For Los Angeles software company iolo Technologies, the accolades just keep coming. At the eighth annual American Business Awards in June in New York, it was crowned Fastest-Growing U.S. Company (in all industries except services) for the second year running, and its CEO named U.S. Executive of the Year in computer services and software. iolo has also been recognized several times on the Deloitte Fast 50 list of fastest-growing companies.
CEO Noah T Rowles set up the company in 1998 and it has always been privately held, self-funded, debt-free and profitable. The world leader in PC tune-up software that repairs, optimizes and protects Windows computers, iolo has 30 million users and last year expanded its global presence from 16 to 33 countries.
Its flagship product, System Mechanic®, is the best-selling PC performance software in the UK, France, Benelux countries, the U.S. and Canada, commanding 85 percent and 98 percent of the growing American and Canadian PC tune-up software markets. Revenues grew more than 80 percent in 2008 and over 30 percent again in 2009, roughly doubling Iolo’s profits last year – in stark contrast to the software industry’s overall revenue decline of 7.2 percent in 2009.
As a self-taught software engineer with business skills, Rowles started iolo with one employee and “a few thousand dollars from my personal savings account”. He aims for a long-term relationship with staff, focusing on quality, not quantity. “If you look hard enough and offer the right work atmosphere, you can find people so smart and productive they can fill the role of several others. That’s how iolo is today,” he says. “That said, our staff grew by 45 percent last year alone.
“Success is a culmination of innovation, focus, strategy and an honest love for what you do. First you have to believe you can do it. Then you have to do it.”
Of the future, he says: “We’re working on some exciting new products for release in late 2010 or 2011. I can’t disclose any details yet, except that I’m very excited about their disruptive market potential.”
SOFTWARE BUSINESSES
Canada’s top performer is also a software business. In June, Varicent Software Inc of Toronto came top of the 2010 PROFIT 100 list of the country’s fastest growing companies. The $25 million sales performance management software developer posted a five-year growth of 12,473 percent and boasts such major clients as Getty Images, Cisco and Starwood Hotels.
President and CEO of Varicent is Dan Shimmerman, 38, who set up the company in 2004 with Marc Altshuller, now Executive Vice President, when they both left software developer Clarity Systems. Shimmerman, a chartered accountant, had identified that conventional accounting programs can’t handle such variables as sales, pricing, collections, returns and different regions, and launched Varicent to offer software that bypasses commission complexity and counter-productive bonus schemes which discourage businesses from analysing their incentives’ results.
In the first year, sales fell short of $200,000. By February 2010, Varicent’s revenues topped $25.1 million. Shimmerman anticipates sales of $35 million in 2010 and $100 million within three years. And he has backing. Last autumn, his company raised $35 million in U.S. venture capital.
He accounts for his company’s rapid rise by being “focused on solving a problem that businesses really care about – aligning the sales organization and driving desired behaviors. We hire and empower good people, who have a passion for what they do and for success,” he says. “We stay humble, yet we set supremely audacious goals for ourselves. And we deal with failure by accepting it, and quickly moving on.”
Shimmerman’s personal mantra for success, he adds, is: “Love what you do, find others who share that love, and then go at it with all you’ve got.”
The sheer size of Brazil – over 3.3 million square miles – and the impassability of much of its terrain makes flying cross-country commonplace. And while Brazil’s economy has flourished during the economic crisis, its air transport market has soared. Brazilian carriers collectively grew domestic RPKs 35 percent in the first quarter of 2010, following similar growth last year.
GOL Transportes Aereos, launched in 2001 as the first low-fare airline in Brazil, is the fastest growing airline in South America. It’s also the largest operator of the Next Generation Boeing 737 in Latin America, operating both the 700 and 800 versions on routes across Brazil. In less than five years, its market share grew from five to 36 percent, and its stock price doubled; today GOL is valued at $6 billion, carries 30 million passengers annually and constitutes 42 per cent of Brazil’s air travel market. It currently offers over 530 daily flights to 55 airports throughout Brazil and South America, operating a simplified fleet with one class of service.
