Pioneers still lead way in IT sector

The future-oriented world of information technology is not given much to reminiscences about the old days. Yet even this State has some computer industry "father figures" who have risen with the sector.

Twenty-somethings were still in playpens when Mike Twomey and David Laird started out in a place where IT was as unfamiliar as unemployment and emigration were common. Today, the men who once had a difficult time explaining what computers were, head two of Ireland's most successful indigenous software companies.

Computer Resources, a leader in Irish payroll and accounting software solutions founded by Mike Twomey in 1980, has 64 employees and a £5 million (€6.4 million) annual turnover, Datapac, founded in Wexford as part of the J Donohoe group by David Laird a year later, employs 120 people and has a £21 million turnover. It installs computer systems and manufactures a software product, Mansermanager.

At 15 years of age, Mike Twomey left school in south Dublin in the mid-1960s with few prospects. His first job with steel and aluminium window manufacturer Smith & Pearson, where he out-sourced stock control to IBM, led to an interest in computers and a move to London, where he became a computer operator with a TV rental company.

In 1970 he returned to Dublin and a sales position for Irish Computer Bureau Services, a service carrying out payroll tasks for clients.

By 1980, Mr Twomey was trudging around recession-hit Ireland for ICBS off-shoot Memory Computers, trying to convince companies they needed his revolutionary IBM machine with its five kilobyte memory. Each bulky computer cost £10,000, and a terminal another £3,000. To sell 12 computers a year was to do very well.

Although Mr Twomey had become convinced, from reading trade magazines, that micro-computers were "the next big thing", few wanted to listen.

Mr Twomey set up Computer Resources in the family garage in south Dublin. With £6,000 start-up capital he bought three micro-computers. Within a year, the firm had expanded into two bedrooms and was preparing to move to offices in Dun Laoghaire. It had made £6,000 profit and was employing seven people.

By 1983, feeling good about the first year's profits and buoyed up by the business potential, Mr Twomey approached the IDA for employment grants. He was told he would need £100,000 in the bank.

"Looking back, we were a bit naive and hadn't done our homework properly. In any case, I have strong feelings about State grants. I think when they're made to service industry it's better to provide management and staff training than cash grants," said Mr Twomey. "I found the lack of management training was probably one of the most serious issues for us as a company. My forte was sales, I had no formal training in managing people.

"Likewise, my fellow directors had their own area of expertise but no people-management skills. In the early days, we found ourselves in a catch-22 situation - we knew we could certainly benefit from training but found the costs prohibitive,' he said.

Mr Laird, now chief executive of Datapac, was delighted just to get "a good job" in 1972, after leaving school, as a trainee programmer with Dublin food manufacturer Williams and Woods, which was later absorbed into the Nestle group.

"Those were pioneering days. We thought we were very sophisticated. Working on an IBM System 3, Model 10 computer, with 16 kb of memory, we managed to develop a full suite of accounting software," said Mr Laird.

He worked as a programmer with other companies, until in 1978, he and his wife decided to leave Dublin's traffic and crowds. Mr Laird became computer manager for the J Donohoe group in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford.

By 1981 he had itchy feet again. "I suppose I'd got to a stage where I wanted to be calling the shots," he says. He entered into an agreement whereby he would set up computer company Datapac, as part of the J Donohoe stable.

Datapac began by taking on new dealerships being offered by IBM. "It was pretty tough, right through the 1980s. The economy wasn't buoyant. Our earliest uptake was the multinationals. Irish firms were much smaller and slower about becoming involved in computers."

But Datapac, like Computer Resources, continued to grow and by 1990 both companies were well-placed to take full advantage of the coming computer boom.

They have both seen phenomenal growth in recent years. Computer Resources' £5 million turnover last year is up by 40 per cent on the previous year' s figure. Of the company's 8,500 clients, 99 per cent are in Ireland, 7,000 buy payroll software and 2,500 buy accounting software.

Last year's £15 million turnover at Datapac compares with £12 million in 1997 and £1 million in 1990. The firm has around 3,000 customers.

The two chief executives, who are taking part in a survey of knowledge management in leading Irish companies being conducted at the University of Limerick, learnt how to steer their growing companies, and to manage staff, almost solely through on-the-job experience.

"Management training would certainly have been useful in the early days," says Mr Twomey. Mr Laird says: "When it came to management style, I suppose I'd look at the multinational companies and see what they were doing. Now it's what I'd call `relaxed discipline'. You've got to be encouraging of people. I believe in people . . . getting as much responsibility as they can handle."

Do the two men have any advice for young entrepreneurs in the industry? "The most common mistake I see, and it can be heartbreaking, is guys with a good technical idea who don't put enough into the marketing side . . . You've got to think of all sides of the business when you're starting out. If you can't do it yourself, get people on board who can," said Mr Laird.