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Tenrox Software Program Helps Busy Executives Track Records Or Specific Projects And Standardize Office Processes
Tuesday 3 July 2001, by DEREK CASSOFF Freelance

It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention. Just ask Ara Israilian and his three colleagues, who felt so overwhelmed by paperwork when they launched a computer consulting firm back in 1995 that they felt it was necessary to invent a software program to keep track of their invoicing and hectic schedules.

MARIE-FRANCE COALLIER, GAZETTE Tenrox founder Ara Israilian (far right) says economic downturns provide a good incentive for companies to ensure their employees are working effectively. With him are: Edwin Badalian, Rafat Hilal and company president Rudolf Melik.

"When it came to things like time sheets, we saw that a lot of companies were still using archaic, outdated systems," Israilian said. "In this age of the personal computer, we realized that almost every company could use a convenient and efficient tool."

So successful was the product they created that the four friends soon abandoned the consulting end of their venture and turned their full-time attention to selling their invention and developing more applications.

Today, Tenrox Inc. is one of Quebec's leading developers of business-optimization software products, a newly emerging sector of the software industry that aims to help companies automate much of their paper-intensive administrative work.

Sold as individual modules, or together under the brand name Tenrox PSA, Tenrox's software enables companies to standardize all of their internal business processes, from employee scheduling to expense and invoice tracking.

Many companies use the software to manage specific projects; employees can enter data such as how much money they have spent on a project or how many hours they have logged.

Managers can monitor the data to determine whether projects fall behind schedule or are prone to come in over budget.

More than 600 companies around the world currently use Tenrox software, ranging from high-tech giants like IBM and Ericsson to financial-service companies like Liberty Insurance and Visa.

"Basically, we cater to any company with a project-oriented philosophy," said Tenrox's director of public relations. "Luckily for us, that's about 90 per cent of companies."

About 70 per cent of sales are to the United States, with the remainder of the business spread out between Canada, Australia, Europe and Asia.

In order to keep up with demand, the company relocated last summer from cramped offices above a Cartierville shopping mall to a spacious new building in one of Laval's high-technology parks.

The firm employs 72 people and is looking to add another 30 within the next few months in the areas of sales, software development and technical support.

Although they compete in a crowded field, with dozens of rival companies racing to develop more efficient software programs, Tenrox officials attribute Tenrox PSA's popularity to the fact that the software is simple to install, easy to use and translates into cost savings for companies as managers, saved from paper-intensive record keeping, are free to concentrate on more meaningful tasks.

The products consistently score well in comparison reviews against rival products and have won numerous awards, including a 2000 Codie Award for Best Enterprise Software Debut from the Software and Information Industry Association.

Israilian also attributed part of the company's success to an aggressive sales campaign, conducted almost entirely through e-mail communication and over the Internet with online product demonstrations.

An increasing number of clients, particularly those without in-house information-technology departments, are choosing to rent the software through an Application Service Provider model, whereby Tenrox houses and maintains the infrastructure.

In the meantime, Tenrox's software-development team continues to work at a feverish pace in a bid to introduce new applications in the coming years.

By the end of this summer, they expect to have a wireless version on the market, which will enable users to enter data from Web-enabled pagers and cellular phones.

And they are pushing ahead with plans to create Spanish and German versions of the software, to complement their existing lines of English and French products.

Worries of an impending economic slowdown have left company officials even more hopeful that sales will continue to grow. "Our solutions help companies optimize their resources," said the director of personal relations.

"When the economy turns sour, companies want to make sure that the employees they have left are working effectively."

As for Israilian and Tenrox's other would-be consultants - company president Rudolf Melik and vice-presidents Edwin Badalian and Rafat Hilal - they remain close friends both at work and away from the office.

"We're really in awe of what has happened," said Israilian, 36, the oldest of the group. "You can say that the friendship has really helped the business, and the business has really helped the friendship."

Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive and The Montreal Gazette Group Inc., A division of Southam Publications, a CanWest Company.