‘All you need is a good idea and a good team to support you’

Name: Chrissie Du Barry Name of Company: Ship Shape Software. We develop software solutions for the clearing and forwarding industry and have been in the business since 1987. Family members involved: Now, only myself, but I consider my staff to be part of the family. We are a small group of people (only nine in total) and we have come a along way together. I have been very fortunate to have found staff who have stayed with me from the time I got involved in the business in 1999. Both my senior managers Andre Morgenrood and JL Koekemoer have been with me going on 10 years. Without their support and hard work over the years none of this would have been possible. They are backed up by their team on the Help Desk and software development and as a team we all contribute to the success of the company. Established... The company was established by my late husband Alain Du Barry in 1987. It was quite an amazing feat because he had worked in the freight industry for 20 years as an entry clerk and taught himself to write software. It took him several years of working late nights and weekends while he was employed full time as an entry clerk. He was determined to develop a software system that would take all the hard work out of framing entries – something he did all day long. When we met in 1989 he had built a good client base and I was his sounding board at the end of the day, so I got to learn a lot about his business just by listening to him. In 1999 Alain died tragically in an accident. In the midst of my bereavement I was forced to take a decision on whether to continue with the business or close it down. Because I knew how much it meant to Alain I felt an intense sense of commitment to the clients and decided to carry on in his place. Ten years later we are alive and well and growing the business into something I never could have imagined in those early days. Our biggest challenges … To continue to develop software to keep up with our clients’ requirements, which of course are never ending because of the nature of our business. However I am confident we have the best system on the market and it continues to evolve and improve on a daily basis. Our recipe for success: Being lucky enough to find the right people for the job and giving them the opportunity to excel at what they do. Our motto is: Where there is a will there is a way. We try our best to accommodate our clients while still keeping our software generic enough to fit all our clients’ businesses. Issues on which we agree: We are a tight knit group of people and we all have a strong belief that the client comes first. I think if you have that kind of buy-in from your staff you can only be successful at the end of the day. Issues on which we disagree: Friday lunch – we order take- aways and it’s always a debate of who will get their way that day. Our business icon: No one person. I admire my clients whom I have seen grow from small concerns to very successful businesses today (like ourselves) and who continue to grow and prosper. It inspires me to see people who have a strong belief in themselves and make it happen. You don’t have to have a PhD to be successful in business, just a good idea and a team of good people to support you. Our future aspirations: Of course to continue to prosper and still be here in another 20 years, bigger and stronger than ever.