Monday, September 19, 2005

Canada’s Hottest New Companies

The 2005 Hotlist is out! PROFIT Magazine has just released its list of the PROFIT Hot 50, the fastest-growing new companies (under five years old) in Canada.

Click here to see the rankings of the Hot 50.

To save you time, here are the top 5 companies on the list:

1. Multi-Channel Communications Inc., Toronto (operates call centres for telcos): Two-year sales growth: 35,824% (whew!)
2. Kids & Company Ltd.., Toronto (child care for corporate employees): 1621%
3. Maximum Fence Inc., Hamilton (high-end fencing): 1316%
4. Pearson Software Recruiting Specialists, Toronto (recruitment agency): 892%
5. RIFCO Inc., Red Deer, Alta. (finances vehicle repairs and purchases): 860%.

My first impression: all five are niche service companies, mainly for business and high-end consumer markets. What’s happened to manufacturing? Where are the tech companies?

A glance at the overview story accompanying the list confirms my initial impression. 62% of the companies (i.e., 31 of the 50) are engaged in business services – and only 20% of those are IT-related. In all, 12% of Hot 50 firms are involved in consumer services, 8% in software development, 6% in manufacturing, and 4% in each of retail, construction and distribution.

I bet this is the lowest “manufacturing” percentage in any PROFIT growth company list published in the past 20 years.

I read the other day that Canada has lost more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs this year. Check out this Hot 50 package if you want to see what Canada’s economy of the future may look like.

You can also read about the No. 1 company, MCC Inc., here.

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