14 entrepreneurs
Why success is signed, sealed and delivered by NetDespatch
Leaving school at 16, Becky Clark’s introduction to the fledgling world of IT came courtesy of her first job in a bank. With a love of solving problems, combined with a determination to succeed, she went on to work for a variety of different companies before founding her first business aged just 23. Today she is co-founder and CEO of Marlow-based NetDespatch, an award-winning multi-million turnover business with 45 employees. It is recognised as the fastest growing global player in the delivery of innovative web-based solutions for postal and parcel carriers, working with big names such as Royal Mail, Yodel, Amazon and e-commerce partners Magento and ChannelAdvisor. Alison Dewar found out the secrets of her success
Growing up on the south coast, Clark followed the wishes of her “typically Victorian” parents and joined Barclays Bank, gaining her first glimpse of the computer technology that would guide her future career. Moving to Elliott NCR, she discovered a talent for computer programming, going on to become a systems analyst and then a freelance IT consultant. By now married to husband Roy, Clark founded Fleetway Systems with him in 1985, offering innovative PC-based real time despatch systems for transport companies. Clark sold the business in 1998 and a year later co-founded NetDespatch with younger son Matthew. She and Roy, who is now retired, live in Maidenhead.
I landed a contract with Birds Eye/Walls as team leader for the integration of their national distribution systems. At the time, each company would have vehicles delivering frozen food to the same area. My project was to join up the orders into a single distribution system. It was my first introduction into logistics; I found it really interesting and it formed the grounding for what I do today.
How did you make the leap to founding Fleetway Systems?
Tell us more about what attracted you to IT
Businesses were just beginning to look at computers; I could see what an exciting future they were offering, so I started looking for jobs in computing. At Elliott NCR they offered me a trainee position in what was the first publicly available computer workshop, where you could buy half an hour on a massive computer for £100.
I found I had a talent for computer programming, and also met my future husband Roy. At 19, I moved to Smiths Industries, where I worked on production control systems for fighter planes. From there I joined Save and Prosper, which was the first unit trust company to have entirely computer automated systems.
What gave you the confidence to become a freelance consultant?
By the time I was 23, I had become head of IT training and was working alongside the board of directors. Compared to most people I had a massive amount of experience, there were very few computer programmers and everyone wanted them, so that gave me the push I needed to freelance.
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The Birds Eye/Walls integration had been built on a network of mini computers. Courier companies could see the advantages of the system but they couldn’t afford to go the same route. The first microcomputers were beginning to come into the market, so we built a PC-based real-time despatch system for them. Fleetway Systems grew out of that and after 12 years we were market leaders with 1,000 customers. In 1998, we sold the business to an American company floating on the Nasdaq, Dispatch Management Services.
What did you do next?
We had enjoyed working with retailers to seamlessly integrate their systems with their carriers and realised we could build better solutions using the internet. However, no-one at that time had the right equipment to enable us to run transaction-based applications, so we had some servers custom built. That was when we founded NetDespatch, because we knew we could provide an innovative service that was going to be needed in the future to connect retailers’ websites with their carriers.
Who was your inspiration?
One of my biggest inspirations was my half- brother. When I was 16, he was a professor of linguistics and was using a Cray computer. Dame “Steve” Shirley, who founded the software company FI Group, was another; she made it
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – APRIL 2015
possible for so many people (including me) to stay in IT when they became parents, by enabling them to work from home.
How did Matthew become involved?
Roy and I ran Fleetway Systems together and Matthew effectively grew up in a software house. After gaining a BSc Hons in Computing, he joined the BT FastTrack graduate scheme, where he gained invaluable experience building the core messaging gateway for the Phonenet application, later being head-hunted as R&D manager for DMS. We co-founded NetDespatch, and while he’s our chief technical officer, responsible for the design, development and architecture of the NetDespatch platform, I say I, with some other members of our Board, provide the “grey hair” in the business. During the early days, Matthew went on to gain an MBA from Liverpool University, which inspired
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