There’s been rapid growth recently at Comrad, but the software company’s success lies in relationships built more than 20 years ago. By Caitlin Sykes

In the IT world, 21-year-old software company Comrad could be considered something of a granddaddy. But don’t let its age fool you: these days the Christchurch-based company, which provides software to the radiology industry, has the spring in its step of a teenager.

Check this out for an adolescent growth spurt: in the last couple of years, revenue at Comrad has jumped by 116%; the number of sites that use its software across New Zealand and Australia is up 54% to 350; and staff numbers have grown 60% to 50.

As company founder Andrew Scott modestly puts it: “We’ve got all our ducks in a row, and things have been going very well for the past few years.”

Those ducks have been aligned thanks largely to a couple of factors, according to Comrad chief executive Paul Claridge. In 2005 the company received external investment from the Wellington-based Savage family, which took a 50% stake, and it established an independent board, chaired by IT industry veteran Mark Bowman. As a result, the company developed a strong strategy, released a significant upgrade of its core product, the Comrad RIS (Radiology Information System), and entered the Australian market.

While the focus of Comrad’s first 17 years was the New Zealand market (where it is in 95% of private radiology practices), growth is now concentrated across the ditch. Claridge puts the company’s turnover between $7 million and $10 million – more than half of which now comes out of Australia. There it delivers services to the world’s biggest radiology practice, I-Med, and Claridge estimates the Kiwi company has already penetrated 20% to 25% of the private radiology sector in Australia.

And the company is not stopping there. Comrad has been researching the US and UK and, global economic factors willing, plans to be in those markets late this year.

While recent changes at the company have triggered Comrad’s growth, Claridge says the key to the company’s success lies in its foundations. Some organisations have been with Comrad for 20 years, says Claridge, and have had a big influence on developing the product.

And Scott and the company’s chief technical officer, Tom Kulpe, who has been with Comrad for 17 years, developed the product in consultation with radiologists. “Between them [Scott and Kulpe] have an incredibly deep understanding of how radiology practices – private and public – operate, and that’s enabled us to develop very customer-friendly, intuitive products that radiologists and radiographers love using,” Claridge says.

Tony Young, managing radiologist at Pacific Radiology Group, which uses the Comrad RIS, has worked with the company from its earliest days. He agrees it pays close attention to its customers’ needs. “Andrew’s a great listener and quite a good synthesiser. He listens and interprets and comes back with a variation or an idea. That’s been the strength all along – he’s a good communicator.”

Good communication with clients has been crucial not just for developing the product, says Claridge, but also for selling it. Everyone knows everyone else in the radiology cosmmunity, and positive word of mouth about the product has spread as radiologists shift practices around the country and even offshore. “Andrew’s been 20 years in the business. Who he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing and that’s been really powerful.”