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In just six years, Nancy Matijasich’s consulting company has gone from a
“kitchen table” enterprise to one of the fastest-growing businesses in Central Ohio. Matijasich
is owner, president and CEO of Manifest Solutions Corp. Based in Upper Arlington, Manifest
Solutions provides supplemental staffing solutions, project implementation expertise, management
level consulting, and training and mentoring services.
The company employs 56 fulltime and supplemental staffers and boasted 1999 revenues of $4.8 million.
Not bad for a former home-based business. “Manifest Solutions was started in 1994 with a vision to
provide a solution-based approach to our clients and challenging and rewarding professional environment
for our employees. Manifest Solutions began as a ’kitchen table’ enterprise, with an office staff of
marketing rep, client service manager and recruiter—Nancy Matijasich.” Matijasich said.
Wearing all
those hats was not a problem for Matijasich, who had a decade of experience in the consulting business,
including stints as a marketer, manager and executive. For that reason, it didn’t take long for her to
expand operations in 1996 to the first office in Hilliard, adding office personnel along the way as
Manifest Solutions’ base of supplemental staff expanded. The company moved to Upper Arlington last April.
The company’s success is based on what Matijasich calls a “unique approach to IT consulting.”
"Manifest is a relationship-based organization. ... From the beginning, Manifest strives to understand the client’s world
rather than enumerating what we can provide,” Matijasich said. This method enables the company to provide
a customized approach that fits the client’s needs and budget. Once the client’s needs are understood, a
team of Manifest employees determines the best course of action.
“This action may result in individual
placement, a training/mentoring engagement, or an assessment of an organization and staff by a senior
management consultant from our team. No transaction is insignificant to us, because each leads us to
better know and serve our clients.” Matijasich said. Manifest Solutions takes pride in matching the
appropriate candidate by skill set and personality to best fit into a particular client’s environment,
she said.
“Our ability to do this accurately starts with the initial sales call. Our marketing staff
is trained to ask questions that will enable them to work with the recruiting and management teams to
find the right candidate who will provide our client manager with a technically qualified individual
who is also an organizational fit,” Matijasich said. Matijasich said there really are no mistakes when
it comes to building a business, calling it an “evolutionary process.”
“Evolution comes from building
on what went right and eliminating what went wrong. Evolution is also perpetual. With this philosophy,
there isn’t a ‘biggest mistake,’ there’s just learning.” she said.
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