When clients of Key Information Systems talked of what could be done to copy data as part of its disaster recovery plan, company president Lief Morin and his staff sprang into action. The Woodland Hills firm picked a storage replication program, trained the engineering staff how to use it, and talked about the program with the sales team resulting in an implementation in the marketplace. The process started because those clients were at some stage of thinking about or planning a method of replicating data between computers. “If every one of my clients is in that mode we need to have that technology and need to be able to provide that technology solution to our client base,” Morin said. Many of the 50 Fastest Growing Private Companies on the Business Journal’s list this year are in the technology industry. In this fast-changing industry, companies providing products and services need to act fast as well. Depending on what segment of the industry they cater to, those companies find it beneficial to be ahead of the curve of the latest technology trends, anticipating client needs before even the client knows it. “We constantly have to innovate and we constantly look for performance improvements and product enhancements,” said Bruce Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of Strix Systems, a Calabasas-based wireless networking equipment supplier. Strix is on its third generation of product in six years and invests heavily in research and development. Competing against larger firms going after the same clients becomes all that much easier when Strix can offer a product that is done right, Brown said. “We have to offer a superior product for less money that will compel a customer to leave their comfort zone on who they buy from,” Brown said. With an 85 percent growth from 2004 to 2005, Strix Systems landed at number four on the San Fernando Valley Business Journal’s fastest growing private companies list. At Key Information number 16 on the fastest growing list with a 40 percent growth from 2004 to 2005 keeping ahead of the tech curve is a do or die proposition. “We are the company our client comes to asking questions about what is coming down the pike,” Morin said. To have the answers, Morin meets at least twice a year with the engineering and sales teams to discuss technology and coming advances; to hear from the teams what they read in trade journals and how advances may influence what the company offers in the next 12 month period. As a partner with IBM, Key will bring in representatives from that company to hear from them about industry trends and what their hot technologies are for the coming year to 18 months. As a much smaller company, Key does not have the reach of IBM and instead picks new technologies that are extensions of core skill sets of its employees, Morin said. “We go out and implement business plans that they are able to execute to clients in coming years,” Morin said. As fast as technology changes, sometime the hype gets ahead of the technology. Take Web 2.0, for example, a term coined in 2004 to describe the second generation of Internet service companies. It’s one of those buzzwords that mean a lot of things to a lot of people resulting in no easy way to define it but it encompasses blogs and the YouTubes of the world, said Benjamin Kuo, operator of the SoCalTech.com website. “It’s anything where there is a new kind of service where people are participating in generating the content on websites,” Kuo said. Innovations in technology extend into many industries – manufacturing, hospitality, retail, entertainment, and healthcare. The impact hits large and small companies alike. “You walk into a restaurant all the tables are done primarily through seating software and billing software,” said Key Information’s Morin. As a server host company and Internet service provider, ISWest might be expected to stay on top of the technology curve. Not so, said Drew Kaplan, chief executive officer and chief financial officer of the Agoura Hills company. An emphasis on customer service and solid business practices draws customers to ISWest, which had the number 33 spot on the fastest growing private companies list. ISWest reported a 22 percent revenue increase from 2004 to 2005.
