as Perficient Latin America, has been around about 35 years, with a great business, very talented people, and is super complementary.
After looking for about two years, and courting several companies, most of whom we decided weren’t going to be a good fit, we found PSL and recognized it would be a perfect fit.
It’s turned out great. In fact, within the 10 months since completing the acquisition, we already have a dozen of the legacy Perficient portfolio companies now engaged with that nearshore development center.
And that’s just the beginning. Most of the engagements are starting small but building, and the success has been great.
So we’ve added about 10% to 15% to that business in terms of revenue with just our legacy accounts. That’s growing rapidly — I think that number will grow much further, probably by the middle of the year.”
The Perficient CEO likes his competitive landscape:
“…Against the boutiques — and we’re competing with boutiques all the time — they don’t have the scale or the breadth that larger enterprises need.
Our target market is primarily Fortune 1000 companies, so we’re trying to find relationships where we can represent our entire portfolio. Because of that, we can be an end-to-end provider to those clients, do a good job, and maintain those relationships.
As I mentioned earlier, the average tenure of our top 50 customers is over nine years. So that’s our business model.
The large integrators obviously have the depth and the breadth, but often are more expensive and less collaborative.
The thing I hear most consistently from our clients is that they really appreciate our people, our skills, and our culture. I heard that from the CIO of a very large health system just the other day who said that our transparency, our flexibility, and our nimbleness is a breath of fresh air.
That’s something we hear often. So I would say, again, it is that end-to-end capability.
In the digital space, we’re fairly unique in that regard. I don’t think even the majors have figured that out.
They were late to the game, and a lot of them are scrambling to get digital capability through a series of acquisitions. I think Accenture is doing one a week. So they’re struggling a little bit. And of course Cognizant has struggled as well.
So, compared to the large integrators, we’re digital-ready and we’re end-to-end in the digital space. Compared to the boutiques, the smaller guys, we have the scalability and the breadth of portfolio.”
Read the entire 3,335 word interview with Jeffrey S. Davis, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Perficient exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Jeffrey S. Davis
Chairman & CEO
Perficient, Inc.
(314) 529-3600
Maggie Nolan Picks Perficient (NASDAQ:PRFT) As Top 2021 Stock from the Technology Services Sector
May 18, 2021
Frank Leto of Bryn Mawr Bank (NASDAQ: BMTC) Details His Strategy for Expansion
January 08, 2018
Beyond TASER and Body Cameras: Rick Smith, CEO of Axon (NASDAQ:AAXN) Reveals Strategy
October 03, 2017
Richard L. Soloway Details His Value Creation Strategy for NAPCO Security Technology (NSSC)
September 25, 2017
Ronald Ormand, CEO of Lilis Energy, Details the Strategy for Building an Oil Production Company from the Ground Up
January 22, 2018
