Company: Center, Bellevue, WA
Nomination Submitted by: Finn Partners
Company Description: Center is a software company helping businesses gain visibility into and manage employee spending. Center Expense, our core offering, is an integrated corporate card and expense solution used by small and medium-sized enterprises to save time, improve operations and compliance, and deliver real-time insights to finance teams for better decision making.
Nomination Category: Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Achievement in Growth
 Nomination Title: Center
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this first question: Briefly describe the nominated organization's history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 199 words used.
Center is a software company helping businesses gain visibility into and manage employee spending. Center’s leadership shaped the first wave of spend management innovation, and created Center to deliver a more cost-effective and modern way to automate expense processing for small and medium-sized enterprises across industries including construction, business services, manufacturing, retail, consumer services, healthcare, nonprofit, education, finance, IT/software, and public services.
Center Expense, the company’s core offering, is an integrated corporate card and expense solution used by the mid-market segment to save time, improve operations and compliance, and deliver real-time insights to finance teams to enable better decision making. Automation and integration are key components of Center’s innovative solution; finance teams can easily sync expenses to the general ledger through a direct integration, and every purchase made with a CenterCard® is visible instantly in Center Expense and audited automatically. Insights are available through the dashboard, enabling immediate out-of-policy spend flags and full visibility into all employee transactions.
Dynamic and customizable, Center eliminates expense reporting for employees, radically reduces the amount of time needed to process expenses in the finance department, and offers real-time reporting and insights to drive cost-savings, enabling trend analysis and better adherence to budget targets.
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated organization's growth achievements since the beginning of 2021, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video:
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this second question: Outline the organization's achievements since the beginning of 2021 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 233 words used.
From 2021 to 2023, Center grew significantly, increasing its customer base 8x while retaining 94% of existing customers, [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] and has expanded its customer base to up to 10 top verticals including construction, business services, manufacturing, retail, consumer services, healthcare, nonprofit, education, finance, IT/software, and public services.
In the second half of last year and representative of more than 15% of their client base, Center received the following Net Promoter Scores (NPS), further validating the success of its product:
100% - Level of satisfaction with Center Customer Support
97% - Center had an easy deployment process
95% - When contacting the Center Customer Support team, I receive timely responses
93% - Center is intuitive to use
95% - Center provides value to my organization
96% - We will continue using Center for the foreseeable future
Center’s overall score was 79, putting the company in the excellent category, with a score 39 points above average.
Center exceeded its key growth metrics from 2021-2023, demonstrating that its product approach is tightly aligned with the needs of mid-market businesses. While initially focused on small to mid-sized businesses with 50-500 employees at launch, Center’s focus is now on companies ranging from 100 to 1,000+ employees.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this third question: Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 240 words used.
As a key differentiator to competition, the Center solution utilizes a consumption based model requiring zero upfront or ongoing investment – the customer pays no card fees, no software licensing fees, and no integration, deployment or support fees. Center’s success is directly correlated with the success of the customer. Amid a turbulent economy, Center’s solution ensures that the customer is able to maximize the software to suit their needs without incurring any excess cost.
Another key differentiator against market competitors is Center’s investment in customer experience and support. Center focuses on white glove deployment, giving individualized support to each customer to configure the solution to specific needs, and provides on-demand training to ensure continued success with the product.
The middle market and nationals segments are Center’s market focus vs. others in the space. Rather than focusing on start-ups, Center targets mid-market companies with enduring profitability, such as professional services, construction, and retail/consumer services.
Despite an unsettled macro-environment, Center closed their Series B round with an additional $15M, demonstrating belief in the product offering. Securing funding amidst economic turbulence is a testament to the strength of Center’s product-market fit, as they exceeded key customer and growth metrics YoY.
By aligning customer success and product success, Center has unlocked significant growth despite economic headwinds and its solutions are positioned to lead the way to simplify spend, improve fiscal culture, and automate accounting tasks as spend management is revolutionized for the digital age.
- Optional: Reference here any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and explain how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 59 words used.
About Center’s products and services:
Customer Case Studies:
Announcements:
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