A Swedish software maker is shifting some of its leadership to Irvine.
Telelogic AB, which has annual sales of about $140 million, recently named the head of its Irvine operation, Scott Raskin, the company’s chief operating officer. Raskin formerly was president of its Telelogic North America Inc. and Asia Pacific units.
The company, which helps customers speed up product and software development, also has moved its chief marketing officer and senior vice president of global support to Irvine as part of the change.
The company’s other top executives,its chief executive, chief financial officer and chief technology officer,still are based in Sweden.
The moves make Telelogic’s Irvine office the company’s “operational headquarters,” though its corporate headquarters remains in Europe, Raskin said. Telelogic is publicly traded in Sweden.
“The business operations, for all practical purposes, are run from here,” Raskin said. “We’ve centralized the global marketing operations. We’ve got product management here, and we’re managing global customer support here.”
The Irvine office and Raskin have been rising stars in the company.
The office makes up more than half of Telelogic’s sales, compared to about 45% when Raskin arrived in 2001.
Telelogic gave Raskin the chief operating officer position in July after the Americas region posted a sales increase of 42% in the quarter ending June, aided in part by acquisitions. The region easily was the fastest growing for the company, which posted overall sales growth of 29% in the period.
One industry observer said Raskin had dealt well with a potential hurdle.
“It is always a very difficult challenge for a European company to succeed in North America, especially in the U.S.,” said Tom Welsh, senior consultant at Cutter Consortium in Great Britain, in an e-mail.
Beefing up its U.S. headquarters brings more of Telelogic’s leadership closer to key customers, Raskin said.
Many of its customers are in the aerospace, auto and telecom industries. Raskin plans to target more industries, including banking, insurance, consumer electronics and medical devices.
Telelogic’s software helps companies manage development of their products, services and software.
It isn’t geared toward small companies with small budgets. Rather, large companies use the software for big projects, such as designing software for autos or cell phones.
The company’s customers include Boeing Co., General Motors Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp.
It has three main software product lines: Doors, TAU and Synergy.
Doors helps users complete projects on time, within budget and with the features that were originally designed.
TAU is used to design, model and test software.
Synergy helps software makers control quality and longevity in their products.
Telelogic has made several acquisitions to boost its product lines.
In spring the company paid $45 million to buy New York-based Popkin Software & Systems Inc. The company, which had worked with Telelogic in the past, provides software and services that help companies with their database modeling and Web publishing, among other features. Telelogic had teamed up with Popkin on some projects prior to the combination.
This past summer, Telelogic acquired Sweden’s Focal Point AB, which provides software and services that helps companies in early-stage product development.
Still, the company faces tough competition with companies such as IBM Corp. and others that are going after some of the same markets.
Welsh said Telelogic has distinguished itself with its technology and has a good shot at meeting its growth plans.
The company employs more than 100 people in Irvine, where it has about 35,000 square feet of office space. Telelogic has more than 50 offices in all and about 650 employees.
The company’s Irvine operations have come a long way from when Raskin arrived in early 2001, after a decade-long stint at Irvine-based Nexgenix Inc., a venture-backed software developer.
As the technology boom came to an end, Telelogic made a couple of big acquisitions in a bid to build up its U.S. presence.
The first buy was Mt. Arlington, N.J.-based QSS Inc., which developed the TAU software, in early 2000.
The acquisition of Coninuous Software later that year brought Telelogic to Irvine. Coninuous Software made the Synergy line.
Raskin helped cobble together the three companies. He streamlined operations to reflect the waning fortunes of the technology sector. One of the first things he did was get the company out of a Web design business that was losing sales.
Raskin also helped reorganize the company’s many layers of operations, including sales and accounting. The company cut more than half of its staff globally, including about 30 people in Irvine.
“We were in a situation where we had multiple levels of everything,” he said. “You’d see three Telelogic salespeople in the same customer lobby.”
These efforts were wrapped up by July 2001. A leaner Telelogic helped it bounce back from the fallout of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Since then, the company has grown with new customers, and Telelogic’s total sales have increased by more than 50%.
