Aconex wins key contract Panama Canal expansion, targets further US expansion

Aconex chief executive Leigh Jasper says his company will strive to keep a grip on internal culture as it expands into the US to manage a new $1 million deal for the $3.2 billion Panama Canal Expansion Project, saying he doesn’t want it to become “just another American company”.

The deal comes as annual revenue at the software-as-a- service company, which provides project management software for large construction projects, is set to climb 40% to more than $50 million thanks to strong growth in the US.

“A lot of us are spending a lot more time there, some of relocated to the US and I’m practically there full time. It’s more that now I’m in the US, and I come back to Australia, rather than the other way around,” Jasper says.

“We’ve of course increased the team in the America markets, and we added about 20 people in the past month. The US is a very large market, and we want to invest there properly. We haven’t found the growth challenging, the biggest challenge is just getting scale.”

But despite Jasper’s admission the company still has a lot of “Australian” values, there’s no denying Aconex is now a global firm. It has several global bases including some in the Asia-Pacific, Americas and Middle-East, and its staff comes from over 40 countries.

“We’ve never really seen ourselves as Australian or American, but we think we have elements of being an Australian business in our culture and we want to maintain those. As we hire we are very focused on that culture, and we focus on that in interviewing.”

That culture, he says, is a focus on challenging conventional ideas, leadership possibility and intelligence.

“We do have workers from over 40 different countries. But I hope the culture will remain here, and it’s a challenge because we don’t want to become just another American company. We also have to consider that most of our business is outside of Australia now. “

The Panama project is a perfect example. The $3.2 billion expansion scheme will see the canal double its shipping capacity by 2025, and completely new lock complexes will need to be built.

Aconex’s software contract is worth $1 million, but Jasper says the company needs to manage its systems carefully to handle the size.

“This is probably one of the largest infrastructure projects we’ve ever done, but we’re continually evolving our service and we can extend our system to cater for huge projects like this.”

“It certainly does assist us with our credibility in the market. That stamp of approval is good, and the money itself helps us build out into areas we want to invest in.”

And while Jasper claims the company isn’t specifically going after bigger projects, there is no doubt Aconex is benefiting from the global infrastructure boom. It recorded $40 million in revenue during 2008-09, and Jasper expects that figure to grow by another 40% during 2009-10.

The key, he says, is the product. With so many construction managers, engineers and executives looking at the information contained on its software platform, Jasper says it needs to be as simply as possible.

“We just have to make sure the software is usable. Our SaaS service is easy to use, and we design it so people don’t have to spend a lot of time on training. We say that if you use Facebook, you can use our software.”

“And although a few markets slowed own last year, we’re expecting growth, especially in the Middle East, and we think we’re well set to experience some strong growth this year and grab some new projects.”