"Scott Annan, CEO of the software services company Mercury Grove, believes there are two reasons people go into business for themselves. "You are either a person who believes in individuals or who believes in money," he said.
Annan terms his philosophy the "missionaries vs. mercenaries" approach. He leaves no doubt that Mercury Grove falls into the "missionaries" category. "If you believe in yourself and the people you work with, the money will follow," he said. Mercury Grove reflects that in both its rapid growth and extensive community outreach.
Annan started Mercury Grove in 2006 with co-founders Creighton Medley and Michael Marker. At that time, the three partners, who met through their work at Lexmark, saw a need for a service-oriented approach to providing software that was not being effectively met in the marketplace.
Business software has been traditionally installed on PCs or managed by a company's IT department from a central server. The partners at Mercury Grove saw a growing trend for software to be downloaded from the Internet and managed by an external partner. Capitalizing on this change in the market, they created Mercury Grove to provide a lower cost opportunity with both greater flexibility and functionality.
Business experts believe this trend will triple in size over the next five years, creating a $19 billion industry by 2011.
"It used to be that you paid for your software, then paid regular maintenance fees each year and then more fees for any changes you wanted," Annan said. "Mercury Grove was created to cut through the bureaucracy, developing a strategy that will be of immediate help to the company."
In addition to being expensive, traditional software often contains far more features than the average user wants, confusing the user and leading to less utilization. Mercury Grove is successful in part because its solutions are simple — as well as different, Annan said.
For starters, the company delivers software for free. All that is needed is an Internet connection. This is a major change from the often formidable up-front investment a company must make for software. There is a monthly service fee that includes hosting, upgrades and maintenance. Mercury Grove also provides as-needed, value-added services to help companies reach their goals.
The company's approach to technology also includes focusing on business growth and performance improvement. Traditional IT services centered on cost reduction and mitigating risk.
This can make an enormous difference for a company looking for immediate change or benefit, Annan said. Because they have flexibility that larger, more bureaucratic technology companies lack, they can often provide a faster, more focused solution to problems.
While Mercury Grove counts many FORTUNE 1000 companies among its clients, its services are ideally suited for medium-sized companies that do not have large IT departments. Kentucky clients include Thomas & King, Tempur-Pedic and The Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The company currently has offices in Lexington and Ottawa, Canada, Annan's hometown.
Annan cites as the company's competition Silicon Valley giants like Google and Microsoft. He isn't concerned about them, however.
"We are getting a community around our product," he said. "We've been developing business even from influential bloggers. Everything happens very fast on the Internet."
The company works to make an impact not only on the Internet community, but also the real-time community where the company and its clients are located. It hosts "Community Camps" to help educate community partners about technology, inviting the tech crowd from IT departments as well as small start-ups.
The purpose of Community Camps, Annan said, is to encourage dialogue between technology enthusiasts and community activists. The open forum or "unconference" is designed to create a platform for acting on technology ideas that benefit the community.
The most recent camp was held June 6 in Ottawa. Lexington held its first Community Camp last November. Approximately 35 people attended the inaugural event.
At the Lexington camp, several participants demonstrated application tools they had adapted for use in their business. There were discussions about the use of these tools in business as well as the community. Applications ranged from baby shower games to real estate development.
"Lexington is amazing," Annan said. "There are great innovative and technology-minded people who have chosen to be here because of the way of life."
And he's found many who share his same business philosophy: to create a profitable business while building a better community.