Creating Essential Software Solutions: Chris Kay, CEO of Integware Leads the Company From Insolvency to Sustained Success
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Creating Essential Software Solutions: Chris Kay, CEO of Integware Leads the Company From Insolvency to Sustained Success
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Home Page > Technology > Creating Essential Software Solutions: Chris Kay, CEO of Integware Leads the Company From Insolvency to Sustained Success
Creating Essential Software Solutions: Chris Kay, CEO of Integware Leads the Company From Insolvency to Sustained Success
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Posted: Nov 09, 2009 |Comments: 0
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Growing up in Dallas, Texas, was wonderful for Chris Kay, until the second grade when his parents divorced. As with any child, that had been difficult to handle, but it taught Chris the importance of keeping promises and the strength required to work through tough times to come out on top. Such values are among those that make Chris the kind of successful businessman that he is today.
Music has always been a passion, but it was also Chris’s ticket to college. He received a partial scholarship to the University of Texas at Arlington for jazz and classical music. Although loving music, he thought it more prudent to major in business; Chris graduated from UTA with a business degree and an emphasis on computer systems. (To this day, one of Chris’s favorite things about business is being able to solve problems with technology.) He quickly received a job at Hewlett-Packard, and dedicated himself to the company for over 17 years. What Chris loved when he started out was the company’s character, what he referred to as the H-P way. The company’s standards and practices made him a loyal employee all those years. When the organization began to lose this characteristic, he started resenting his job, unhappy with the way he saw the company moving. He was living in California when H-P transferred him to Fort Collins, CO, where he currently resides. Chris took a stand and walked away from the company, leaving him with options to pursue independent business ventures.
Chris wanted to find an entrepreneurial endeavor in which he could fully invest his career. What gave him courage was his wife’s support; she encouraged him to pursue a career that would make him happy. Chris knew that even if he crashed and burned, he could find another job and his family would still support him 100 percent. One of his firmest beliefs is that in order to start a business, one must have strong family support or the road will be that much rougher.
He made a start at a software company joining as the third employee. His second attempt was as co-founder of an enterprise data center. In his third, he was first employee, heading up the R&D department in the field of distributed energy-storage systems. His managerial experience helped him to develop each company, and the results of his involvement can still be seen. However, each company moved away from what Chris was trained to do and diverged from his business interests. What he really needed was to get into a business that he knew best.
Chris was fired from the third company after a product disagreement with the President and CEO. The two leaders had a product they wanted to get on the market as quickly as possible, but Chris-as head of R & D-did not believe it yet ready to be made public. One of the most difficult decisions he had to make was standing up for what he believed best for the company, especially knowing how poorly things could turn out for him if no one listened to his advice. They ultimately decided to go through with their plans and Chris was terminated.
He then contacted an associate from his days with Hewlett-Packard, who was running a company called Integware, a consulting service for product lifecycle management. It was going broke and desperately needed change. Chris was hired to write a business plan, but saw that it needed much more. The company’s founder had been running it for twelve years; he was tired and asked Chris if he wanted to buy Integware. Chris and his wife loved living in Fort Collins and felt he could deliver strong values to their business, so he followed through, ultimately buying the company in 2004.
With Chris in charge, the company quickly turned around. Within five years, the number of employees grew from nine to 115. One thing that Chris is very proud of is that Integware continues to hire employees and make a profit, even in tough economic times. They are currently working with two of the largest multinational providers of medical devices in the world, and have become a million business, handling growth and delivering consistent, high-quality service while avoiding substantial debt. The most important thing, Chris offers, is to “stand behind your service and product, and deliver what you say you’re going to do because most customers have been burned.” Integware’s business strategy, especially when working with large companies, is to work its way in by delivering on promises and providing solutions for their problems. Once trust is established, repeat business becomes a reality and can be quite profitable. Integware also produces software based upon problems they encounter working with other businesses.
Chris suggests that business leaders trust their instincts. Knowing what direction a company needs to take can help establish who should be added and/or removed from the team. He once had to spend quite a bit of money trying to convince an employee to leave Integware, a junior partner about whom Chris was unsure. Instead of trusting his instincts, he allowed that person into the business, only to realize too late that he was not right for the job. “It always ends up costing more money if you try to sweep those issues under the rug and ignore them.”
Chris feels that many companies have been moving away from being businesses of character, giving up the full fruits of their creativity, initiative and talent. He provides that character to Integware, which he expects will help the company move further into the life-sciences market and become international.
Chris loves working with people, figuring out how to deliver solutions of increasing value, and most importantly, building a company that stands for something. All these years later, the lessons learned from his parents’ divorce continue to inform his personal values.
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