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F International

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki


F International was originally established as Freelance Programmers, in England in 1962, and was re-named 'F International' in 1974 after a period of growth and consolidation. It was founded by Dame Stephanie Shirley CH (Steve Shirley) primarily as a vehicle for young mothers with computer skills to earn income on a flexible basis, and to maintain and improve those skills during their "family" years. She maintained a direct involvement with the company for 31 years until she retired, in 1993. In 1988 the company was renamed again, as the "The FI Group", and later as "Xansa plc". Xansa plc was acquired by the French company now known as Sopra Steria in 2007.

Significance

The emergence and growth of F International is a story of female entrepreneurship that attracted extensive business and academic interest, at a time when there were few successful female entrepreneurs and little understanding of the benefits of freelance working..[1][2][3] In Europe the Cranfield School of Management undertook a program of work looking at the reported differences between male and female entrepreneurs, concluding that because of the differences in context and background for men and women, the principal factor for successful women entrepreneurs was the nature of market entry.[4] In the case of F International the market entry requirements were clear: business and industry were critically short of computer-skilled people [5] and the nature of the work was amenable to home working, as revealed in later work.[6] Hence, the combination of market need and skills opportunity made for an interesting case. As the years progressed, the business continued to attract the attention of international academics and others. [7][8] At the start, in the 1960s, there were no accessible data communications services and no Internet, but in the 1970s the business attracted interest with academics and futurists as an example of what became known as teleworking or telecommuting. [9] The Harvard Business School documented the growth of the F International business and the role of its founder, Steve Shirley in a number of case studies. [10][11]

Steve Shirley considers that the F International business model anticipated and exemplified the gig economy by providing individual choice, financial independence and flexible employment to those who could not take up full-time employment, in ways that had not been previously open to them.[12] [11]

History

Early days

With no capital and no real understanding of how to run a business, Steve Shirley explains that she started the company to escape the constraints of working as a woman in a predominantly male working context, in the public sector.[13]:loc 923 She notes that at the beginning:

"It sounded mad. Drawbacks included the following. I had no capital to speak of. I had no experience of running a company. I had no employees, no office, no customers, and no reason to believe that there were any companies out there with any interest in buying my product. Nobody sold software in those days. In so far as it existed, it was given away free."[13]:loc 997

An early assignment came from Urwick Diebold and it soon attracted attention from the media.[14] The total revenues for the first tax year (a partial year - just 10 months) were £1,700.[10]

The company, then known as "Freelance Programmers", was registered on 13 May 1964 and a "panel" of freelance software and systems specialists, almost exclusively female, began to work for the company. The early days were difficult; at one point Kit Grindley, a recent acquaintance at Urwick Diebold, wrote Steve a cheque for £500 to cover operating costs and payments to the workforce.[13]:loc 1166 Once over the early cash flow problems the business began to grow. By 1966, there were about 75 regular freelance workers on the panel,[10] some of whom became significant role players as technical experts and project managers[13]:loc 1762. Seriously problematic projects were rare, but one in particular, with Castrol, forced the management team to focus on quality management.[13]:loc 1226 Quality management became one of the foundations of the operating model for the company.[15] [16]

The growing years

In the 1970s the company's development paralleled the emergence of feminist thinking and the consequent awareness and pre-occupation with gender rights; together these led to legislation in the United Kingdom that was intended to bring equal rights to women but had unexpected consequences;[17] F International was specifically offering employment to women, and therefore they had to adjust their policies to be gender-independent. Steve Shirley explains:

I felt strongly that my “female” approach, which had attracted such scorn in the business’s early years, had been vindicated, and it irked me that the state, in addition to its other meddlings, had now declared that approach illegal. Still, there was no point in quarrelling with the law, especially such a well-intentioned one. At a board meeting ... we amended our personnel policy again. Our purpose was now to provide employment for “people with dependants unable to work in a conventional environment”.[13]:loc 1897

Despite these side-issues, the business continued to grow until the early success faltered in the 1970s, for at least two reasons: the business reported its first financial loss (of £3,815) and suffered its first significant personnel loss (Pamela Woodman resigned to form Pamela Woodman Associates, working in direct competition to Freelance Programmers).[10] By the end of the decade, 17 years had passed, turnover had risen to £2.5m and there were partnerships and start-ups in the USA (Heights Information Technology Services Inc (USA)), Denmark (F International ApS in Copenhagen, servicing Scandinavia) and the Netherlands (F International BV in Amsterdam, servicing the Benelux countries);[18] there was constant reference to the company's unique working methods[19]. At home, still in the 1970s, spin-off businesses were re-absorbed into the parent business which was re-established as "F International".[13]:loc 1838

By 1980 the business had developed a confident approach to clients, claiming country-wide coverage with more than 600 "staff"..[13]:loc 2342 The administrative headquarters for the UK were then based in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where the original company, Freelance Programmers Limited had been founded. F International was a founder member of the CSA (Computing Services Association), active in the British Computer Society and the Institute for Data Processing Management (IDPM)[19]

