 Calgary Herald /
Christina McGill, centre, started BenchMark
Technologies in 1995 selling specialized software
to business. She is with Web master Kathy Thomson
and support technician Paul Kuszyk.
|
It exists on the Internet, it's lifeline, where the company sells its wares, meets with clients and in fact where staff members from around the world meet to discuss projects.
BenchMark caters to Fortune 500 firms such as the Royal Dutch Shell Group, SHL Systemhouse, ABN Ambro Bank, BPAmoco, the Bank of Montreal. They are all companies with a heavy reliance on computing that employ large numbers -- sometimes thousands -- of programmers.
And although BenchMark sells a product and services that range from $50,000 to $800,000 per client, its 18 employees are scattered around the globe.
BenchMark's founder and largest owner, Christina McGill, operates the three-staff headquarters from a combined office and home in Calgary's Beltline district. The lead programmer lives in the U.K. while other programmers and staff are based as far afield as Brisbane, Australia, and Gabriola Island, B.C.
Other employees of Benchmark, which in 1992 was nominated for a Manning Award for high-tech innovation, are situated in The Netherlands, the U.S. and other countries.
McGill, 50, a Saskatchewan native, explains that her virtual company wasn't always that way.
Founded in Calgary in 1985, BenchMark's premier product, the Integrated Software Processing Workframe or ISPW, was developed by McGill, who was then with DMR Consulting Group at Shell Canada Ltd. in the mid-1980s. The company's first client beyond Shell was Dome Petroleum Ltd., eventually swallowed by Amoco Canada in a $6-billion takeover.
ISPW is used to manage, integrate and maintain the complex programming work done by large numbers of individuals working in separate locations and on different applications.
"ISPW makes sure you don't shoot each other in the foot," says McGill.
Clients speak highly of ISPW, noting it is, in many respects, superior to competitive products.
"I think their tool is really great. It's cool and I'm glad we chose it," says Pam Perrott, a Bellevue, Wash.-based senior business systems analyst with client Airtouch Cellular.
"It keeps track of where everything is."
As the company progressed through its initial stages -- located in a downtown office complex -- it became clear that the people and clients McGill wanted to work with were scattered around the world. They weren't interested in coming to Calgary -- at least not on a permanent basis.
"We had to figure out how we could work with these really excellent people. We had to find some way to make things work for them," McGill recalls.
"The whole thing just sort happened by us trying to accommodate the people that we really wanted to be with."
Along the way BenchMark has been what technical people call "early adopters," quickly utilizing new technological developments, particularly in the area of voice and image communications such as Lotus Notes and instant messaging. The company also has become adept at the use of the Internet as a vehicle for marketing, distribution and sales.
Potential customers can test their software over the 'Net, with or without assistance from a BenchMark representative and company staff can remotely monitor product installations.
"In the early '90s, when the Internet was just becoming a word that people started to hear and e-mail was becoming more common, we got on to that as fast as we could," says McGill. "We started a Web site and we all got e-mail addresses, then the whole communications layer of the Internet and how people can have connections through (an Internet Service Provider) came along. It's fantastic."
Despite their disparate locations, McGill and her colleagues have regular meetings among themselves and with clients over the Internet. McGill's desk is distinguished by not one but two sets of microphone-equipped headsets -- one for the computer and the other for her phone.
She notes that using the Internet for meetings and two-way voice and text conversations, in real time, has also allowed BenchMark to vastly reduce its long distance telephone charges.
The emergence of BenchMark as a virtual firm allowed it in 1996 to move from its costly downtown offices, a space that increasingly wasn't being properly utilized as staff began to work from home.
"More and more people do like to work at home, especially programmers, and even people who were here in Calgary, like the guy who moved to Gabriola, he liked that lifestyle and we were really encouraging that.
"And if we were on the phone every day with people everywhere else, what real difference did it make if he was someplace else?"
McGill says she remains surprised by BenchMark's success.
"We never, never thought anything would happen with it, it just took on a life of its own. The thing that has made it work is all the tools."
