Expat talent draws software company to Auckland

An American-based software developer has chosen Auckland as the site of its new development centre, with plans to create at least 20 new jobs by the end of the year.

Software developer Mathias Client Management Software (MCMS) plans to spend $2.5 million moving its software development centre to New Zealand, adding to the 10 staff it already employs here.

It has hired former Terabyte executive Rodney Prescott to manage the Newmarket development centre.

As well as local talent, the company is putting out its feelers for expatriates wanting to return home.

MCMS is an offshoot of Mathias and Company, a consulting firm which works with some of the world's largest banks and professional services firms to improve the profitability of client relationships.

Chief executive and chairman Peter Mathias said that in the late 1990s it became clear the existing customer relationship management (CRM) software, which had grown up out of call centre or sales force automation solutions, was not meeting the needs of his clients.

Starting with a team which had built a Lotus Notes-based CRM and knowledge management system at ABN Amro bank, in 1998 Dr Mathias set up a software development centre in London to build a client management system.

"High value professional services such as lawyers, accountants, banks, consultants and people who sell complex systems work on e-mail, so they want to use e-mail for client management rather than going into a big CRM application - it's cheaper and more scaleable," Dr Mathias said.

The foundation customer was Deutsche Bank, and the software company now has three large clients and is building up the capacity to take on more.

"The dotcom crash will help us because it's made clients more aware of return on investment. If you come in to a firm trying to sell a $20 million CRM system they will throw you out - there is essentially no 'big' out there," he said.

In the same way Mathias followed customers into software, it is following its staff.

"Setting ourselves up in London we had people working for us from all over the world, and by far the best performers were Australians and New Zealanders.

"That surprised us because you don't usually associate this part of the world with programming horsepower, but the kind of programming we want is ideally suited to the way these guys program - it's pragmatic, it's can-do, it's fast-turnaround time.

"Australasia has a lot more people with five to seven years programming experience with multiple-language skills - it's extremely rare elsewhere to get someone who does four languages.

"That's one reason these guys did well."

Once it became clear the talent could be sourced here, and a suitable manager became available, the decision was made to move MCMS's entire production effort.

Dr Mathias, who is a contemporary of Michael Porter on Harvard business school's doctoral programme, concurs with his theories on the knowledge economy, particularly with regard to clustering.

"We'd like to partner with other entrepreneurs. The key to the knowledge wave is getting entrepreneurs.

"The New Zealand market is not big enough so how do you get kiwi entrepreneurs to scale up fast, and how do you link with clients in the Northern Hemisphere?"

He said the combined IT budgets of Mathias and Company's clients was $US30 billion. "We would love to partner with Kiwi and Aussie companies with excellent products we could take to clients. And once you have one of these clients, it's only a matter of time before you scale up."