Now Even Small Firms Can Go Global

Four years ago, Houston-based SolArc was making plenty of dough selling it's energy management software and management software and services to big corporations like ConocoPhillips and Southwest Airlines.

All the company's clients, though, were domestic. With new airlines and energy companies popping up throughout Europe and Asia, company execs just knew there were great opportunities to be had if they were able to expand internationally, sys Tim Smith, the company's controller.

So SolArc set up offices overseas, later enlisting a consulting firm to help with a regulatory complexities. "We found it was too much to handle, Smith says. The result: It won new clients like Singapore Airlines. Smith says SolArc, with 135 employees, made about $10 million last year from foreign clients in nine countries, compared with "only a few hundred thousand" dollars from a single international deal in 2003. read more...