The maturing years

It was in the early 1980s that general interest in home working with telecommunications support - teleworking or telecommuting - became evident.[20] Steve Shirley wanted to go further. She had, from the start, wanted the business to offer flexible employment opportunities; however, as the business matured she developed an additional ambition to share the ownership of the company. In 1981 the F International Shareholders’ Trust was established. In that year revenues had reached £3.4m.[10]

Key dates in the maturing years include:[10][13]

  • 1981 - Freehold premises were bought in Berkhamsted
  • 1982 - Office premises were acquired in Edinburgh
  • 1983 - Franchising of Heights Information Technology Services Inc (USA)[19]
  • 1984 - Following re-structuring, a survey was undertaken to establish the feelings of the workforce about the changes
  • 1984 - The F International Charter was developed and published
  • 1985 - The US partner company, now owned, was sold, and Hilary Cropper was appointed as Chief Executive of UK Operations
  • 1985 - Quality management was successfully assessed to Ministry of Defence standards[15]
  • 1985 - F International was re-registered as a Public Limited Company (but not quoted on the stock exchange, an unusual move for a plc)
  • 1985 - By the end of 1985 13% of the ownership of the business had been taken up by outside interests and 17% was with the FI Shareholders’ Trust
  • 1986 - A primitive email service based on Prestel was introduced
  • 1987 - The company held a Silver Jubilee at the National Exhibition Centre to celebrate 25 years of operations
  • 1988 - The company name was changed again, to "FI Group"
  • 1990 - Sir John Harvey-Jones (the Troubleshooter) opened a new FI Group headquarters and commended the company's success, that he attributed to "flexibility and speed" coupled with "decentralisation, delegation and releasing energy rather than [seeking] control".[21]

A study of The Times’ 1987 Top 500 Companies list[22] had found that 25 per cent of the companies listed in the top 500 were FI Group clients, as were 50 of the list’s top 100 and eight of its top 10. Steve Shirley's memoirs[13] reference more than 40 top businesses in the UK and elsewhere, but the total client list included hundreds of names. Throughout the 1980s the media interest in the group's work continued (for example in the Sunday Times Magazine [23] and the effort to continuingly build up the workforce continued by holding open evenings, and even by posting “adverts” in sports clubs and libraries.[24] Steve herself continued to write and speak about the business model and the benefits for the workforce.[25]

The normalising years

After 25 years operating with a distinctly different business model, the pressure to go public meant that the ethos of the business had to change. Investors proved to be uninterested in a highly technical business employing more than a thousand young mothers (and others) working from home, and so began a process of further normalisation and re-balancing (and growth) that would appeal to external investors.[13]:loc 2869

As the 1990s opened, the company made several strategic acquisitions, for example AMP Computer Recruitment in 1990 and the Kernel Group in 1991, with the objective of providing clients with staffing and training services. In 1997, IIS Infotech Limited, an Indian computer services company based in New Delhi was acquired, joined in 1999 by a small London-based project management and IT consultancy group and in 2000 by Druid, a Reading-based software consultancy.[13]:loc 3773

In March 2001, now a substantial and international business with over 6,000 employees, a market capitalisation of £1.2bn and projected sales for the coming year of £515m, the company announced that it was going to change its name to "Xansa plc.[13]:loc 3926

Philosophy, standards and innovation

Public and professional interest

The F International story attracted extensive public and professional interest, for example in Tomorrow's World (a long-running BBC science and technology programme), and books by Ralf Darehdorf,[26] Alvin Tofler,[27] Tom Peters,[28] Michel Syrett,[29] and Charles Handy.[30]

Working arrangements

Unlike competitors, from the start the business had a philosophy of providing flexible work opportunities for skilled software and systems people. In the beginning, young mothers (like Steve Shirley herself) were the main intended beneficiary, and the intention to provide employment overrode any intention to make money. Nevertheless, as Steve Shirley admits, it was necessary to cover costs and for most of the early years this was achieved, but on a knife-edge of success.[13]:loc 1404 One of the critical factors in succeeding was the idea to pay for work done, not for the hours worked. [13]:loc 1366.

Standards

Given the eventual recognition of the quality of work that was delivered (by means of a UK Ministry of Defence quality management assessment) this worked extremely well. As well as a Quality Manual [15] there were ten other management manuals dealing with: quality policy, project management, estimating, and Technical Standards for general work, consulting work, systems design, software documentation, software testing and configuration management. The commitment gained from individuals who took direct responsibility for their own work, working by themselves at home, led to significant productivity gains of more than 40% when compared to conventional software and systems businesses.[13]:loc 4129 This was underpinned by the early focus on estimating and costing projects accurately in advance. There were sound systems in place to monitor progress, costs and quality.

