I’ve just been reading a newspaper article (Software firm 4Projects continues with recruitment drive) about how UK construction collaboration technology vendor 4Projects is expanding its team. The company has added nine employees to its 60-strong team since the end of 2009, and says it is likely to add as many again by the end of this year – if it can find the talent it needs in the local market around its Sunderland base.
(That figure of 60 was slightly down on the 63 employed nine months earlier – see Good numbers from 4Projects – though this is likely due to normal fluctuations in staff numbers rather than any impact of the UK recession; rival [and my former employer] BIW, for example, was forced into some redundancies last year – see my post “A tough year for BIW” and Nathan Doughty’s BIW on the back foot?).
The article also mentions that the firm is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, an anniversary that it shares with some other vendors, including BIW.
Perhaps most interesting, though, are the clues given by Marketing VP Clare Watson about 4Projects’ geographical expansion plans. 4Projects has long adopted a cautious approach to the Middle East market (see 4Projects and profitability), about which Clare says: “There’s a lot of infrastructure work going on in the Middle East and we have a presence out there”. She continues:
“We’re very seriously approaching the US market, and we have a new sales manager based in Washington DC. Our plan is to roll out new offices in the States, moving westward.”
4Projects was among the first UK-based vendors to seriously target the US market, planning bases in Houston and Calgary in 2008 (post). Since then, BIW has also established a partnership with the north American construction arm of Sage (post), based near Portland, Oregon.
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[…] year (her appointment is noted in a 7 July news release about general company expansion – post; I met Clare for a coffee in February), and the ‘refresh’ of the main 4Projects site is […]