Drive is under way to find best people

Bronek Masojad

As a specialist insurance company, we at Hiscox know that business is all about handling risks and challenges that are often unpredictable. The tragic events of September 11 proved this - they were more horrific than anything we could have imagined. Our own exposure is manageable, but the knock-on effect for the global economy will be more severe.

These events were devastating for many people, but for some companies they present an opportunity, Executives' reluctance to fly, for example, will increase demand for other ways of communicating, such as video conferencing. This will help Raw Communications, the top Tech Track company.

However, for most companies things are likely to get worse before they get better. In this volatile business environment, focusing on fundamentals is crucial - namely recruiting and retaining the right staff, keeping costs under control and making sure customers are happy.

Ensuring you have the right people is vital in all sectors. But as Tech Track shows, attracting and retaining key staff is even more important for technology firms because IT skills have, until recently, been in short supply.

Motivation is the key to retaining staff. One Tech Track company that has found an innovative way of doing this is Eutechnyx, a computer-games developer ranked 99. The firm was set up by Brian Jobling in 1987 when he was 17 and it has 55 staff, including some with PhDs in maths and physics.

Brian's brother Paul, the marketing manager, says: "Eutechnyx is a place where people enjoy what they do because they are given jobs that suit them." They are also kept happy with perks. Appropriately for a developer of driving games, the best people get good company cars. Staff also receive royalties, which can double salaries, and Eutechnyx pays for training, often in America.

Like all companies, technology firms have to worry about profits and staff, but they face the additional challenge of living with technology that is constantly moving forward. Rapid change can leave companies behind, but it can also lead to opportunities.
For example, in 1996 March Charlton and Peter Norman, co-founders of Wireless Information Network (Win) realised that new developments in mobile-phone technology would soon make their paging company obsolete. But they saw a bigger opportunity in the new technology and set up Win to develop mobile text messaging and wireless services.

In 1997 they launched an information service for private investors with the stockbroker Charles Schwab even though few phones at the time could send or receive text.

"It bombed," says Norman. "They got the marketing wrong, but the service itself was great - it proved what we could do"
A year later they tried again, this time with better results. In 2000, Win launched Britain's most successful short messaging services promotion sending more than 1.25m messages as part of The Sun newspaper's Big Brother update service.

Another Big Brother success was the website, which reported 745m hits in 10 weeks. It was set up by Victoria Real, a producer of interactive media. Yet despite successes such as this, Victoria Real is suffering from the slow take up of interactive and digital television and has had to cut jobs.

Small technology companies have to tread a fine line. They must keep investing in research and development, even when times are bad or they will be left behind. They must innovate to meet customers' changing needs and continually look to build partnerships. It has never simply been a matter of having the best technology.