The Secret to Syncsort’s Success: 50 Years of Advancing Data
Syncsort has a unique and compelling story. It is the only software company that can make two claims to success. It enjoyed explosive growth in the early days of the software industry and is experiencing phenomenal growth now, 50 years later. Few companies that can make the first claim still exist, and no others can claim the same levels of growth today.
How is this possible? Let’s explore what launched Syncsort as a powerhouse in the software business, and how that success was duplicated five decades later. Here’s a hint: the emphasis is on both what hasn’t changed and what has changed the most.
Celebrating Success
At Syncsort we just marked our 50th Anniversary with a video webcast to all employees and office parties around the world. We had a lot to celebrate from our accomplishments in early days of the software industry to our success today.
The celebration at corporate headquarters in Pearl River including our guest of honor, Aso Tavitian
Our CEO, Josh Rogers, was proud to introduce our guest of honor, Aso Tavitian. Tavitian is a Syncsort founder who led our company as CEO for over 32 years of steady growth from 1975-2008. Those years included many achievements that helped Syncsort make its better mouse trap – a much faster product for very resource-intensive and costly Mainframe Sort processing – and make it a dominant product in the industry.
Kicking off a Culture of Success
Tavitian understood several important things. First, it wasn’t good enough to have a great product, you must be able to prove its ROI for customers. That’s why he leveraged his physics background to devise an algorithm to measure our Sort product’s performance. With this, customers were able to see the incredible savings they could achieve with our solution. Combined with a ComputerWorld cover story on a benchmark concluding that the new product cut Sort times in half, Syncsort sales took off and the company has never looked back.
Tavitian also fostered a company culture of innovation that made employees want to win in everything they set out to do which often kept them at Syncsort. At our celebration, we recognized over 34 colleagues who have over 25 years of service. Some of the most tenured spoke to all their colleagues. The common theme was that they didn’t expect to stay at Syncsort more than a few years, but soon realized this was a great place to be.
Aso Tavitian talks with CEO Josh Rogers during the boardroom dedication ceremony
In recognition of his significant contribution to our organization, Syncsort honored Tavitian by dedicating the board room as the “Aso Tavitian Executive Briefing Center.”
The Next Wave of Success
In just the three years since his promotion to CEO in January 2016, Josh Rogers has made his mark on the business. During that short time, the company has more than quadrupled revenue and employees. There is an important lesson to learn in explaining why. Rogers has continued to foster Syncsort’s tremendous culture and has kept the company focused on what started its ascent… innovation.
Today, Syncsort not only innovates to offer organizations better mouse traps, it also focuses on solving problems that prevent customers from taking advantage of the next wave of technology. That includes building a leadership position in the fast-growing Big Iron to Big Data Market market segment, composed of solutions that optimize traditional data systems and deliver mission-critical data from these systems to next-generation analytic environments. It also includes greatly expanding Syncsort’s product portfolio through internal development and acquisitions.
Syncsort offices across the globe marked the momentous occasion. Shown here are the Israel, Japan and Germany celebrations.
In addition, Syncsort also leverages its software to help customers advance data and take advantage of emerging technologies like AI, machine learning and blockchain. That’s how Syncsort has grown from advancing Sort technology to advancing many other aspects of data management, to optimize, assure and integrate data in both traditional and next generation environments.
The common thread between Syncsort’s early days and today is the exciting innovation driven by people who love to work at the company and love to win.
For a look at some of Syncsort’s advancements of the last 50 years, read the white paper: 50 Years of Mainframe Sorting Innovation from Syncsort. Also, check out our About Us page for the latest Syncsort headlines, a closer look at our 50-year history and more about our leadership team.