Corporate executives are straining to keep up with the velocity and magnitude of technological change required to stay competitive. Ten years ago, information technology drove business. Available data assisted executives in making vital decisions.

Today, business needs are driving information technology. Executives are demanding highly in-depth data from their information technology team that specifically addresses the particular problem they want solved now. To stay competitive, CEOs, CFOs and CIOs (corporate information officers) need to understand how information technology daily affects their business. They need to know:

o What are the defining trends, pivotal vendor issues and best technologies?

o What is the total cost of owning and maintaining an effective computer environment?

o Who is doing it right? Which lessons learned can I use to my advantage?

o What are my company's strengths and weaknesses compared with the industry average?

o How do we avoid costly mistakes?

o How do I make a smaller staff more efficient?

o Which innovations and improvements will pay off handsomely?

o What steps must we take now and in coming years to stay afloat?

Gartner Group has built a $650 million international business on its reputation for helping executives steer a course in addressing this sea of questions. Their information technology services span research advice, cutting-edge analysis, one-on-one consulting and individualized after-sales support.

Throughout its 20-year track record, Gartner Group's core business, from which everything else builds, is its high-margin, high-renewal client research report subscription services. As the self-proclaimed "Voice of Information Technology," the company takes seriously its charter to provide such information objectively and thoughtfully, with an eye to the future.

A network of 2800 employees in 80 offices span the globe. U.S.-based business accounts for 70 percent of total volume. U.S. headquarters are in Stamford CT, San Jose, CA and Fort Myers, FL, which officially opened March, 1998.

Why Here?

Southwest Florida came to the attention of Gartner Group Chairman and CEO Manny Fernandez and CFO John Halligan because both have a home on Sanibel Island, like the area's economic potential and want to participate in their local community. Local economic development incentives, an underemployed workforce and land prices far below real estate costs in Connecticut and California made the decision logical.

Over the past year, a sophisticated two-story office building in Gateway has become home for the new emerging markets inside sales force and the worldwide financial services group. Downstairs, Sales Operations Manager Robin Berkelhammer and Group Vice President Wayne Adams head up the emerging markets operation of 80 freshly trained sales professionals. Another 20 hires are scheduled. Upstairs, Gartner Senior Vice President and Controller Richard Gannon oversees 110 accountants, finance administrators and clerical staff. Eighty-five percent of the downstairs staff and 70 percent of the upstairs staff were recruited locally. With the future in sight, managers already have designated an adjoining site for a second building to keep up with anticipated growth, much of which comes through acquisitions.

"Last September we celebrated moving from NASDAQ to the NYSE, welcome recognition of our industry leadership," says Rich Gannon. "We saw an annual corporate growth rate of 35 percent through much of the 1990s. Though a maturation cycle has caused that to taper to the low 20s, profitability and cash flow remain strong. Our challenge is to manage for continuing growth."

The Fort Myers office will be a significant player in that growth. Historically, Gartner Group's sales net has been set for leviathans with annual sales of $1 billion. After eating that niche, the net grew to encompass those with sales of $500 million. Now, the emerging markets sales force will net new clients with sales of $200 million and under.

Gannon and Berkelhammer heartily embrace the fast-paced Gartner Group milieu, which they characterize as bright entrepreneurial minds, down to earth academic thinkers, intense collaborators in a casual setting.

Berkelhammer's job is to supervise and train the team of inside sales reps, who are picked because they are "a mile wide and an inch deep." Selection is based on an ability to learn. A few have technology or sales experience. "We look for problem solving skills, intelligence, a passionate work ethic and the willingness to plunge into a new field," advises Berkelhammer.

Her staff's job is to help clients understand and tap into an ongoing, appropriately evolving mix of services that is right for them. Each in-house sales rep fields an average 20 phone appointments a week. Their role is to segment and pull pertinent research, conceptualize solutions to a client's dilemma, set up conferences with specialized analysts and consultants and support the direct sales force. They continually identify helpful resources and maintain an ongoing relationship, or "connectivity" with the client.

Gannon's job is to help his corporate financial accounting crew row efficiently through waves of employee payroll and travel expenses, vendor payables and client receivables for offices worldwide. Financial planning, taxes, internal audit and treasury are handled in the head office in Stamford.

Gannon notes that his "staff here as a whole is even better than the department I left up north. Accountants are in such high demand in the Northeast that we were paying premiums beyond what we expected. We were paying more for less and spending more time bringing people up to speed. Over time, such costs become difficult to digest."

Gannon's and Berhkelhammer's course is set to leverage their own company's information technology to make staff efficient, information sharing effective and client service unparalleled.

What You Need to Know

"Technology is top of mind with every CEO," says Berkelhammer. "Take a look at the CEO's letter in any annual report. Not one fails to mention today's technology challenges."

Gartner Group's charter is not to tell you what to do, nor to do it for you, but rather to help you do it logically. They provide the strategic problem-solving tools that are needed by a client's in-house information technology team to determine their own solutions to technical issues.

No matter the size of the company, the interconnected chain of computers, telecommunications, networking infrastructure and software are required to operate with as much expediency and as few glitches as possible. "We help you and your information technology team navigate the issues that keep you up at night," says Gannon.

The top three issues at present are:

** Y2K compliance. Will your systems, your vendors' systems and your customers' systems be rea