Celebrating 20 Years: A Message From Synthesis CEO

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Synthesis Technology celebrates 20 years

Synthesis Technology celebrates 20 years in business this month.  For me, this event calls for both reflection on the past and reaffirmation of our vision for the future.

These 20 years came and went in what feels like the blink of an eye. It feels like a blur of RFPs, client meetings, implementations, contract negotiations, partnerships, financial reports, and company picnics. However, when you take time to look more closely, you see more than just a fog of work. You begin to see key events that really made the difference; Hiring of people who turned out to be key leaders or fantastic engineers, finding partners who understood our value proposition and helped us take it to market, and landing clients who understood bigger is not necessarily better… better is better.

An organization is only as good as the people they hire, especially in a business of our nature.  We’ve been fortunate in that regard. Credit for our success and longevity boils down to the amazing, intelligent and hardworking team members we’ve been lucky enough to hire. Several have been with us for 15 years or more. Their passion and dedication set us apart in this industry.  I’ve never known staff to be as committed and loyal as the teams we have here at Synthesis. I am truly thankful for the people that we have, even those no longer with us, for the positive mark they’ve left. I’m also thankful for our clients who treat us as true partners where “mutual” is the keyword in our success.  I thank you all for your hard work, loyalty, and service, and I look forward to what we can accomplish together in the future!

A History of Customer and Company Success

Two decades ago we identified a market niche matching the knowledge and skills Synthesis brought to the table.  With my background in database publishing, we found most asset management firms were doing large amounts of product data communication. Unfortunately, they were using largely manual techniques. In other words, it was work that could be automated and improved. With a good idea and a launch client both in hand, we started building the publishing software we market today.

Obviously, the original product has been refined, expanded, modernized and enhanced hundreds of times since 1998. However, our primary client base is built around the same solution vision today.  Sustainability was our theme long before the term became a buzzword for eco-missionaries and activists. We placed that word in our mission statement when its “paradigm” and “synergy” represented the future of smart business.

From the get-go, we were a small-scale enterprise with only bootstrap and client funding.  A small company can keep large clients happy by serving them with an unending supply of empathy and positivity.  Thus, was born our model of deploying very smart engineers in client-facing roles and listening responsively to the market’s needs. We’ve maintained this model and the high engagement it created to present day, albeit on a larger scale with more resources.  Greater scale allows us to follow a roadmap of innovation that reflects both client requests and our internal expert’s ideas, and the results of the market research we regularly conduct.

Synthesis always has been, and will always be, a firm that puts its clients first. To do this, we invest heavily in our employee’s success so they will invest in our clients’ success. This philosophy of mutual respect and trust has helped us achieve sustainable performance metrics of growth, client retention and employee satisfaction… measurements of which we are quite proud.

Looking Forward: The Future of Data and Content Automation

So, what does the future look like for investment marketing and sales operations?  Technology will continue to transform how marketing, compliance, and sales work together to create, share, present and track their content. Collaborating with our customers and partner firms to support this transformation maintains a high level of importance, and our goal remains to invest in sustainable technology, services, and partnerships.  We will keep focusing on the great service we’re known for while improving the way our products are built and delivered to clients.

Synthesis is in the midst of the largest reinvestment cycle in its history.  Our products are being updated from the ground up and new ones are being developed based on extensive research into the market’s needs.

While some elements of our software innovation efforts are focused on making our products more self-service and less expensive to deploy, our devotion to providing deep lasting services to our clients is still firmly in place.  The market is becoming increasingly wary of software companies whose business models minimize their obligation to service and support. Do it yourself (DIY) technology platforms have pushed the work onto the client’s plate with no real support model, leaving customers with long and sometimes incomplete implementations. The Synthesis model, by contrast, takes the risk off the client’s hands and uses industry experts to ensure their goals are reached in a timely and cost-effective manner. This has been our unique sales proposition since our inception, and it will not change.

The market is also thinking larger about their business problems.  Modern API-connected systems allow companies to deploy the best of breed technologies to service siloed business problems. So, through a combination of proprietary technology and interconnectivity with partner firms and tools, Synthesis today is able to address the entire supply chain of needs related to client and sales communication efforts for an asset manager; meaning we can provide a comprehensive toolset or we can simply fill a tactical position in the firm’s marketing solution stack.

It’s the People

As you might guess, 20 years in business as a bootstrapped software and services firm is unusual.  Statistically, we’re a unicorn. The reason we’ve survived and thrived is not that we’re the most aggressive firm or have the deepest pockets. Instead, from the beginning, we recognized our success would be more about people and relationships than the technology. I’d like to offer a huge thank you to the individuals who’ve enabled our success…  Our current and past employees, our department heads, our partners, our advisors, our attorneys, our recruiters, our developers, and our client service teams. Mostly, thank you to our clients for your faith, funding, and willingness to trust in a small firm named Synthesis.
Kindest regards,

John Toepfer, CEO and Founder at Synthesis

John Toepfer, CEO and Founder

 

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John Toepfer is CEO and Co-founder of Synthesis Technology. He is a technology entrepreneur, investor and business owner with a 25-year background in building and supporting communication solutions for the financial services industry. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two sons.


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