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MarineNews spoke with Joe Galatas, President of MarineCFO, about the market his company serves, changes in the industry and how the software firm is investing in the future. Can you describe the market MarineCFO serves? MarineCFO exclusively serves the workboat market. We felt from the beginning that this was an underserved niche of the market that deserved to have software built specifi- cally for its needs. There are other marine software pack- ages out there that serve ship owners but we all know that work boats are far different from ships. Different crews, different working environments, different operating crite- ria and different revenue models all equal different soft- ware needs. Additionally, MarineCFO is a highly cus- tomizable solution. When companies pay for enterprise software it is our feeling that the software should be tai- lored to their work processes rather than the work process- es changing to fit the software. MarineCFO accomplishes this without creating upgrade problems for companies in the future. It is customization through standard core soft- ware. What are some important changes in the industry? Clearly regulatory changes have had the biggest impact on the industry. Now it is imperative that operators have great systems that help them to stay in regulatory compli- ance. These systems also should provide quick and easy compliance auditing as well as reporting that supports reg- ulatory and vendor inquiries. Our software provides a structured framework for managing compliance related issues that allow the work boat customer to set up the sys- tem to function exactly as his or her current system func- tions. We make it easy to transfer your paper-based or Excel-based system into an easy-to-use, more robust sys- tem. What is the outlook for your market right now? We are excited about the state of the market. Clearly the last 18 months have been challenging for everyone in the industry. Fortunately, MarineCFO was well capitalized to successfully survive this recession while still investing in our products. Additionally, we managed to diversify our offering both geographically and demographically during this time. There are good signs that the market began to thaw within the last six months and we have a steady growing pipeline of interested companies. Based upon conversations with many work boat companies, we believe that they are sensing enough of an economic recovery to once again spend dollars on improving their operating infrastructure. How is your company investing for the future? MarineCFO is continually investing in three things: our customers, our employees and our product. We invest in our customers by spending time in the field discerning requirements and developing new functionality. The uniqueness of the work boat markets means that we have to commit to fully understand all the challenges our cus- tomers’ businesses face, from all angles. This includes per- INSIGHTS President, MarineCFO Joe Galatas 10 MN February 2011 Images courtesy MarineCFO
