Jade succeeding with push into great unknown

A year ago, Jade Software was preparing to invade Silicon Valley and California. After battling through the Christchurch earthquakes, unprecedented travel and successfully establishing a beach-head in California, Jade Software has earned the title of the Otago Daily Times Southern Business of the Year.

Opening an office during the year in San Francisco paid dividends for Jade Software, but there is much more to the company than just establishing a beach-head in the United States.

The US was seen as the big unknown for the Christchurch-based company which has a significant operation in Dunedin.

The product at the forefront of the big push into the US was JOOB, with which jade had previously been successful when presenting at a huge technology fair in Berlin.

During the 2011 Microsoft TechEd conference in Auckland, JOOB attracted much interest from those attending and Jade scored several contracts through the year with its innovative product.

Jade managing director Craig Richardson told the Otago Daily Times there had been plenty of activity during 2011.

The earthquakes from September last year (2010) had interrupted progress in the three-year plan in transforming Jade from a services company to a marketing-leading product company.

"It was difficult to do anyway, given the global world financial situation and our own problems in Christchurch. It is a testimony to the fortitude of our staff and an understanding of the challenges we faced.

"There was no whinging, no back-off. There was just 100% dedication from our people. It was hard not to be impressed by that, personally."

What impressed Mr Richardson most about the 300 "Jade people" was that instead of him as MD having to encourage efforts in new projects, the staff were saying "bring it on".

"I couldn't have asked for a more dedicated group of people.

It is hard not to react emotionally to that sort of thing."

As the managing-director, Mr Richardson said it was part of his role to find the vision for the company and provide the leadership, but people put aside the personal tragedies they were dealing with in their lives to turn up to work.

"They were not getting out of bed for me. They were getting out of bed for their team-mates and the company. I didn't expect it, but I was not surprised."

Jade announce late this month it had sold its transtasman human resource and payroll business Empower HR to New Zealand-owned company Fusion5.

The sale formed part of Jade's strategy for future grown and allowed the company to increase its focus on other fast-growing categories in its business mobilisation, enterprise risk management and operational law enforcement, he said.

In May, Jade launched its JOOB product, which was a finalist at Microsoft's TechEd North American awards. JOOB had since been introduced to leading financial institutions and utilities companies and had entered into agreements with several system integrators.

JOOB helps businesses design, mobilise and modernise their business systems. The system is used by more than 3000 customers in 80 countries, including some of the world's best known financial institutions, utilities, logistics companies and government agencies.

The need to make the company a success had been the main focus of the staff during the year, Mr Richardson said.

Jade had been around for 30 years and had been through some tough technology and economic cycles.

"There is something special under the hood."

The year had shown Jade that it needed to keep innovating to succeed. The company had significant exposure to the United States and Europe, and dealt in two currencies many would rather not be in - the greenback and the euro.

It was exposed to economic cycles, and governments in both those markets were clients.

They were testing conditions for the company, but Jade came through in good form, he said.

Two new products were launched during the year and a new business would be launched in February.

The four markets Jade would focus on were: the cloud; mobile technology; big data; and social networks.

Mr Richardson was confident Jade had a competitive product to offer and would hold its own in 2012.

Asked about the size of Jade compared with some of its global competitors, Mr Richardson said there were good and bad sides to being Jade Software, based in Christchurch.

"I would like to be bigger as a catalyst for strong growth, a bigger market share and being more significant but we make do with what we have got.

"We can try new things quickly, and stop things that are not working and start anew."

Jade was prepared to take risks on new products and that had proved a successful strategy, he said. Customers had reacted well and in some cases, word of mouth, had meant new customers had been reached.

With the changes made to the global financial industry, processes had become more regulatory and Jade could offer products to help businesses deal with the increased regulation.

One thing Jade staff had to contend with was increased travel to distant markets, Mr Richardson said.

He was on a plane three times a week and spent nearly three weeks out of every four on the road.

Others did the same sort of travel with the Wellington sales team working in Europe and the US. The people dealing with the ports product worked out of Christchurch, but were spending increasing amounts of time in the Middle East.

It was all part and parcel of the job, he said.

Dealing directly allowed Jade staff to engage personally and establish trust and credibility. Jade was in the business of making sure it delivered what it said it would deliver.

"This is the one thing we do differently than IBM or HP - the sales guy turns up with the managing director. That gets us through the door."

Mr Richardson expected even more door knocking with prospective customers in the coming 12 months. There would be a more Australasian focus than in the past, and growth in Australia would be a target.

While that could sound odd coming from a company based in New Zealand, the focus in the past had been further afield.

Jade was establishing a JOOB Mobile team in Melbourne and was shifting its ports focus from Europe to the Middle East and South Africa.

The Jade port product was launched at the Port of Otago in 1994 and was now being used around the world. Jade chief innovation officer John Ascroft was at the forefront in the development of the port management system.

That did not mean Jade would ignore its large markets in the US, United Kingdom and Europe. The company had "quality leads" to follow up in the new year, Mr Richardson said.

"We have to make sure we invest in sales people in the right place. We are winning more than we are losing."

That had a flow-on effect to the "enthusiastic" sales people, as everyone liked to win. Being a finalist in TechEd in the US was an honour for a small development team. "They like to see people buy their stuff".

One of the problems Jade, and other New Zealand technology companies faced was lack of developer resources in the country.

Concerns about the ongoing Canterbury earthquakes would make the problem worse, Mr Richardson said.

There were also concerns about what student mix the University of Canterbury would attract next year and where aspiring developers would be housed in Christchurch.

Jade had this year received recognition for its development staff, with Mr Richardson being told the company had world-class people in its employ. One developer was regarded by his peers as the best in the world.

Next year was tipped to be a big one for the mobile business and Jade was preparing to capitalise on its JOOB products.

Budgets would be tight for clients but money would have to be spent on IT to stay competitive, he said.

Software as a service was taking off, the business intelligence market was "going crazy" and data management was becoming increasingly important.

"We need to make sure we focus on the important markets and control our processes," Mr Richardson said.

dene.mackenzie@odt.co.nz