Innovation

Some aspects of the company's technical work on standards and methods were published in technical journals and presented at conferences. Senior technical staff contributed to technical journals and conferences concerning issues such as measurement techniques. [31], methods of systems analysis [32] [33], strategy [34], standards [35] and even to conferences of medical specialists.[36]

References

  1. ↑ Lessem, Ronnie (1986). "Becoming a Metapreneur". Journal of General Management. 11 (4): 5–21.
  2. ↑ Symons, Rosemary (1987). Case Study: Growth and Change at F International. Springer. pp. 142–150. Search this book on
  3. ↑ Evans, Pam. Davidson, Marilyn J.; Cooper, Cary L., eds. Women Homeworkers and Information Technology - The F International Experience. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 227–242. Search this book on
  4. ↑ Birley, Sue (1988). "Female Entrepreneurs - are they really any different?" (PDF). Cranfield School of Management Working Papers. SWP 5/87. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  5. ↑ Balzer, Robert and Green, Cordell (1983). "Software Technology in the 1990s". Computer (11): 39–45.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Geels, Frank W and Smit, Wim A (2000). "Failed technology futures: pitfalls and lessons from a historical survey". Futures: 875.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ Cavanaugh, Joseph P (December 1991). The Social and Behavioral Impacts of Information Systems in the Automated Office: A Literature Review (Masters). Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.
  8. ↑ Thomas, Neil; Conner, Connie (December 1984). At home in the office - A Guide for the Homeworker (Report). Office for Research in High Technology Education, College of Education, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN.
  9. ↑ Geels, Frank W; Smit, Wim A (2000). "Failed technology futures: pitfalls and lessons from a historical survey". Futures: 875.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Franklin, Diane (1986). "F International". Harvard Business School. Case numbers: 486-118, 486-119 and 486-120.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Zuboff, Shoshana; Delong, David (1989-09-01). "Steve Shirley". Harvard Business School. Case number: 490004-PDF-ENG.
  12. ↑ Email from Steve Shirley to Andy Bytheway, 2018-09-04
  13. ↑ 13.00 13.01 13.02 13.03 13.04 13.05 13.06 13.07 13.08 13.09 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 13.15 Shirley, Dame Stephanie; Askwith, Richard (2014-06-10). Let IT Go: The Memoirs of Dame Stephanie Shirley. Andrews UK Limited. ISBN 9781782341536. Search this book on
  14. ↑ Computer women, The Guardian, 31st January, 1964
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 F International Quality Manual, 15th December 1986
  16. ↑ Collins, F., "Change-Related Behaviour and Information Systems", OMEGA, Vol. 16, No. 5, pp. 369-381, Sep-Oct 1988
  17. ↑ UK Government (1975). "Sex Discrimination Act 1975". The National Archives. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  18. ↑ FI newsletter, 1983
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 F International Group hand-out for clients, 1980
  20. ↑ Huws, Ursula (January 1991). "Telework: Projections". Futures.
  21. ↑ Sir John Harvey-Jones speaking at the official opening of the new FI Group Head Office, 10 July 1990
  22. ↑ The Times, London, 1987
  23. ↑ anon (18 October 1987). "Wouldn't you like to go to work like this". Sunday Times.
  24. ↑ FI internal magazine – "Easter Echo", March 1985
  25. ↑ Shirley, Steve (1985). "F international: A unique approach to computer consulting". Telematics and Informatics Volume 2, Issue 2. Elsevier: 165–168. doi:10.1016/S0736-5853(85)80010-1.
  26. ↑ Dahrendoref, Ralf (October 15, 1982). On Britain. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226134109. Search this book on
  27. ↑ Tofler, Alvin (1989). The Third Wave. Bantam Books. ISBN 9780553246988. Search this book on
  28. ↑ Peters, Tom (1982). In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. ISBN 0060548789. Search this book on
  29. ↑ Syrett, Michel (1985). Goodby 9-5. New Opportunity Press. ISBN 9780862630768. Search this book on
  30. ↑ Handy, Charles (1995). The empty Raincoat: Making sense of the Future. Arrow Business Books. ISBN 9780099301257. Search this book on
  31. ↑ Bytheway, Andy (June 1980). "On the proper treatment of measurement data". Computer Performance.
  32. ↑ Bytheway, Andy; Morris, Gill (1983). "Structured Systems Analysis - from ideas to practice". Proc Pergamon Infotech Conference.
  33. ↑ Bytheway, Andy (1985). "Structured Methods - an analysis". Proc IBM Computer Users Conference.
  34. ↑ Bytheway, Andy (April 1987). "Open System Construction - a strategy for turbulent times". Proc BCS Database 87, Edinburgh.
  35. ↑ Bytheway, Andy (September 1987). "An open season on Standards". Computing.,
  36. ↑ Bytheway, Andy; Bytheway, Bill (June 1984). "Information technology for the Elderly". BUPA Health Evaluation Conference, London.


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