As you read this, Rudolf Melik is packing for California.
The president and CEO of Montreal-based Tenrox Inc. will open the new headquarters of the time and billing software company in Pasadena, Calif., at the end of the month, just weeks after launching an overhaul of the firm’s products.
The
Canadian headquarters, research and development and the majority of its 100 employees will remain in Quebec.
But with 70 per cent of the company’s $9 million in sales coming from the U.S. Melik believes it needs to do more than open a symbolic U.S. sales office.
So the 37-year-old will move his wife and two children to the sunny southwest. “”They’re not very happy,”” he acknowledged in a phone interview.
However, it means the company will be closer to customers of the Windows-based application, which deeply integrates into Microsoft Project.
“”Since 9/11 business has become more difficult. There’s more involved in a sale. Customers want to know you are there, want more details about the company, the return on investment.
“”But it’s good. Once the contract is signed there’s real commitment to the project.””
Moving to L.A. also means Melik will be closer to watching his beloved pro basketball.
Among the people he admires is former superstar player Michael Jordan for his tenaciousness, and L.A. Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
Others include former U.S. president Bill Clinton “”for his incredible ability to motivate and communicate a vision . . . He was fantastic at it, the best I’ve ever seen””; and the fictional Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard, for his emotional control and strength.
Conference rooms at the company have Trek-themed names, like ‘The Battle Bridge.’
Melik likes people who are bold, which describes the gamble it made in changing the company’s product, called Tenrox, from client-server to a Web-based application better suited for hosting.
Despite the tech industry slump two years ago, the firm hired 20 software engineers and spent millions on this vision.
But Melik believes that within three years as much as 40 per cent of the company’s business will come from the hosted product.
It’s almost as big as the bet-the-company move he made several years ago when it approached Microsoft Corp. with the bold suggestion of letting Tenrox be integrated into Project.
That was quite a step for a company that began in 1995 when Melik and three buddies from McGill University’s software engineering program — Ara Israilian, Rafat Hilal and Edwin Badalian — formed a software consulting firm.
They soon noticed that their clients had common problems: projects were late, over-budget and lacked controls over expense reports and time sheets.
They decided to write their own app, which debuted in 1997 as Office Time Sheet. Melik’s brother, Ludwig, joined the founders to head the sales effort.
By 1999 the product’s name had changed to Tenrox (“”10 is tops, perfection,”” explained Melik, “”and it rhymes with 10 Rocks.””) and sales were increasing enough for the founders to give up consulting.
Looking for a niche, Tenrox realized Microsoft Project didn’t do time sheet management very well. So it proposed U.S. giant let their products work together: Where other time sheet applications had to import or export data to and from Project, information entered in Tenrox would automatically create a document in Project.
Tenrox became a Microsoft Gold partner, getting referrals from Microsoft resellers, and in turn referring potential Project customers to them.
It also has strategic partnerships with software providers such as SAP, Accpac, QuickBooks, Business Objects, Oracle and IBM, as well as channel deals with project management consulting firms.
Over the years the product has also broadened into workflow and professional services automation applications.
Two years ago it was time for another transformation, an XML-based version.
“”We bet the company on release 8.0,”” Melik says of the just-released products.
The standard version sells for $125 per module per seat, while the hosted version starts at $14 a seat a month. Channel partners get a cut of hosted sales.
So from his California perch, Melik will see the basketball palace where his heroes play and the studios where Star Trek is filmed.
From there he will also ponder the next place where, as Jean-Luc Picard might say, Tenrox will boldly go.