Alert Communications has won a €1.5 million contract to set up the website for an online gaming company on behalf of a German client. The company will be registered in Malta. Work on the contract will start in January and should be completed within six months.
This is the latest in a series of major contracts - local and international - which has seen the company's turnover quadruple in the past year.
Alert has also won a 12-month outsourcing contract from an IT company in Milan to develop content management systems, with the possibility of renewal.
"We have every intention of making sure that they are not just happy but delighted," managing director Claudine Cassar said. The Italian company heard about Alert from a client who had been well satisfied with its service.
"The Italian company does not specialise in the web and when their existing clients wanted this niche service, they decided to outsource it. We followed up the enquiry and two months later had landed the deal."
Alert plan to start building a seven-floor office opposite their current premises on Cannon Road, Sta Venera, in order to accommodate the 100 additional employees that the company will need to cope with all the extra work. Work is scheduled to start next summer, permits permitting, and should be ready within 12 months.
Alert has doubled its staff within the past year, to 28, but the present offices can only cope with up to 35. A refurbishment project is currently underway that should be ready within three months.
But this will be the easy part: The hardest will be to recruit suitably qualified personnel. In spite of the efforts being made by the IT ministry, the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, the University of Malta and the private sector, there are simply still not enough people to meet spiralling demand. This means turning away work - but it also means that wages are being raised as companies poach staff from each other.
"This is very serious as it is eroding our cost advantage," she said. "And clients are not willing to pay more."
Is there a solution? Ms Cassar believes that the time has come to seriously consider overseas recruitment.
"Potential recruits in Europe do not represent much of a cost-saving and their English may not be up to the levels that we demand and expect. The obvious place to look is India. I have had very bad experiences trying to organise visas in other contexts so I have not really tried. But I strongly feel that all the IT companies - who, after all, are all complaining about the same thing - should get together and use one recruitment company in India to source the required labour.
"The pressure will only increase as a result of Smart City. Would we be able to match the salaries that its residents could offer? Something needs to be done earlier rather than later. Malta is moving towards a knowledge-based society but this is a sector that depends entirely on human resources. I understand that people might be frightened at the prospect of importing labour but these are professionals who pose no threat. If I have to turn away a contract because I have not got enough staff to work on it, everyone loses."
Timeline
In the fast moving world of IT, growth brings you to the attention of predators. Will Alert be the predator - acquiring other companies to grow - or the prey?
It is too early to say. Ms Cassar has built up the company on her own and can remember when she was working on her own on a computer in her friend's living room.
The company was founded by Ms Cassar nine years ago, when she was just 23 and returning to Malta from the UK having completed a Masters in international marketing. At the time, it was still not fully appreciated how companies could use websites to exploit the internet - her marketing background made her realise the synergy.
"At that time, the sites were very basic and probably cost around Lm100 to Lm200 to develop," she recalled.
The market was quick to realise that Alert offered a niche service and she won major contracts, such as Malta International Airport and Corinthia. Growth continued steadily until she became the largest web developer on the island but, as with most businesses, she reached a plateau - and the next step would involve a quantum leap.
As the company's clientele grew, so did its operations have to expand in scope. At first, it used to design sites but let other companies host them. Alert now does everything from "A" to "Z", including writing the software for the web applications.
"First of all, clients like to have one company responsible for their site and not to have to deal with many different suppliers. But as websites got more sophisticated so too did the applications they offered. A website should not be an online brochure but a completely new way of delivery," Ms Cassar said.
Examples of the company's work include an e-procurement system for tenders on behalf of Kuwait National Petroleum, and an application system for the Malta Transport Authority which will enable car importers to register vehicles online.
It is also very important for websites to be dynamic: A visitor who finds nothing new on a site will stop visiting.
"You have to ensure that they keep coming back. We offer a content management system so that clients can update the site whenever they wish, with text or photos. And we ensure that it is simple to use: All you need is a knowledge of Word!" she said.
"It is very important that the latest news, products, prices and so on are on the site. You only get one chance to impress a client."
The client does have to be able to find a website - so it is important to boost its ranking on search engines. This is done by creating "flags" known as meta information that the search engine latches on to.
"We can optimise these every month and report regularly to the clients on their rankings," she said.
Alert's portfolio includes some of Malta's biggest rivals, like HSBC and Bank of Valletta, real estate companies Frank Salt, Sara Grech and Dhalia, and General Soft Drinks and Farsons. How does she maintain their trust?
