Freelance
News Service
East Bay Companies: Two Profiles
Picture Works and Providian Financial
By William Cracraft
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PICTURE WORKS
PictureWorks is a digital imaging software company in Danville.
"we do lots of fun things with digital images," said Beverly D’Elena, Human
Resources Manager. "We have products that enhance an image, make it look better,
take out all the red-eye, fix the colors, shave off my thighs. I sent my son’s
picture out on our newsletter this year and I literally cleaned his face,"
she said
Called HotShots, the company markets the software, which runs on Macintosh and Windows platforms, through the Internet and as part of the software package that comes with digital cameras The product is not sold in stores, instead it is bundled with software sold with digital cameras, sold over the Internet and through a direct sales channel.
Another product the company puts out, called NetCard, allows users to send e-mail with an image attached. "This is easy. It’s a little picture postcard with the image on one side and verbiage on the other, it kind of walks you through the process," said D’Elena
Other products include software that allows the user to view a series of photos as if they were stitched together to form a 360-degree view, and one that does the opposite, allows the user to "walk around" the subject of the photo and make it spin. PictureWorks latest release is a real estate imaging marketing kit geared towards real estate professionals which allows a virtual walk-through of homes for sale, and develops the web site prospective buyers can visit to view the homes.
The four-year-old company was founded by Lisa Wood and Stan Fry. The company has 60 employees and has doubled in size every year, said D’Elena. PictureWorks has partnership agreements with Kodak, Apple, Cassia, and Nikon, to name a few. Fry, an imaging technology expert, has been instrumental in developing dozens of hardware and software imaging products.
Before PictureWorks he was a principle at Wang Imaging and held key management positions at Burroughs and other companies. Wood, vice president, is in charge of strategic vision and thus identifies new markets and technology for the company.
Prior to founding PictureWorks, she co-founded Image Software and has held senior management positions at other software companies. Wood and Fry brought in Donald Strickland, a professional president and CEO, to set and execute corporate strategy, manage the companies finances and meet business goals.Formerly vice president of imaging and publishing at Apple Computer, he was also vice president of equipment and software at Kodak, holds three masters and a law degree.
The company went international in 1995 when it partnered up with Epson to include PictureWorks PhotoEnhancer and PhotoFun products in both Macintosh and Windows versions with color scanners in Japan. Epson has sixty percent of the market share, giving PictureWorks a clean shot at dominating that market.
Last fall, the company was featured on the television program New Media News after HotShots was named Editors Pick by Macworld Magazine and PCPhoto magazine. "It’s just a fine, upbeat place with a high energy, fast-paced, plan-it-stick-to-it-and- get-it-done," attitude, said D’Elena.
PROVIDIAN FINANCIAL
Providian Financial, headquartered in San Francisco, has its
largest operation, 2000 employees, in Pleasanton. The publicly traded company
has 4000 employees all together, most of them in the Bay Area. The company
has $11 billion assets under management and over 5 million customers nationwide
. "We rank among the 12 largest unsecured credit card issuers in the country
and we are also the largest issuer of secured credit cards," said Laurie Cole
of Providian’s San Francisco office.
A secured cards is a credit card backed by an interest-bearing savings account, so it works like credit card, not debit which draws on funds deposited. With secure credit cards the credit line is usually close to 100% of the deposit securing it. This type of card allows people who are new to credit and may not qualify for unsecured credit, to establish a payment history.
"People who have had problems in the past and may not qualify for unsecured credit receives the advantages of a credit card. "It’s hard to reserve a hotel room and do a lot of other things without a credit card," said Cole The fourteen-year-old company, a spin off from an insurance group, is growing rapidly. Providian Corporation consisted of three insurance companies and the financial lending arm.
The insurance companies merged with an international group and Providian Financial began operation independently. the companies stock price has doubled since the initial offering in last June. Since then the company has added almost 1000 new employees. Net income in 1997 was $121.5 million, twenty-six percent higher than last year and the company is predicting 25% earnings growth in 1998.
The company includes a home loan department with over a billion dollars loaned in 1997. Cole said the company has been described as a Silicon Valley-type corporation, with casual dress every day, benefits like six weeks paid sabbatical after six years of service and high energy level and growth. Providian’s Pleasanton operation covers home loan and unsecured credit card business, with sales, collections and cusomter service personnel. "It is the largest call center we have right now with 2500 employee," said Annette Silva, vice president of staffing.
Silva, former human resources manager for Ross Stores, started as recruiting manager at the Providian Pleasanton operation 18 months ago. The Pleasanton sales department does some cold calling and respond to customer inquires about new credit cards. Customer service takes care of balance transfers and credit protection processes.
Providian has borrowed another idea from high-tech companies. Forty-six percent of new hires come via referrals, for which the referring employee receives a bonus. The Pleasanton site, five buildings set on a campus, has an on-site fitness center for employees. "There is a pretty high quality workforce in the Tri-Valley area and you can recruit from Oakland to Tracy and it’s an easy commute into the Tri-Valley area.
Silva, a resident of Livermore has a ten minute commute when she stays in town. Silva also hires for Providian’s San Francisco site where its secured card operations are housed. "Most technical recruiting is out of San Francisco, but we do have a technical recruiter on-site in the East Bay," she said. Technical recruiting is the toughest because of Silicon Valley competition, but Silva knows what brings in computer folk. "Our challenge is to make the project attractive to the technology people we want to work at Providian," she said.
"We are a very innovative and flexible company, we’re always creating. We have a marketing plan that will take off requiring somebody to do it on a dime and create a software program or design some kind of screen for us. We just have to get them on board first to explain what we’re all about," she said.
The biggest advantage to working for Providian is "the ability to create and be valued for your talents. We’re a very unstructured company, so we hire talent and then figure out what the positions going to be," said Silva.
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