Part 2: A closer look at KAN Design

You have on occasion taken a "service bureau" approach to pricing projects. Is this a line of business you would like to develop further, and what is your reasoning for taking this approach to projects?
Essentially, we are a service company and so it was only natural to adopt this approach to pricing. However, as we develop more products and we see a shift in emphasis within the organization, then our pricing structure will adapt accordingly.

Do the majority of clients come to you with a firm understanding of what they want to get out of the Internet, or is there a lot of education involved in selling clients on new projects?
The vast majority of our clients have minimal understanding of the Internet and its potential benefits for their organizations. They rely heavily on us for advice and for innovative ideas. I see one of our major strengths as being the ability to analyze a client's business model and then provide an effective Internet solution to help them achieve their objectives.

How do you acquire the majority of your business?
Well over 90% of our business comes through recommendation. It is the quality of our solutions and the high-level of service that we provide, which enables us to maintain a constant stream of work in a highly competitive market without recourse to advertising.

You are often inundated with business. Have you ever considered acquisitions as a way to grow your company?
So far, this is not an avenue that we have investigated. However, it may well be that we will look to acquisitions at some point in the future.

What web hosting solution do you use, and why? Do you have any preference to where your clients host their sites?
All KAN solutions run on Sun's Solaris operating system, which we feel offers the most in terms of reliability, availability, scalability and performance. We provide specialist hosting services, which enable us to maintain complete control of an Internet project and allow us to develop advanced Internet applications.

This arrangement also allows us to offer the highest quality service as we have removed all dependencies on third parties.

For simple web site projects, we have no objection to clients hosting with other ISPs. However, for projects which require advanced functionality, we prefer to host the solutions ourselves. In the past, we have had several poor experiences with ISPs which have caused unnecessary delays with projects. Naturally, this is something we are keen to avoid it at all possible.

Looking back over the development of KAN, how would you have gone about things differently? Did you take any decisions you now regret?
In four years, we have established a successful business from scratch. So I cannot say that I regret any of our decisions.

With hindsight it may have been better for us to have been even more ambitious from the outset. Many of the successes that we have seen on the web were technically well within our capabilities three or four years ago. I believe that with additional financial backing from day one, we could have spent more time establishing a strong foothold in certain markets, rather than having to concern ourselves overly with the day-to-day cashflow and financial stability of the company.

Having said that, I am very proud of our achievements and I see KAN going on to great success in the future.

And were there any opportunities that you missed?
No. We have made the most of every opportunity that has been given to us. That is what has brought us the success we have had.

Continued...