Small Fish, Big Pond: ILC’s Staying Power in a Corporate World
Customer service. Customization. Consistency.
These three “Cs” are gaining traction as hallmarks of the International Language Center, a language service provider and small business in the Midwest with an increasingly global reach. As the presence of Fortune 500 companies declines in St. Louis and more Americans head to work for large companies than smaller companies, ILC continues to stake its identity as a privately owned business that offers customized service to its clients of all sizes.
From a business standpoint, it’s fair to say that 2017 has been a year of extremes for St. Louis. The city is hailed as a promising and welcoming area for entrepreneurs to set up shop. At the same time, corporate buyouts of major St. Louis-based companies are hitting the headlines, and the region’s presence of Fortune 500 companies is waning.
According to the Open Markets Program, a public policy think tank, the St. Louis metropolitan area was home to nine Fortune 500 companies in 2015, down from 12 in 2000.
In April, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that of the 36 publicly held companies in Saint Louis, four had agreed to be acquired: Panera Bread, Monsanto, LMI Aerospace and Isle of Capri Casinos. What’s more, the number of manufacturing jobs in the St. Louis area has decreased by nearly half in the past 25 years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with 114,000 manufacturing jobs in 2016, down from 202,400 in 1990.
Yet in the same metropolitan region, small business employment is growing.
What does this mean for the future business landscape of St. Louis? More to the point: What does all of this this mean for a small business in St. Louis that serves clients and corporations of all sizes, both in St. Louis and around the world?
“St. Louis’ economic future doesn’t really hang on the fate of our publicly traded companies,” writes David Nicklaus of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “A bigger concern is whether the region is encouraging entrepreneurs who want to build the Paneras, Centenes and Monsantos of the future.”
International Language Center began as one young entrepreneur’s vision more than 30 years ago. Today it is going strong as a family-owned business enterprise, proudly serving clients with myriad language needs, from major manufacturers to individuals.
In a business climate where the challenge of being a small fish in a big pond is ever-present, ILC stands ready to take your language service requests with care, not complacency. We want our customers to know that their language needs and goals are important, and we do that by listening, communicating clearly, and offering customized solutions across our translation, interpreting and language education platforms.
At ILC, we bank everything on those “C” words – customer service, customization, consistency. In an ever-increasing corporate business world, we may be a small fish, but we make a big splash.
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