The airline is a subsidiary of the conglomerate Grupo Áurea, owned by the family of GOL’s founder, President and CEO, Constantino de Oliveira Junior, 41. For him, technology is the key business strategy. “GOL was the first Brazilian airline to enable ticketless travel via the Internet, offering passengers Web, mobile, kiosk and PDA-based check-in,” he says. “We recently introduced voice-recognition software, allowing customers in 1,000 cities to book flights through our call centre. Without staffing costs, this reduces our cost per seat booking by 75 percent.”
LOW MAINTENANCE, FUEL AND TRAINING COSTS
Having one of the most modern fleets in the industry means low maintenance, fuel and training costs, with high aircraft utilization and efficiency ratios. GOL has placed Latin America’s largest aircraft order – 101 planes to be delivered by Boeing by 2012 – and plans to expand into the Mexican aviation market.
One British company to have felt an uplift recently is MJM International. The Glasgow-based lingerie company expects to break the £1 million profit barrier this year after its accounts showed a 12 percent rise in sales. Michelle Mone, 39, created Ultimo, now the UK’s leading designer lingerie brand, and launched MJM International in 1996. Her business includes eight patented inventions and brands including swimwear and partner lines for Debenhams (with 22 shops within stores across the UK), Tesco and Asda. It also supplies Next, House of Fraser, Grattan, Littlewoods, Figleaves and ASOS.com and a number of independent lingerie stores throughout Europe. This year it has expanded into women’s wear with Ultimo Couture, a line of luxury evening gowns and cocktail dresses, and is launching Ultimo Beauty.
Having always kept sales figures close to its chest, the company published its full accounts for the first time in 2009, showing sales up 14 percent in the year and pre-tax profits by 66 percent to £919,000. The current financial year has seen further gains in both sales and profits, thanks to growing demand from retailers including Tesco and Asda.
SERIOUS OFFERS
Mone has received some serious offers to buy MJM since it was valued at £48 million. “We’re seen as one of the hottest brands in the UK,” she says. “But we’re not interested at the moment as we’re a cash-rich company with no need for outside investors.” She and her husband recently bought out the stakes of entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter and Ian Grabiner, Chief Executive of fashion group Arcadia, for £800,000, to acquire full control of the business.
Awarded an OBE for services to business in the 2010 New Year’s Honours, Mone has won many awards and accolades, is a director of Prince Charles’ Scottish Youth Business Trust and Main Council, and has shared speaking platforms with Clinton and Gorbachev. She attributes her success to “an incredibly simple concept: giving today’s women what they want. I see Ultimo becoming a global lifestyle brand,” she says. “And if things continue at their current pace, we’ll be there in five years.”
For two Indian entrepreneurs it’s waste that is proving a winner. India’s huge volume of e-waste – some 300,000 tons a year, both locally generated and imported – poses a serious threat to human health and the environment. Recent MBA graduates Nakul Kumar and Mandeep Manocha are founder-directors of ReGlobe, a waste management company which disposes of mobile e-waste, collecting it from end-users at mobile phone stores and service centres across India, and from corporate offices nationwide.
Established only last year, ReGlobe has grown at impressive speed, bagging its first contract with the take-back programme for one of the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers. It also consults for projects, including the disposal of used fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), printer cartridges and drinks packaging.
The business has generated over 20 times its start-up seed money in consultation and project management work. Kumar says funding is now no problem: “Venture capitalists are always looking for green projects”. He believes stricter legislation on environmentally sound waste management practices is leading to more opportunities. Already the only company in India in the end-of-life product disposal domain, ReGlobe’s aim for the next decade is to work with electronic goods manufacturers and bring together industry’s main players on a common platform to launch India’s first e-waste collection-cum-knowledge centres.
“The major barrier to the business model is ignorance of the environmental impact of discarding e-waste or selling it to the unorganised sector,” says Manocha. “Efforts should begin at consumer level.” Accordingly, ReGlobe has run a two-week recycling education campaign in 250 corporate offices in six cities.
