KEY POINTS:
After seven years' hard work, Datum Connect managing director Danny Ing has earned the chance to cash in on the odd company perk. Such as taking up a customer's offer of free passes to some of this year's New York Fashion Week shows. He'll be working, he insists, "some of the time".
With 800-odd customers on its books, 85 per cent of them referrals, and expansion plans for franchises in Australia, the Auckland web designer is on a roll. It's also a finalist in the BDO Spicers under-$5 million category of the Vero Excellence in Business Support awards in May.
From its Mt Wellington office, the company's 22 staff create and maintain websites for businesses. With 400-odd web designers in Auckland, Datum Connect's point of difference is an emphasis on sales as well as technology and design.
The company factors in the psychology behind how people browse and shop, rather than just supplying functions to let them do that, says Gabor Sareczky, the franchising development manager, co-founder and, as Ing calls him, the "sales and marketing guy". For example, the company tries to keep navigation simple by sticking to a two-click rule: any information should take no more than two mouse clicks to find.
"We build websites that understand the way people learn and make decisions - it's not just putting up six pages with your logo and the six most important things you want people to know," says Sareczky.
The company also runs a series of educational seminars about managing a business online, and prefers to assist in creating a marketing plan before agreeing to work with a customer.
Datum Connect is also "committed" to excel at linking software systems, says managing director and "technical guy" Ing. As any business owner who's tried to DIY their own website knows, if the accounting and inventory systems don't "talk" to each other properly, major headaches ensue.
The company's largest customer is Penguin New Zealand. With 250,000 books in stock, Penguin needs to automatically update its website according to sales at least six times a day. That means its accounting system and the website's inventory have to be linked accurately, no mean feat when each system could be from different software, says Ing.
Kerry Bradburn, the founder of online flower shop Wild Poppies, signed up with Datum Connect following "heaps of problems" with her first website, such as having to call in technical experts whenever she wanted to update her prices.
Bradburn had shut all but one of her five bricks-and-mortar stores to focus on web sales and says the flexibility to change prices and information when she wanted was hugely important. Datum Connect proved to be a "very positive influence" for marketing and managing the business, and once the web designer came on board business doubled, she says, but adds growth was also driven by the increasing popularity of online shopping.
Wild Poppies' needs have changed and Bradburn has since moved on to another developer. However, she sold the Datum Connect-built site to a fashion retailer and says the transition was easy.
Keeping ahead of the pack in the fast-paced world of IT is a constant challenge, says Sareczky. The company is now designing and adapting sites for mobile phone screens, following overseas trends that show increasing numbers of people are shopping online from their mobile phone.
Kiwis have adapted well to the internet as shoppers and businesses; about 80 per cent of Bradburn's customers are local whereas when she went online in 1998 most were from overseas. A December survey by media researcher ACNielsen showed that 65 per cent of New Zealand's 2.3 million regular internet users aged 18 and over planned to buy something online for Christmas, equating to an online Christmas shopping population of nearly 1.5 million people.
And Ing says businesses have more realistic expectations of what a website should do, and are less focused than they were on having flashy bells and whistles.
Times have certainly changed for Datum Connect. The three founders (Rob Williams has since sold out of the company) set up shop with one PC in a rented South Auckland bungalow, their office for five years. While working for email and text marketing company Message Media, Ing had created a content management system for ASB which for the first time allowed marketers and economists to send newsletters and update information online themselves rather than call in the tech staff.
He won a Nexus Gold award from the Marketing Association of New Zealand, ditched the job and set up a company based on the product. The venture failed but through it he met Sareczky and Williams, and the trio set up Datum Connect. In those days investors were "throwing money" at IT companies, says Ing, but the three preferred to stay independent and self-funded their progress.
One of the first customers was Auckland catering company Relish, which then had five catering operations. Sareczky and Ing pitched their product and services for $600, but Relish so liked what was on offer it spent three times as much. Today the same offering would be worth around $3000.
The company has a Dutch sister company called Red Kiwi, set up by a former employee, and five sales and project management franchises - the technological stuff is still done by the team at the Mt Wellington head office. Sareczky is bullish on the company's expansion prospects, claiming there will be 30 sales and marketing franchises in Australia by the end of 2010, and there's also a Melbourne technical office on the cards.
The company also has its tech-related quirks. The office is practically paperless; all billing, banking and memos are done online. And staff Skype each other, even if they're sitting right next to the person they want to talk to. It takes less effort than to turn and get someone's attention, insists Ing, laughing.
Business is done electronically as well; first-time customers are met in person but only 10 per cent still want face time after that, says Sareczky.
Retaining staff is hugely important because it can take up to six months to properly train some IT staff, Ing says. Consequently, staff rewards are taken seriously and the company website boasts a huge photo gallery of staff activities such as white-water rafting, skiing and skydiving. However, the latest carrot is to work in the proposed Melbourne office.