FANTASTIC 50: Signal Corp.

REVENUE WINNER

Signal Corp. employees didn't write the book on customer satisfaction, but they could have, according to founder, president and CEO Roger Mody. There was a day when they could have published it, too.

Signal began in Fairfax in 1987 as a small desktop-publishing company, serving companies in the Washington, D.C., area. Today Signal has over 1,300 employees in 50 locations around the country and in the United Kingdom. It has come a long way from its desktop-publishing days.

Signal has evolved into a diversified high-tech company that provides information technology services, engineering and manufacturing support, and multimedia services to a growing number of clients in government and industry. The company's corporate headquarters in Fairfax is overflowing with awards for fast growth and top quality.

Mody surrounded by computers
Signal CEO Roger Mody says: "We were simply in the right place at the right time."

"We were simply in the right place at the right time," Mody says. "As a byproduct of our service to our customers, we had developed networks, and while electronic publishing was a need, computer networking became a much greater need."

By 1994, Signal's revenues hit $18.5 million. Then the boom in information technology boosted that figure to more than $91 million in fiscal 1997, an increase of nearly 400 percent.

With this phenomenal growth rate, Signal won the revenue award in this year's Fantastic 50 competition. Each year this prize is reserved for the company that achieves the greatest revenue growth -- not on a percentage basis, but in terms of total dollars. After this year, however, Signal will no longer qualify for the Fantastic 50, which has an annual revenue limit of $100 million. Mody says the company grossed $150 million in fiscal 1998, and he expects revenues of $180 million in fiscal 1999.

The key to sustaining rapid growth, says the 35-year-old CEO, is to keep everyone happy. "First and foremost, we have to ensure our customers are satisfied with our service," he says. "We have to ensure that our employees are happy working here at Signal, and we have to manage the corporate initiatives, making sure we're meeting our objectives. ... I believe that each of those three -- the customer, the employees and the company -- must be happy to be successful."

Signal's corporate motto is "Leaders by Performance," and Mody is proud of his company's ability to live up to that slogan. "We have a history here of not ever failing," he says. "I've never been terminated for convenience or defaults in the history of the company on any contract we've worked on."

The company has earned an "Exceeds Customer Expectations" rating by Dun & Bradstreet, and it recently achieved ISO 9001 certification, an elite international standard for quality assurance.

"A lot of people in our industry talk about quality, but very few will go through the effort and spend a half million dollars in achieving this registration," Mody says. "A lot of companies significantly larger than us don't have this verification. When I pitch prospective clients, they know my commitment to quality is not lip service."

Signal's clients include major players like IBM, Westinghouse and AT&T, along with federal agencies like the General Services Administration, the Patent and Trademark Office and the Department of Transportation. Signal is the 23rd largest prime federal contractor based in the D.C. area, according to the Washington Business Journal. Sixty percent of Signal's contract work is in the field of information technology, 35 percent is in engineering, and another 5 percent is in multimedia.

Despite the company's rapid growth, Mody likes how Signal is positioned in the market right now. Mergers and acquisitions, he says, have made many other high-tech companies too big.

"We offer our customers no financial risk because we're not too small, but at the same time, we're not so large that we get bogged down in our own bureaucracy," Mody says. "If decisions need to be made quickly and dynamically, as is necessary in our technology business, we can offer that to our clients."

Mody's concern for his clients is evident, as is his commitment to his employees. The young CEO says his proudest managerial moments occur at corporate picnics or holiday office parties. That's where Signal's incredible impact is most obvious: "At those gatherings I see, not only the associates that have benefited from Signal Corporation, but also their families," Mody says. "I get to see spouses and children, and just how many lives we've touched in a positive way. At this juncture, that's by far the most gratifying part of the job."