The Scoop...

Rent-a-geek

In 1966, two former IBM employees in Buffalo, NY decided to venture into relatively uncharted waters with technical professional services. Randy Marks, an IBM account representative, assumed responsibility for marketing the new company, while his partner, G. David Baer, provided technical consulting services. They each put up $4,000 and borrowed another $16,000 as start-up capital for the new enterprise, which they called Marks-Baer, Inc. (MBI). As computers became more powerful and software more complex, Marks and Baer offered programmers, designers and managers to clients who lacked the expertise to set up their own computing systems. MBI opened a branch in New York City in 1968, doubled its staff to 20, and changed its name to Computer Task Group. The company went public in 1969.

Happy birthday

In 1996 CTG celebrated its 30th anniversary. By the end of the year, the company had buy recommendations from three investment analysts, including Oppenheimer. That spring CTG was named one of the 100 best places to work by Computerworld Magazine. In 1998, CTG garnered its best year ever in revenue.

Y2K forever?

Over the years, CTG has acquired an impressive list of clients, including Union Carbide, Chemical Bank, Atlas Steel, and its largest client, industry giant IBM. CTG specializes in serving clients with large, complex information and data processing requirements. CTG's customer base is large and diverse, consisting of approximately 430 customers in North America and Europe. In 1999, CTG purchased Elumen Solutions, a Cincinnati consulting firm, for $89 million. The deal allowed CTG to pursue health care-related information technology.

In the beginning, CTG also reaped the benefits of the Y2K bug: the company was instrumental in the configuration of computer systems worldwide to recognize the new millennium. However, Y2K fears stopped big companies from investing in computer projects and sales continued to fall towards the end of 1999. Unfortunately, those big companies have turned to the Internet in the meantime, and CTG has yet to see sales surge now that Y2K has passed. CTG hopes that the formation of Zenius, an e-commerce solutions company that connects companies to the Internet, will help it catch back up. Since the slump began in mid-1999, CTG's employment has decreased by 1,500 people, but Zenius should help to offset that number. Recent alliances with Lone Star Steel and British digital mobile phone service provider One 2 One should also help to boost business.

Branching out

Through its six primary subsidiaries, (CTG Services, Inc.; Computer Task Group of Canada, Inc.; Computer Task Group (U.K.) Ltd.; Computer Task Group Nederland B.V.; Computer Task Group Luxembourg S.A.; and Computer Task Group Belgium N.V.) CTG has structured its operations into three main businesses units - CTG Zenius, which provides end-to-end e-business solutions; ITCapital, which recruits and manages IT talent and provides professional IT services solutions, and Exemplar, which plans, designs, implements, and maintains start-to-finish IT solutions.

The company has also broadened its reach and expanded its overall focus in recent years, as it now has units or affiliates that deal in a variety of industries such as Healthcare, Retail Services, Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Petroleum and Chemicals.