"We have completely separate project teams for companies in the same sector. It is very important to do this to ensure that you do not get transfer of ideas - whether consciously or subconsciously."
This is the latest in a series of major contracts - local and international - which has seen the company's turnover quadruple in the past year.
Alert has also won a 12-month outsourcing contract from an IT company in Milan to develop content management systems, with the possibility of renewal.
"We have every intention of making sure that they are not just happy but delighted," managing director Claudine Cassar said. The Italian company heard about Alert from a client who had been well satisfied with its service.
"The Italian company does not specialise in the web and when their existing clients wanted this niche service, they decided to outsource it. We followed up the enquiry and two months later had landed the deal."
Alert plan to start building a seven-floor office opposite their current premises on Cannon Road, Sta Venera, in order to accommodate the 100 additional employees that the company will need to cope with all the extra work. Work is scheduled to start next summer, permits permitting, and should be ready within 12 months.
Alert has doubled its staff within the past year, to 28, but the present offices can only cope with up to 35. A refurbishment project is currently underway that should be ready within three months.
But this will be the easy part: The hardest will be to recruit suitably qualified personnel. In spite of the efforts being made by the IT ministry, the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, the University of Malta and the private sector, there are simply still not enough people to meet spiralling demand. This means turning away work - but it also means that wages are being raised as companies poach staff from each other.
"This is very serious as it is eroding our cost advantage," she said. "And clients are not willing to pay more."
Is there a solution? Ms Cassar believes that the time has come to seriously consider overseas recruitment.
"Potential recruits in Europe do not represent much of a cost-saving and their English may not be up to the levels that we demand and expect. The obvious place to look is India. I have had very bad experiences trying to organise visas in other contexts so I have not really tried. But I strongly feel that all the IT companies - who, after all, are all complaining about the same thing - should get together and use one recruitment company in India to source the required labour.
"The pressure will only increase as a result of Smart City. Would we be able to match the salaries that its residents could offer? Something needs to be done earlier rather than later. Malta is moving towards a knowledge-based society but this is a sector that depends entirely on human resources. I understand that people might be frightened at the prospect of importing labour but these are professionals who pose no threat. If I have to turn away a contract because I have not got enough staff to work on it, everyone loses."
Timeline
In the fast moving world of IT, growth brings you to the attention of predators. Will Alert be the predator - acquiring other companies to grow - or the prey?
It is too early to say. Ms Cassar has built up the company on her own and can remember when she was working on her own on a computer in her friend's living room.
The company was founded by Ms Cassar nine years ago, when she was just 23 and returning to Malta from the UK having completed a Masters in international marketing. At the time, it was still not fully appreciated how companies could use websites to exploit the internet - her marketing background made her realise the synergy.
"At that time, the sites were very basic and probably cost around Lm100 to Lm200 to develop," she recalled.
The market was quick to realise that Alert offered a niche service and she won major contracts, such as Malta International Airport and Corinthia. Growth continued steadily until she became the largest web developer on the island but, as with most businesses, she reached a plateau - and the next step would involve a quantum leap.
As the company's clientele grew, so did its operations have to expand in scope. At first, it used to design sites but let other companies host them. Alert now does everything from "A" to "Z", including writing the software for the web applications.
"First of all, clients like to have one company responsible for their site and not to have to deal with many different suppliers. But as websites got more sophisticated so too did the applications they offered. A website should not be an online brochure but a completely new way of delivery," Ms Cassar said.
Examples of the company's work include an e-procurement system for tenders on behalf of Kuwait National Petroleum, and an application system for the Malta Transport Authority which will enable car importers to register vehicles online.
It is also very important for websites to be dynamic: A visitor who finds nothing new on a site will stop visiting.
"You have to ensure that they keep coming back. We offer a content management system so that clients can update the site whenever they wish, with text or photos. And we ensure that it is simple to use: All you need is a knowledge of Word!" she said.
"It is very important that the latest news, products, prices and so on are on the site. You only get one chance to impress a client."
The client does have to be able to find a website - so it is important to boost its ranking on search engines. This is done by creating "flags" known as meta information that the search engine latches on to.
"We can optimise these every month and report regularly to the clients on their rankings," she said.
Alert's portfolio includes some of Malta's biggest rivals, like HSBC and Bank of Valletta, real estate companies Frank Salt, Sara Grech and Dhalia, and General Soft Drinks and Farsons. How does she maintain their trust?
"We have completely separate project teams for companies in the same sector. It is very important to do this to ensure that you do not get transfer of ideas - whether consciously or subconsciously."