BizAims

Even today small companies strive to achieve a great success, taking advantages of continuously developing information technology. Below there are eight small companies that apply new technologies and earn great profit, while having only a few staff members.

ElevateHome

This company was founded by Edgar Blazona, who previously worked as a furniture designer for a company called Pottery Barn. Currently his firm creates furniture for children and the 35-year old Edgar is its chief executive. ElevateHome LLC is a firm with headquarters in Berkeley. It designs and manufactures children's furniture, having operations worldwide, while keeping only 3 full-time employees. For hiring help from India, one of the company's employees uses software called NetSuite, which helps in managing financial operations.

"The furniture industry is global as it is. The first thing we did was we took a look at the cost perspective of technology, the tools that are available today. We tried to think, what kind of business could we set up using the tools," mentioned Edgar Blazona.

The team developed operations in a way so to save operating costs and to run as easy as possible. The firm's founder and his wife are both fabric designers. They had the goal of spending as much time as possible to design and create their products. "To do that, we needed to continue to travel. The system had to be workable from the road," Blazona.

The two combined their computer systems with their mobile phones, notebooks and software for business management. With such technology on the road the couple can control their firm's books and databases anywhere they go. The e-mail receives their local voice mail, thus allowing the two to listen and read the messages.

South West Trading

This firm is the result of mother-daughter team. Together Jonette Beck and her daughter Jonelle Raffino established a yarn firm that operates in the United States. Their company creates products from modern fibers and yarns. The company's basis was the Soy Fiber, which is created from the proteins in Soy, which is a renewable resource. The Soy Fiber is used for spinning, knitting, crochet, and weaving. The firm's first collection consisted of two yarns: phoenix and oasis, which were created from 100% bamboo. This material turned out to be the most popular yarn in the company's line.

The company is one of the first to begin producing yarn from nontraditional renewable resources. Currently the family-run business creates yarns made from soy, corn, bamboo, milk, recycled shrimp and crab shells. It has stores around the world and its sales have well gone over $20 million.

It is worth mentioning that South West Trading makes most of its renewable fibers in China. The biggest part of organically produced wool the company imports to the United States from Peru and Australia.

One of the issues that the firm had to face was linked with the supply of yarns. The demand increased a lot and the firm was not able to supply the yarns fast enough. It was quite difficult to track down the products that went from the manufacturer located in China and the warehouse located in Phoenix. Raffino managed to solve the issue by addressing to UPS. Currently the UPS facility unites the firm's orders from different factories in one single container, makes all the works related to customs and delivers the goods to the warehouse.

YakPak

This is a company that produces bags. It is based in New York City. The name of the company was inspired by the bank of the Lake Nam Co, which flows in Tibet. Stephen Holt was the one to pass through that region about 20 years ago and was astonished by the beauty of the location. The firm received its name for yak herds found in the area.

YakPak opened its office in Brooklyn, New York. Thus Stephen Holt, together with his college housemate, Rolando Cohen, built the roots of the company. The clientele, mainly consisting of boutique clothing stores, placed small orders but it was difficult for Cohen to transmit these orders though phone or e-mail between vendors located in China and Taiwan and the facility located in El Salvador.

The problem was solved with the help of a computer program. With its help orders are logged straight into the computer system of YapPak and promptly registered. Thus there is no need for estimate the ordering inventory from Asian vendors.

Bulbs.com

Bulbs.com is a firm based in Worcester, Massachusetts. It entered the market at the end of the last millennium, in 1999, having one main aim, i.e. turn into a supplier of low cost replacement lighting to different businesses across the United States. In just a few years the company developed into one of the biggest distributors of Philips Lightning, providing services to more than 65,000 businesses in 250,000 business locations.

The areas where the company provides its services include multi-location businesses that work in the field of hospitality, retail, property management, manufacturing, healthcare and education. In addition the company also services government sectors and thousands of main street businesses in the United States. It features more than 3,400 various products and for the past 3 years the company's revenue increased by 50 % each year.

At the beginning Bulbs.com had the goal of shipping its most popular products to the continuously increasing number of customers in just two-days. However, it had to face one problem: the costs for shipping products from New England are high, but renting an entire warehouse might lead to acres of unused space. The problem was solved when the firm addressed to DHL. The latter allowed Bulbs.com to rent as much space as it needed in a given month. The space was offered by a warehouse located in Wilmington, Ohio.

Efficient Forms

Today this is one of the leading companies in business form, as well as in data collection automation software. Software developed by David Kenney performs automatic filling out of forms for firms, especially for insurers. Efficient Forms managed to attract about 300 insurance clients that previously were served by such huge companies as Accenture and Microsoft. The company's staff includes 40 workers. Despite such a small number of employees, the firm managed to account $3 million in sales in one year.

The huge success of the company, according to its founder, is in a piece of technology, which is called virtual private network, shortly VPN. This technology represents a safe remote Internet connection that allows two or more parties to be involved in an encoded conversation regardless of location. According to Mr. Kenney, the VPN ensures big companies that their communication will be safe.

China Manufacturing Network

The company was founded in 2003 in Irvine, California. Its staff consists of ten employees and it includes 90 factories working in China, Malaysia and Singapore. The company produces lens housings of industrial lasers. In order to manage the activities of such a high number of parties, the co-founder of the firm, who is also its chief executive, Everette Phillips, applies NetSuite software, which helps him in tracking activity in each facility. Thus he is able to identify a more effective use of these factories.

The software also offers a snapshot of production in real-time. NetSuite can provide such a detailed snapshot that Mr. Phillips might see the size and weight of boxes with finished products. In such a way Everette Phillips can decide on whether shipments can be organized into one cargo container, thus saving the costs for shipping.

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors

This wood-flooring firm is based in Stoddard, N.H. The company's founder is Dale Carlisle, who in 1960s started constructing homes that remind of his childhood spent in New Hampshire. He established one common theme in all of the country's homes, i.e. wide plank floors. The founder wanted his floors to be installed in all of the homes he erected and restored.

Currently Carlisle is one of the leaders in the industry. It hand-crafts each old growth hardwood and is popular for its widest widths in the industry. The floors produced by Carlisle Wide Plank Floors are 20 inches wide and 16 feet long. After creating a new website for the company, the phone in the office became numb. It was not a bad sign since most of clients started using the company's website and the number of unique visitors boosted from 9,000 to 17,000 in just one month. The sales of Carlisle tripled and its annual profit rose to about $50 million.

Carrot Ink

Carrot Ink is a company with headquarters in Dallas. The online retailer of printer cartridges was founded in 1998 by John and Amy Howard, who hoped that the cost of quality inkjet cartridges will not be the same as the cost of a printer. Being sick and tired of paying the prices installed by printer manufacturers, the two decided they can do it better and cheaper than the big companies. John and Amy Howard had the goal of providing a quality product without a premium price tag.

In May of 2007 the company has been acquired by a team made of father and daughter, Ray and Wendy Pahler. The latter for a long period of time worked for Carrot Ink, holding the positions of increasing liability. The main goal of the Pahler family is to continue the low cost policy of the company, while producing quality products and offering a fast delivery.