SPEKTRA Systems, a Scottish provider of e-commerce softwaresolutions, is set to triple its workforce to 150 over the next twoyears through fast organic growth.
The Livingston-based company is also planning to open new salesand support offices in Glasgow and London and eventually in Europe.
Spektra, which is owned by its management and employees hasalready opened a first sales office in Edinburgh as part of a firstphase #500,000 expansion programme.
This will be financed entirely from internal resources.
The company was founded four years ago and with turnover runningat #4m a year it already makes an undisclosed profit.
The bulk of the 100 new jobs will be for hi-tech computingsciences staff at Spektra's product development centre inLivingston.
The company, which is owned by its management and employees, isalready looking at overseas opportunities.
A second phase of expansion will see the company expand intoEurope. Managing director Gordon Stuart said Spektra was already indiscussions with a number of potential clients on the Continent.
"We're opening the new offices (in the UK) to bring ourselvescloser to clients, particularly in the financial sector," he said.
"While some of the new jobs will be based in these new offices,we aim to create a Scottish centre of excellence for technologydevelopment in an outstanding environment for developers andprogrammers at Livingston.
"With the skills and infrastructure base around us, we see thecentral belt as the best place in the UK to build up this kind ofcentre."
Spektra is operating in a market with huge potential. 'It's sobig, we don't have to worry about it," Stuart said.
"Our aim is to grow continuously," he added, "and if we movequickly enough, we can build up a whole new industry in Scotland -the opportunities really are global."
Key customers include Scottish Equitable, Scottish Widows andinsurance giant CGNU.
Typically, Spektra "provides the engine" which drives an e-commerce website for a large lender or insurance firm.
This uses the Java computer language - the computing equivalentof Esperanto - which allows PCs to download software off theInternet and run applications which are not installed on the user'smachine.
Spektra's software can therefore deliver online mortgage-multiplier equations when users log onto the website of a lenderwith inquiries about how much they can borrow.
Spektra Systems was formed in 1996 when four employees ofSchindler Lifts, a Swiss multinational, bought out one of itsresearch and development divisions.
Gordon Stuart, Euan Robertson, Mark Phillips and Russell Brodieput in their own money to turn it into a software and developmentconsultancy.
Spektra, which retained Schindler as a client, is 100% owned bythe current 50 employees, including the four founders.
The company is funding its expansion entirely through the rapidre-investment retained profits.
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