Catching up with the PROFIT 100

When I wrote about the PROFIT 100 list of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies last month, PROFIT Magazine hadn't yet uploaded all of the stories in that issue to its website. (Something about them wanting you to buy the magazine, I guess.)

Anyway, they stories are up there now. So for those who forgot to rush to the newsstand, here are some useful links that will connect you to the whizbang world of fast-growth business:

Click here for the PROFIT 100 list

Click here for the profile of the No. 1 company, Rutter Inc. (written by a close personal friend of yours)
You can also link from this story to profiles of the rest of the Top 10 companies.

Click here for a great story by Cam Cornell on the Best Management Tactics of the PROFIT 100 companies

And click here for a frightening story about the Worst Moments Ever faced by three PROFIT 100 companies (written by moi)

Here's a little preview of the Rutter profile for those too busy to click through:

RAMMING SPEED
By Rick Spence

When sailing ships held sway over the world, a navigator's most treasured possession was his rutter, a diary containing detailed accounts of each voyage. Every page was gold, preserving the information needed to retrace past trips and beat the competition to the most lucrative ports.

The dog-eared rutter has long since been replaced by commercial charts and electronic equipment. But until recently, no single electronic device had emerged to record all the key data about a ship's voyage—such as its position, speed and course—in one place.
Enter Rutter Inc., a St. John's, Nfld.-based company that perfected the voyage data recorder (VDR), similar to the black boxes that record flight data on commercial aircraft. What makes the VDR golden is its nearly captive market. In December 2004, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which governs ocean-going shipping, announced that VDRs would now be mandatory on all international cargo vessels over 3,000 tons.

Although this isn't Rutter's only offering, it's the company's flagship product, a canny combination of homegrown hardware and software. And while its big payback may still lie ahead, the VDR has already put Rutter on the map as the first Atlantic-Canadian firm in the 18-year history of the PROFIT 100 to earn the top spot among Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies....

If you're bursting to read the rest, click here.