I ink Ergo I am but it doesn't stop there

WORKING LIFE: John Purdy may have started off recycling inkjets and toner cartridges but, thanks to a growing range of technology services, he tells Ciaran Brennan he has big plans.'We driveourselves very hard, looking for what extra we can do for the customer'

When John Purdy says he plans to grow his technology business Ergo aggressively and double its turnover in the next five years, you tend to believe him. After all, this is a man who, along with business partner Tim Sheehy, expanded his company from humble beginnings in a garage and a spare bedroom into a €25 million specialist provider of technology solutions employing more than 100 people in less than 10 years.

Mr Purdy, who is currently managing director of Ergo, set up the company along with his friend Mr Sheehy in 1993, having spotted the opportunity to recycle used toner cartridges and inkjets and turn them into low-cost, high-quality generic cartridges and inkjets.

"I had been watching the market evolve in other European markets," said Mr Purdy, who was general manager of IT product distributor Sharptext.

"We did a bit of research, worked with Enterprise Ireland, or Forbairt as it was then, and we started producing cartridges in Tim's garage in Cabra."

At the same time, Mr Purdy carried out the sales and marketing for the company from a spare bedroom in his house in Blackrock. Both men had given up very good jobs - Mr Sheehy was managing director of Gateaux - to launch the company.

"I think both of us felt we had gone to the end of the road in our existing careers. We could easily have turned up for work every Monday morning and continued to do what we were doing and make decent money but the challenge needed to be rejuvenated in some way," he says.

"It was very daunting - daunting moving from being around a team of people that you could get moral support and practical support from, to getting up one Monday morning and walking across to the spare bedroom and saying you're at work and having to do everything from typing letters to buying stamps, things you never had to do when you worked in a bigger organisation."

Nevertheless, the company was profitable from its inception, generating turnover of €253,950 in its first year.

Today, it is virtually unrecognisable from its early days, having evolved into provider of a wide range of technology solutions, support services and products.

"We were starting to build up a customer base but we were only selling one product so we felt we needed a bigger range," he says. "The obvious move if you're selling computer consumables is to start selling printers, printing services and software development services."

Ergo now lists the likes of Canada Life, The Irish Times, KPMG, Beaumont Hospital, Bank of Scotland, Dell, Microsoft, Ulster Bank, Schering Plough, and Glanbia among its clients, while it partners industry heavyweights such as Hewlett-Packard, Software AG and IBM.

But Mr Purdy is not one to rest on his laurels. Despite generating revenues of around €25 million, Mr Purdy decided to carry out a strategic review of the business as part of his plan to grow revenues to €60 million in the next five years. The review involved looking at everything from its customer base, the competition and office systems to canvassing staff for their opinions.

Today, Ergo has three divisions: IT products, which provides equipment, supplies and computer consumables; managed services, which puts people, processes and technology in place to help leverage an organisation's investment in IT; and systems integration, which offers bespoke technology solutions and advice.

"We manage and take over responsibility for computer, printer and network services, not to displace existing staff, but to enhance what they are doing and releasing them to other critical functions," he says, adding that its systems integration division develops software to allow organisations to reduce the costs of operations dramatically.

"We have recently released software which allows financial institutions to accept applications by e-mail or fax, check it against a scorecard and respond to the applicant within 30 minutes," he says.

Mr Purdy cites staff as the key element that differentiates a team like Ergo. "Doing what we do from 8.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. five days a week is really what everybody else in the marketplace does. We might do a bit differently, we do aspects a bit smarter, but it's being about being able to go that extra yard when the customer really needs us," says Mr Purdy.

"We drive ourselves very hard, looking for what extra we can do for the customer, looking for other opportunities to enhance the relationship we have with the client, so it becomes more than just a supplier/vendor relationship."

He knows each of his 100-plus staff by first name. "It's something that comes natural to us. It's not something we have to work on," says Mr Purdy, adding that Ergo places great emphasis on training and development. "We take in people often without experience, very often at a young age; we work with them and we spend a significant amount of money on training. Slowly and surely, we migrate them up through an organisation."

As a result, the company did not suffer from the tightness in the labour market that many firms did a few years ago. "We didn't suffer the same fatalities that others suffered in this industry during the crazy seasons of 2000 and early 2001 where there was a huge amount of mobility in the marketplace because we work with people," he says.

Nor did it suffer from the more recent slowdown in technology markets. "We spoke very earnestly to our fee-earners, our sales people particularly and said: 'this is a changing marketplace. A lot of you have never worked in a recession before; you've got to scrap harder for the business. It's not going to come at you as easy as it may have been coming at you a year ago. We need to increase the whole level of activity.' Our numbers have improved since that decision, and not only our financial numbers; we've also employed around 10 extra people."

Sales has been in Mr Purdy's blood. He got into the selling business with Fannin Healthcare when he left school, while studying in the College of Marketing by night.

But he really learned his trade at Sharptext. "I joined Sharptext in 1985 as a sales person and from there I moved into sales management and then into general management. Since 1985, I have been in a selling environment and I'm still very much involved in selling in this company," he says.

There was a time when Mr Purdy worked seven days a week in the company. But despite plans to more than double revenues, he says he has managed to get a sense of proportion into his life.

When he is not chasing customers, he spends his free time chasing his two young sons - Conor aged seven and Cian aged 18 months. Originally from Finglas, he now lives in Blackrock with his wife Audrey.

Away from the pressure cooker that is selling, he is an avid follower of Manchester United and he tries to get to Old Trafford whenever he can. "Not enough, but I try to get there three or four times a year," he says.

Going to the gym and walking also allow him to get things in perspective, he says. "It's good to clear the mind and to keep my health in business," he says. "I use that time to clear my head or think out an issue."