When Bill Davis joined Perficient in 2003, there was no marketing department at the company. He formed it as a team of one.
Today, as Perficient’s vice president of marketing and communications, Davis leads a team of more than 80 employees.
His tenure highlights the rapid growth Perficient has experienced since its founding in 1998. It's a company (NASDAQ: PRFT) marked by constant evolution, which continues today as the digital consultancy expands its global footprint.
The company's rapid expansion in India and South America has resulted in new investments into technology and marketing. It also impacts smaller decisions, such as determining the best times to schedule meetings that span the globe or what languages in which to publish press releases.
“We really do now think through a global lens,” Davis said.
Operationally, President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Hogan said Perficient has instituted internal systems and processes to make sure the company interacts across all of its markets, making sure its widening footprint doesn’t create silos among its workforce.
“We’re investing in tools and technology to collaborate globally,” Hogan said.
One area in which Perficient is targeting investment as it grows is marketing. Since relocating its corporate headquarters to St. Louis in 2010, Perficient has keyed in on sports advertising, forming partnerships with the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues. It has a deep presence at the Cardinals’ Busch Stadium, where it sponsors the Perficient Perch, Perficient Red Jacket Club and also has an advertisement on the stadium’s outfield wall.
In recent years, Perficient has started to target its marketing beyond St. Louis. For example, it has placed a focus in Dallas, where it has proximity to customers and a portion of its workforce, and has become a corporate partner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
“Going forward, it will be 'how do we replicate that success in Atlanta or Denver or Detroit'? These other markets where we have hundreds of employees and a high concentration of clients,” Davis said.
Perficient also has inked recent sports-focused marketing deals with global implications. It signed on to sponsor three professional golfers and partnered with a Brazilian fighting robot builder team, RioBotz, that competes in BattleBots, a Discovery Channel television show.
While Perficient’s growth has afforded it the ability to expand its reach, Davis says its marketing efforts still are infused with an underdog mentality. That’s needed as the firm goes head-to-head with massive consulting industry players like Accenture and Deloitte, he said.
“We just have to be scrappy. We’ve got to be creative. We’ve got to out think and out hustle them and find ways to build off of existing partnerships and really leverage them for all they can drive,” Davis said.
