Ninth House
Company: Ninth House, Inc., San Francisco, California
Company Description: Ninth House, Inc. provides leadership development solutions that integrate content from leading business experts with self-paced online courses and practical simulations to more effectively develop leaders at all levels of an organization. Ninth House has won numerous awards for the quality and breadth of its leadership development solutions.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Business Turnaround
Nomination Title: Ninth House, Inc.
1. Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Ninth House, Inc. faced the same challenges of many companies in 2001 – a market downturn that slowed business. Compounding this was investors pressuring Ninth House to continue growing as an “Internet” company. In an unprecedented move, Ninth House’s management consolidated its investor base in 2001 and eventually bought them out in 2002 to enable co-founder and CEO, Jeff Snipes, to reinvent the company. Jeff focused on operational efficiency to cut costs, transitioned the company into a services business with a different financial model, reinvented the company’s sales processes, outsourced media production and developed new delivery models. With 50% in annual sales growth per year since 2002, Ninth House has thrived as a self-sustaining company. The company has consistently been ranked by Forbes and Gartner as one of the leading providers of learning solutions and impacts over 100,000 learners a year.
Operational Efficiency
• Downsized headcount from 278 to 26
• Renegotiated leases and reduced rented office space from 100,000 sq ft to 10,000 and rates from $52/sq ft. to $24/sq. ft.
• Previously, all film was produced through five internal production studios. By 2001, all film production processes were outsourced to third party studios, turning these into variable costs versus fixed internal costsBusiness Model and Sales Reorganization
• Increased number of subscriptions per contract by terminating large tele-sales organization that targeted small-medium organizations and rebuilding internal field sales teams that sold “solutions” with combined products and services to FORTUNE 500 organizations
• Renegotiated content licensing agreements to reduce royalty costs, while incenting content partners to resell Ninth House solutions and enabling Ninth House to build non-online products based on partners’ content
• Reengineered financial model to move from requiring that customers purchase Ninth House’s entire network of courses to offering courses one at a time and on a person by person basis
• Began offering custom development services, which accounted for 0% of Ninth House’s sales in 2002 and 30% in 2005
• Completed numerous audits and established three new government procurement contracts (i.e. GSA, GoLearn, FastTrack) which enabled Ninth House to sell more easily and directly to the military and federal markets which accounted for 50% of 2005 sales
Delivery of Solutions
• Re-engineered entire technology platform from a client-server to an application service provider model
• Further redesigned products from a hosted streaming service to a remote media delivery model and placed all courses and content on CDs to reach more customers through more delivery models
• Began offering classroom materials and services to provide “blended delivery” that was more in tune with customers’ needsThese strategies have sowed remarkable results. The company experienced a 50% annual increase in sales each year since 2002. From 2004-2005 alone, the company secured multi-million dollar contracts from US Air Force and US Navy. The number of customers has doubled from 100 in 2001 to about 200 top global 2000 customers, such as Amazon.com, British Telecommunications, and the United States Navy.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Media Coverage
S.F. firm aims to train managers who will replace retiring boomers –
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/media/default.asp?y=2006#m5150
Navy Reveals Leadership Training Efficacy –
http://www.ltimagazine.com/ltimagazine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=153881
Case Study: Ninth House Training Is on Course with the Navy –
http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/apr2005/harris.htm
E-Learning courses teach how to resolve conflicts and build communities –
http://www.fcw.com/article88741-05-02-05-Print
The Navy's War –
http://www.ninthhouse.com/papers/Training%20Magazine_Navy_7.05.pdf
Training's New Wave –
http://www.ninthhouse.com/papers/T-DAugust2005.pdf
Navy Petty Officers Learn 'soft skills' Online –
http://www.fcw.com/article90726-09-12-05-Print
Press Releases
Fortune 500 Companies Link Leadership Development with Successful Business Strategies, According to 2006 Ninth House Survey -
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/releases/release.asp?article=498
Office of Personnel Management Selects Ninth House as a Leadership Content Provider for GoLearn Content
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/releases/release.asp?article=480
Key Analyst Firm Positions Ninth House in the Leader Quadrant in E-Learning
Content Magic Quadrant
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/releases/release.asp?article=325
Awards & Recognitions:
Ninth House Voted Best of Solution Provider at hrGOV 2006
http://www.convurge.com/files/resourcesmodule/@random42d14326e4d0e/1
144415953_9thHOUSE_press_hrGOV06.pdf
Ninth House Named 2006 CODiE Award Finalist for Corporate Learning
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/releases/release.asp?article=505
Forbes Best of the Web
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/review.jhtml?id=2607
Ninth House Awards
http://www.ninthhouse.com/company/awards.asp
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:
Jeff Snipes, CEO and co-founder, founded the company in 1996 with a clear vision of designing learning strategies that leverage leadership development and performance management to more effectively and efficiently impact corporations. Working closely with customers such as American Express, Citigroup, Ford, and GAP Inc., Jeff is a contributing author to CLO Magazine and frequent speaker at industry events on leadership development topics.
Under Jeff’s management, Ninth House is ranked by Forbes and Gartner as one of the leading providers of learning solutions and impacts over 100,000 learners a year as one of the fastest growing companies in the industry.