Slimmed-down SafeHarbor survives dot-com bust
From the Daily World
February 24, 2007

By Callie White - Daily World Writer

The local tech company that could, SafeHarbor Technology Corp., made it through the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Once a quintessential 1990s tech company, SafeHarbor has stood the test of time and become a typical company. Instead of cutting a swath through the Internet to impress clients it solicits their input to improve its service. It has also cut back dramatically on its call center to focus on its web-based customer service.

SafeHarbor has survived because it has a viable business model, even though, SafeHarbor Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer Annette Jacobs said, it has yet to make a profit.

"Our revenues keep going up," she said. "But we’re not there yet."

SafeHarbor plays a behind-the-scenes role for companies most people have heard of, if not used: Washington Mutual, American Airlines, T-Mobile and Intel are a few of the company’s clients. SafeHarbor manages their Web-based customer service and takes calls at a call center.

Someone hitting the customer service tab may think they’re talking straight to Adobe, but really, finding the solution to their problem involves going through the Satsop company’s pathways. The company’s Web site is likely informed by SafeHarbor’s experts, if not designed from the ground up for them.

"Even in the tech industry, not all companies have a core competency in Web design," Jacobs said. "It takes people who are familiar with graphics."

And sometimes a company’s core competancy isn’t its ability to help the people who use its products, either — and that is where SafeHarbor steps in.

"We can show that it is cheaper if we provide that service than if the company has it in-house," Jacobs said. "But getting that foot in the door to show a company that, is very hard."

Jacobs came to SafeHarbor in 2005 after working for years with wireless companies like Verizon and Qwest. She has brought a client’s-eye perspective to a company that, in its early days, aspired to be a tech company first. With that perspective came a harder look at what clients most want to know — will SafeHarbor save them money?

"In business, everyone wants to keep their customers happy, but nobody wants to spend any money," Jacobs said. So she implemented the means to measure the cost of doing business with SafeHarbor versus going it alone.

What the company found, said Harry Thomas, vice president of marketing and product management, was that it could provide a return on a company’s investment in six months.

"You need to know where you started and what progress has been made," Jacobs said.

In order to help their clients benefit from having SafeHarbor, the software platform was rejiggered so it didn’t need all-new hardware or software to work, but could run on top of whatever system the company had installed.

Not only, Jacobs said, is SafeHarbor more attractive because it won’t require an expensive change of technology, but the person in charge of selecting SafeHarbor is probably the same person who installed the previous systems.

"Nobody likes to tell their boss they made a mistake," Jacobs said.

Changes in technology in the past few years have helped SafeHarbor’s business model, which relies on customers serving themselves through the Internet. More people than ever have Internet service, and there is wide availability of broadband, high-speed service, which encourages customers to turn to the Internet instead of a call center.

Since the company can do more Internet business, it has cut back its call center positions, Jacobs said, making it more efficient.

In 2001, SafeHarbor had about 200 employees. Today, it has about 100 and has stayed at that number for the past three years. The majority of the positions that were lost in the call center were the kinds of jobs that hired Harborites; the renewed focus on web-based customer service — and building the software — has meant recruiting professionals from the Puget Sound area, Jacobs said.

Indeed, the SafeHarbor campus now has one building where it once had two. It has almost a whole floor of empty cubicles. But this isn’t a sign of deterioration, it’s a sign of maturity, Jacobs said.

"As you can see, we have a lot of room to grow," Jacobs said.

The founders of SafeHarbor, three Hoquiam High School graduates, sold their shares in the company and have been out of the picture for some time, Thomas said.

But there are new investors with venture capital from New York, London and the Pacific Northwest, Jacobs said, and they’re in for the long haul.

"We’re not in the dot-com era anymore," Jacobs said. "What’s important is having a sustainable business model, and we have that."

Copyright © 2007 The Daily World.

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