Secure-24 hires 130, looks to add 60 more

Success is breeding more and bigger successes at Secure-24 in recent years. Before last year, the IT firm was doubling its revenue and staff. Last year its revenue jumped 41 percent, which allowed the Southfield-based company to hire 130 people, expanding its staff to 370 employees and a half dozen interns. It currently has 60 job openings to help it keep up with demand. "We are seeing more and larger companies making the decision to go to a managed-services model (for IT)," says Mike Jennings, CEO of Secure-24. He adds that many of them are looking for more personalized customer services like Secure-24 can offer. "We're seeing a large trend of businesses coming to us from larger companies." Jennings further explains that the shift to cloud computing and the overall trend of companies out-sourcing their IT work has helped power Secure-24's ascent. Plus there is the added bonus: showing the ability to handle bigger contracts has helped attract similar-sized clients. "We have signed some larger customers over the years that has grown the size of our business," Jennings says. "We are managing more than 700 systems for our largest customer." To help meet the demand for this new work, Secure-24 has enlisted a two-pronged approach to finding talent to fit the bill. It recruits senior folks from the market to harness their expertise. It also is hiring graduates directly from local colleges to train them at its integrated operations center. It takes 18 months to complete the training, at which point they will be full-time employees of Secure-24. That program has resulted in an average of five new hires a month. Source: Mike Jennings, CEO of Secure-24 Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.