The power of team

We finished our retreat this afternoon and sent the team back to their offices with lots of good information and training and hopefully with a new outlook on life. Last night we spent the evening having fun together. We had our annual awards ceremony and presented about 2o different awards to the folks who have made it happen during the last year. Then we bowled together. That is always a lot of fun. A time to let down our hair and enjoy each other's company. You get to see a different side of people when they are in a non work environment having fun. Today we had our review of 2008, a bit more planning and training and then heard some words from Ingram who reviewed their report card of HTS for the past year. Of course they gave us a 20% growth goal to chase, but that happened in 2007 and we blew past that so we should be able to do it again this year.

We closed the day reviewing our big bets for 2008. Have you identified the technology or areas you are betting your company on this year? Have you determined how you are going to achieve growth. Part of it is really aligning with key vendor partners. Part of it is having a gut feel for what technologies are going to be hot and going after them. Sometimes we miss, but more often than not we have been right. We ended the day with my 30 minute discussion of the future and how I see our business over the next 5 years. In a couple words it is growth and change. They go together but are not directly coupled. We have to continue to grow to survive. We cannot stay stagnant in this industry and survive. We will be reinventing ourselves again and again. But along with that we have to embrace change. The technology business is going to undergo some very extreme changes in the next few years. We have to adapt and embrace those things.

All in all it was a fantastic event and the team had a good time and left charged up and ready for a great year together. We grew 32% last year in revenue. Will we do it again? I don't know but we are going after it and will give it our best effort. The HTS team is ready to make IT happen!