Allegiance

This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.

You're never too young to become a successful business owner. Just ask Adam Edmunds.

While pursuing a master's degree at BYU, Adam attended a lecture on business ethics. He discovered that the newly-passed Sarbanes-Oxley federal statute, which called for stricter ethical standards for public companies, could provide business opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs. This gave him the idea to start a company that would create a forum where employees could leave anonymous feedback. He entered his idea into a business plan competition. He was told the idea would never fly, but Adam wasn't ready to give up yet.

Even though he didn't win the competition, Adam launched his business, SilentWhistle as a student business and was subsequently awarded $25,000 for being the Student Entrepreneur of the Year. He realized there was a broader area of employee loyalty that wasn't being met. Adam merged SilentWhistle with a company Gary Rhoads, one of his marketing professors, was running, and Allegiance was the result.

Allegiance provides the Allegiance Engage Platform, a suite of Web and phone-based solutions that help companies to collect real-time feedback. Companies use Engage to gather, analyze and respond to customer and employee complaints, comments and suggestions, which lead to greater employee and customer loyalty and engagement.

The South Jordan company has been so successful that it has had four consecutive years of triple digit growth. Allegiance serves more than 1,700 customers of all sizes across a variety of industries. Some of the company's higher profile clientele include Overstock.com, Mountain American Credit Union, 1-800 Contacts and Staples.

Adam likes to say the sky's the limit where Allegiance is concerned. His first priority is to build a good business, and he believes the rest will take care of itself.

For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.