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Success Story: IEM

August 17, 2010

“There is a spirit of innovation here. It’s something that’s just in the air.”

Madhu Beriwal
President and CEO, IEM

When Madhu Beriwal first considered where to locate her 25-year-old international risk management company for the future, the universe of possibilities was wide open.

An exhaustive search, however, revealed only one ideal choice: the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina.

“We said, let’s start with a blank sheet of paper and see where we need to be and how we need to organize ourselves for greater success for the next 25 years,” says Beriwal, president of CEO of IEM. “We short-listed some locations and spent about a year doing our due diligence. After that process was over, it was very clear that the best location for us was the Research Triangle Region.”

IEM provides risk management and security solutions for government agencies, industry and private-sector organizations around the world, helping them measure and manage threats to people, infrastructure and information. Its customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services and emergency management agencies in virtually every U.S. state and territory, as well as chemical plants, seaports and hospitals.

The Research Triangle Region’s strong defense technology cluster, dense concentration of nearby military installations and close proximity to defense decision makers at Fort Bragg and Washington, D.C. were important factors in IEM’s location decision. Also key was the region’s superior quality of life, which prompted twice as many IEM employees to relocate with the company than expected. But three key competitive assets sealed the deal, Beriwal said: education, collaboration and innovation.

“We are a high-technology company, a high-knowledge company, that deals in research-based solutions. So education is vitally important for us and for our employees,” Beriwal says. “Having a source for those kinds of people coming out of the region’s universities was very important to us.”

The region’s culture of collaboration among government, academia and the private sector provides fertile ground and a business-friendly environment for companies to grow, she says. That drives innovation that keeps the region and its companies competitive.

“There is a spirit of innovation here,” says Beriwal. “It’s something that’s just in the air.”