March 7, 2003
March 7, 2003
ORLANDO, Fla. -- At the beginning of every year, business folks spend time thinking about what the coming year will hold.
Any assessments, predictions and wild-eyed guesses about 2003 have to be taken with a grain of salt, thanks to the twin threats of war and terrorism.
But the early indications from a variety of Central Florida technology operations and small businesses point toward a good year.
A survey of Florida companies by Winter Park investment bank Poole Carbone Eckbert Inc. indicates that business owners are more optimistic about their own operations than they are about the economy in general.
Roughly one in four business owners said their business would improve significantly in the coming year, while 8 percent said they believed the general economy would get much better.
Poole surveyed owners of privately held Florida businesses with $5 million to $100 million in annual revenue for its report. The company also queried providers of professional services, such as legal, accounting and financial advice, to those businesses.
The owners and advisers both believe acquisitions will be on the rise this year. Finding growth capital and businesses to buy are at the top of expected activities this year from both camps.
Last year was quite the opposite, as business leaders and investors wrestled with whether to kill or cure ailing enterprises.
This year, only 8 percent of the business advisers tell Poole Carbone Eckbert that they foresee an increase in divestitures.
In that mode last year, companies employed stopgap measures to take care of business, says Melanie Miller, Orlando branch manager for Ajilon Finance, an accounting and financial staffing firm.
That meant bringing on temps just to keep up. This year, indications are that companies will be making permanent hires. That's because they've pared back so far that they can't get by on skeleton crews any more, Miller says.
The good news on that front: Good help is there to be found.
"As we've come through the year, we've seen some very qualified people looking for work," she says.
Perhaps the companies that will be hiring first are ones that had good momentum heading into 2003.
Several privately held concerns in Central Florida are saying 2002 actually turned out well.
Private companies don't have much obligation to articulate how they're doing, but companies tend to suffer in silence, so the optimism is coming from a self-selected group.
Nevertheless, here's what they're saying:
Focus!...on Innovation, a maker of Web-enabled software for the surety bond industry, says it set a record for paid licenses in 2002.
That business is coming from companies in the underwriting and risk management field that are looking for more flexibility and clearer access to their work, says company CEO Dan Buckles in a written statement.
He predicts those businesses that are adapting will have a significant advantage over folks doing business as usual.
OutStart, an e-learning business started in Central Florida and now headquartered in the Boston area, says it landed 95 new customers in the fourth quarter of 2002. That company has already been down the acquisitions road. That helped OutStart go from one product to a menu of six in 2002.
IT company Team Information Services is running about 10 percent above the same time in 2002, says CEO Matt Moore.
There is some slowing on the commercial side of his business, but it's still showing growth. Business at a Team subsidiary doing top-secret defense intelligence work in Washington, D.C., continues to grow.
"We can't find qualified people fast enough," Moore writes in an e-mail.
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- Chad Eric Watt