Syspro, a locally-based provider of broad enterprise software for small to medium enterprises, has the enviable record of never having had to lay off staff, despite having been in the game for a quarter of a century.
Syspro CEO Phil Duff spoke to ITWeb about his 25 years in the business, how Syspro manages to remain competitive in the face of some major challenges and his views on the dot-com boom and subsequent crash.
"My brother and I began the company in 1978 and we got our first real break into the big time when we acquired the source code for an accounting package called Stars, which we converted from the old Assembler code into Unix," says Duff.
"Since then we have taken this core product and evolved it, as the markets have changed. We always made sure that there`s an upgrade path, so our business is still effectively based around the same product, although it has changed dramatically since the early days."
He says it is a source of pride that the organisation - which now has five offices around the world and some 6 000 customers in total - still has clients that have been with the company since its inception.
"We also have one of the lowest rates of staff turnover in the business, with some of our key staff members having been with us 15 years or more, so we must be doing something right," he says.
"I think the continuity factor in terms of our staff and customers, along with the fact that we have a somewhat different work ethic to the majority of our competitors, has helped us to maintain our strong market position."
According to Duff, Syspro runs a fairly relaxed office, where staff all work on a first name basis and the CEO`s door is always open, should people have issues to discuss.
"It depends on where in the world you are, as each office has its own way of doing things - our other offices are based in Sydney, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Manchester - but in SA, we are fairly laid back.
"We have some 350 on our staff worldwide, which is a far cry from when we started, with just four people working in the company. The important thing is that our growth has always been organic, which is one of the reasons we have never had to lay off staff," says Duff.
He believes that another reason for the company`s success is the fact that he has never allowed it to list on the stock exchange.
"In the lead up to the now-infamous dot-com crash, many people called me and asked me when I was planning to list, but thank God I didn`t.
"Firstly, I wasn`t prepared to have to bow to the whims of shareholders, and I wasn`t really interested in the `get-rich-quick` attitude that dominated the industry at that time. I`d also heard horror stories from colleagues regarding the things they had to do to meet shareholder expectations, and some of them were things they weren`t really proud of."
In the lead up to the now-infamous dot-com crash, many people called me and asked me when I was planning to list, but thank God I didn`t.
Phil Duff, CEO, Syspro
Duff says that although the organisation`s growth has slowed since the dot-com crash, it has not stopped, and he believes the industry will begin to experience real growth when the next compelling technology is released.
"There is nothing around at the moment that has really caused any major excitement in the industry, although I do feel that there are some bright things on the horizon.
"I think that there may be some kind of upturn for the industry by 2004, as people will soon have to begin to reinvest in hardware, because it is something that only has a lifecycle of a few years, and this is coming to an end."
Despite these views on the future, Duff is adamant that he does not really like the concept of "crystal-ball-gazing", as he says there are too many things that cannot be predicted that can influence the sector, such as the SARS virus or the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which can affect it in unforeseen ways.
"Of course, we do still keep an eye on the future. We have made it through the rocky times without being as adversely affected as many of our rivals, so now we plan to be ready when the upturn in the industry comes."
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