As an American, she took $ 900 from her mother and turned them into a billion-dollar business.
'10.10.2018'
Source: CNBC
Janice Bryant Howroid is a billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist. As CEO and founder of ACT-1 Group, the largest woman-run workforce management company and the first black woman to own a billion-dollar business, she has taken her own course in the business world.
The company, whose net sales are 1,1 billion dollars, made Janice one of America’s richest women, with a net worth of 420 million dollars, according to Forbes. How she did it, tells CNBC.
How to make a lot of nothing
In 1978, Haurod opened a company in one of the carpet shops in Beverly Hills, California, with 900 dollars that her mother lent to her.
“I needed a really cool address, but I didn't have the funds, so I borrowed $ 900 from my mother,” the woman says. "It gave me about $ 1500 to start a business."
She used the money to buy the necessary equipment to start the company. Janice's business literally began with the purchase of a fax machine, telephone, and first contacts in the address book. With minimal entrepreneurial experience, the woman relied on lessons learned from her parents. And today she says that many of the business practices that Hauraid applies to this day were born from the methods that she learned from her mother.
One of 11 children, Howroid, who was born and raised in Tarborough, North Carolina, says her parents taught her the benefits of being creative with few resources. She attended several schools and often studied from textbooks from which pages were torn out. One day the girl complained to her father, to which he replied: "You are smart enough to understand what is missing." So Janice accepted the challenge that helped her to improve day after day.
Her mother helped the girl take another step. She suggested not only finding and analyzing the missing information, but also writing it down, leaving it in the book so that the next person could use the full textbook.
“Mom taught us the principles of making a lot out of nothing,” says Janice. “And I think that the most important principles of how to build a business, how to develop and introduce innovations, I borrowed from her.”
Globalization against “glocalization”
Initially, ACT-1 Group was a full-time company based in California. Now, 40 years later, the business has expanded and offers both full and temporary employment options for more than 17 thousands of customers in 19 countries, including the US, Canada, Denmark, Brazil and the UK. The company employs more than 2800 employees.
According to Howroid, ACT-1 Group provides services to its customers through a range of platforms, including AgileOne's proprietary technology and management solutions, its in-house AppleOne and the screening company A-Check. “By bringing these organizations together, you have ACT-1,” she says.
And although at the dawn of its development, the company used only a fax machine and a telephone, Haurod knew that in order to succeed, she needed to keep up with technology. In 1995, her company became one of the first recruitment agencies on the World Wide Web with the launch of appleone.com. During this period, the company continued to show annual growth due to increased demand for technical workers.
Today the company is one of the largest human resources organizations in the world. Howroyd attributes much of his success to the $ 429 billion in the talent market. In 1989, she opened her first office outside the United States in Ontario, Canada. Janice says the key to her company's success is understanding the difference between globalization and “glocalization”.
“Globalization requires all the regulatory, financial and infrastructural tools needed to expand business across geographic regions,” she says. “Glocalisation is what happens locally, such as understanding immediate cultural needs and how to address them in a larger business initiative that the company hires you to achieve.”
In addition to expanding business operations outside the United States, Hauroyd sees another key to success in attracting the attention of the applicant in customer service.
“When we work with companies to identify talent, it means every person looking for a job is our focus,” she says. “If you like, we act as agents for each of them. This is slightly different from what many companies in the industry are doing. Of course, this approach has become a dynamic part of what has driven our growth. ”
A mother of two children, Haurod said her family also showed interest in the successful development of the ACT-1 group. Her son Brett became president of AppleOne, and daughter Kay is responsible for the company's online branding.
Maintain the spirit of the millennium
In addition to developing the company, Janice uses her success to give back to people what she herself received. She joined the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina. According to Howroid, it is "an unrealistic feeling to go to campus as a board member."
“I have the opportunity to come back and not just support the college financially, but to be an integral part of how it continues to pursue its initiatives and offer great students the opportunities and careers it once offered me,” Janice says.
In addition to returning to his former college, Hauroyd sits on the Harvard Council on Women's Leadership and the Council of Marshall Business School at USC. In May 2016, Barack Obama nominated her as a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Council.
“Maybe that's why I keep the spirit of the millennium,” she explains. - The work I do on university campuses gives me the opportunity to witness the immense talent that is in this world today and the desires of students who work not only to get degrees and make money, but to express themselves in this way, which will allow them to be realized in what they care about ”.
Her mantra for success is never to compromise her personal self for professional achievement.
“I had a lot of opportunities for business growth and decision making that might not align with who I was and how I wanted to work,” Janice says. “These opportunities, frankly, could push the business a little faster financially. But I always had to go back to how I opened my doors, and I realized that I would never sacrifice my own self for the sake of business independence. This remains my mantra, ”adds Hawroyd.
