Finding the right tools

Shueyb Ali knows all about the challenges of growing a business.

“You have to have the proper processes in place,” says Ali, president of Alexandria-based World Services LLC. “Once you get to a specific milestone, you have to re-evaluate. You have to make sure you are putting together the proper tools to grow appropriately.”

Founded in 2010, World Services has been on a growth spurt since late 2012. “We really started to grow pretty consistently since that time,” Ali says.

The company provides IT engineering and solutions as well as management consulting. Services range from big data and enterprise architecture to cybersecurity and augmented reality. “The majority of what we do is IT modernization,” says Ali. “We help agencies go from legacy systems to modern technology. Enterprise data management is big for us.”

The company’s largest customer is the federal government. There are rules regarding “how to go about doing business with the government,” says Ali. “One of the challenges is understanding what they are looking for.”

During 2012, World Services teamed up with another firm bidding for a large government contract. That partner was instrumental in helping World Services write “the technical approach,” Ali says. “With their assistance, we won the contract. We were the main subcontractor on a $25 million contract. That helped us out a lot.”