11/07/2004- Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA)
A small Northampton company that designs and builds Web sites, makes marketing CD-ROMs and develops custom software is the winner of the Pioneer Valley Business Excellence Award.
The sixth annual award, organized by the Springfield Area Council for
Excellence, will go to Gravity Switch Inc., a nine-person firm founded
in 1996.
The program is modeled on the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award program. Companies are evaluated on six areas:
customer satisfaction, process improvement, leadership, human
resources, business results, and information sharing. Says Jeanette
Jez, SPACE's Executive Director, "It's a process that a company goes
through," including the 12-page application and an on-site evaluation
by a team of quality experts to assess whether "their business
practices are such that warrant receiving the 'torch of excellence.'"
Gravity
Switch "wowed" the evaluation team, Jez said. "They just raved about
the whole company.The leadership team has created a culture that
promotes honesty, accountability, quality and creativity from its staff
by walking the walk as leadership models and through various methods
that promote constant communication on lessons learned," wrote SPACE's
team of examiners.
The company is on a bit of a roll. In addition to the SPACE award, it's a finalist for an award from the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange,
a 2,500-member association of companies from several industries,
including the Internet, nanotechnology, interactive marketing and
others. The company is one of three finalists - two Volkswagen projects
are its competitors - for its work on a Web site for Real Log Homes,
www.realloghomes.com. Christine H. Mark, principal and co-founder of
Gravity Switch, noted that most of the 800-odd applicants for MITX
awards are from Boston, New York, San Francisco or Silicon Valley, "so
it's really exciting to have Northampton in that mix."
The
company has a list of processes it has developed to improve the way it
works. For a nine-year-old company started by then-twentysomethings,
the question is how the emphasis on process and improvement developed.
"I
think self-improvement, improvement, growth and learning as a concept
is very important to both of us," said Christine Mark, who founded the
company with her now-husband, Jason Mark. The company's clients range
from local colleges and companies to national companies including
Honda, Sega, The Hartford and Polaroid. The firm's revenues have grown
by double-digit percentages in recent years: 35 percent from 2001 to
2002, and 25 percent from 2002 to 2003, Christine Mark said.
Before
Gravity Switch even starts to design a site, the customer and staff go
through a rigorous strategizing exercise to hone in on what the client
wants and needs. And then, Gravity Switch "anticipates the wants and
needs of the end-users" to make sure the Web site, CD-ROM or other
product is user-friendly and fully functional, the team wrote.
Or,
as Carol G. Devine, vice president of sales and marketing, put it, "we
have a tremendous dedication to focusing on our customer and our
customer's customer." That includes "making sure the designs are clean
and very easy to use, that they're thoroughly tested," she said. "We do
client de-briefs, we do extensive 'lessons learned' after every
project" that go into a central database and are used to improve
processes, she said.
The company has also created some
proprietary software systems to improve its operations. The oldest one
is its bug-tracking database to detect flaws in programs or Web sites;
a time-tracking database not only for clients who are billed by the
hour, but to quantify how long certain tasks take; and its encyclopedic
knowledge base, that includes everything from the employee manual to
tech support, including how to reboot the server or make a conference
call.
Applying for the SPACE award took parts of three or four days, Devine said.
Jason
Mark said a big reason for applying for the SPACE award was the
opportunity to be evaluated by a team of experts, and get a feedback
report that will point out areas for improvement. Devine said the
company found another use for the application: A new employee was given
the application to read to find out "'what you need to know about
Gravity Switch - here in one place are all of our processes.'" Actually
receiving the award, Christine Mark said, "is like the cherry on top."
About Gravity Switch
Founded
in 1996 and known for its superior design sense, technical savvy and
commitment to quality, Gravity Switch is an award-winning interactive
media firm that specializes in sophisticated websites, CD-ROMs and
internet consulting. The firm works with national and local businesses,
educational institutions, manufacturing, service and non-profit
organizations with a client roster that includes The University of
Massachusetts, Hartford Life, Polaroid, Honda, Sega, and Smith College.
For more information about Gravity Switch, call 413-586-9596 or visit
their website: www.gravityswitch.com.
About SPACE
SPACE
was founded in 1992 as a non-profit organization, by a group of
forward-thinking Pioneer Valley business leaders who saw continuous
improvement as one of the critical tools for economic development in
our region. SPACE has since become the premiere voice for quality
throughout the Pioneer Valley.
Press Contact:
Marcia Blomberg, Republican
mblomberg@repub.com