About Us
Northern Light has been providing knowledge management platforms for competitive intelligence and market research insights to global enterprises since 1996. Northern Light’s current clients include Fortune 1000 leaders across multiple industries such as information technology, telecommunications, financial services, and life sciences. Northern Light has over 200,000 users of its strategic research portals worldwide.
We wake up each day ready to tackle the challenges of knowledge management and sharing in a multi-generational workplace. We’ve been around a long time but we never stand still. Recent enhancements to our market research and competitive intelligence portals include generative AI-powered question-answering and other machine learning-driven research efficiencies. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, the company is employee-owned and operated, and self-funded through profitable operations. All of Northern Light’s employees share one common characteristic — a compulsive drive to provide the very best client support possible. We are quite proud of our perfect on-time delivery record on new client portal projects; we have never once been late or over budget on a client project.
About our name
Our name was inspired by the clipper ship Northern Light. Built in Boston in 1851, her design was radically innovative, being sharply raked below the waterline. The radical design of the Northern Light created a great deal of buzz in homes, taverns, and at social gatherings all along the East Coast.
The new design of the Northern Light proved to be a great success. She set a speed record in 1854 for the voyage from San Francisco to the East Coast — a record which stood until the 1990s when it was “beaten” by a high-tech racing catamaran sailed with the aide of modern satellite navigation.
In its record-setting voyage, the Northern Light was in a head-to-head race with two other clipper ships from the New York school of clipper ship design and the race was the first sports competition between Boston and New York. Because the telegraph had been deployed by 1854, the whole nation was able to follow the race, which also made the event the first nation-wide media-broadcast sporting event.
When the Northern Light was spotted charging into Boston harbor under full sail, days ahead of the ships from New York, it touched off a wild victory party that rolled through the streets of the city for four days.
The Northern Light. Built in Boston. A radical new design. The best in its class. May we be as successful.