Human Resource Strategic Asset Management and Succession Planning System
- I feel that this story can now be told as it is over 5 years since it happened
- William Barker (WB) Introduced to Me by my (late) great Uncle Ronnie Slender
- Started with WBs Visicalc System: it took WB about 2 weeks to see a single client and then produce all the reports
- Initial Spec to do exactly the same in Windows for R20,000
- Realised within a week that the system would be much more expensive and that the DIP Worksheet (Dynamic Interactive Worksheet) alone would cost about 200 hours of development, ie about R50,000
- Immediately started contract negotiations with the client and agreed that we would fund development and the client would do the sales, training, and find the clients; our client already had contracts with Siemens, Standard Bank, Consol Glass, MTN and others
- Contract gave the copyright [this was a mistake] in the product and consultancy to WB in exchange for a 5 year maintenance and support contract for Orbital Decisions. OD and WB would share in product sales 50 50. We went through a number of months of contract negotiations, but WB would never sign. At one point we had an agreement hand written which OD and WB were happy with. I requested my lawyer to photocopy this agreement and WB and OD to sign and then to get the agreement typed and then resign. Our laywer said a handshake would be fine. Unfortunately this was to cost me dearly because when we fell into disagreement, I discovered that in order to prove this handshake, we would need to go to the high court and that would cost in excess of R60,000!
- During this time IRG wanted to buy Orbital Decisions: WB convinced me not to sell because he was concerned that IRG would own the HR StratPlan trademark and product. It was only later when I asked my trademark lawyer if HR Stratplan was actually registered that I found out that it wasn't and could not be registered as by then I owned the HA StratPlan trademark
- By the time we were finished it took WB about 4 hours (instead of 2 weeks) to work with a client and product all the reports instantly
- The system contained an "Import Wizard", an Organisational Charting Tool, a Windows based DIP Worksheet, 10 completely new reports, an automatic consolidation feature, all designed and created entirely by David Lipschitz and Justin Turberville in Orbital Decisions
- Marketing Brochures
- Original Product Presentation
- Business Plan
- I had invested about R200,000 of cash in the project and Justin and I had invested over 1,000 hours of time.
- WB had done work with Consol Glass, Siemens, Standard Bank, MTN and other clients with our system and was earning an income from it. This included a 5 week contract with MTN/MTel starting in January 1999. This income was meant to be split 50 50 with Orbital Decisions during the product development stage. We didn't see one cent. We also bought WB a laptop for his use and had to spend 6 months fighting legally to get it back.
- We received an order from Consol Glass in March 1999 for a single factory licence including consultancy at R37,000. Unfortunately the contract hadn't been signed and although Mercantile Bank had said they would give us the required finance, they wanted the WB and OD contract signed first and the first deal done. OD withdrew from the negotiations at this point due to the contract not being signed. 4 members of staff were made redundant and instead of liquidating OD, DL spent the next 3 months paying staff and creditors and then it took another 4 years to recover the time and money investment.
- A possible turnover of over R1m per month was lost because of this breakdown.
- From October 1998 to March 1999, WB and his wife basically lived at our house, often arriving early in the morning and leaving late at night. We fed and looked after them. It was no problem. When the problems started, WB told his lawyer that he didn't know we had spent so much time developing the system and that he had hardly been to our house during this time. He also completely left out the number of times we flew together to Joburg and stressed that I had lent him the laptop (on a permanent basis).
- In about May, WB asked Justin Turberville to steal the source code and work for WB. JT refused.
- In 1999, WB found 2 people who tried to negotiate a successful resolution to the situation, namely JS and SVN, an independent consultant who said he had access to venture capital. This venture capital never materialised.
- During 1999, I found out that WB had requested another company to write the system before us, namely Tony Marriner. When I presented these facts to WB, WB told me that TM had stolen the system from him. I also found out that a programmer, Alec Versveld, had not been paid by WB for work done. See email WB to his friends in the UK (note references to us as "his programmer" and that the South African market would be ours.
- In July 1999, I presented a "walk away offer to WB" for R48,279.64 inc VAT. WB didn't accept this offer and continued to fight and say the product was his and he didn't owe us anything. In fact JS offered me R35,000 and requested that I put another few hundred hours of development time into the product!
- After this breakdown, DG requested to purchase the system. I told him the entire history and he was interested. WB prevented the sale.
- In December 1999 I had a nervous breakdown as from April 1999 till December 1999, I worked 7 days a week to recover my business and my life. When I stopped a tidal wave swept over me and I started drowning. I would like to thank all my closest friends, Margie Wakefield and particularly my wife, Mirjana, who saved me during this time.
- William Barker went to work for HCSS in Massachusetts, USA, taking the program with him. I don't know if he ever got the source code as we never gave it to him, but I do know that HCSS started using all our terminology and ideas. See http://www.hcss.net/Nav1.htm and click on "Our Solutions."
- In 2003, JB told me that he had a BEE partner, BM, who was interested in the product. I didn't hide anything from them and told them they can have the source code for R200,000, but they must take on any defence against WB that might happen. They agreed. We eventually agreed on R120,000 plus VAT. They paid R50,000 inc VAT to look at the source code. JB signed a Non Disclosure Agreement in February 2003 and I gave them all the source code except for the source code for the DIP worksheet. JB rewrote the system in Delphi 7 and upgraded it to a Windows XP look and feel. He also added some additional functionality. Our agreement said that if the balance wasn't paid by Feb 2004, the full rights to the product and source code would revert to Orbital Decisions. This is what happened.
- Later, Orbital Decisions found that William Barker was infringing Orbital Decisions "working to make ourselves redundant" trademark and successfully had it removed from his site.
- WB continues his own private consultancy in South Africa. See http://hrstratplan.com/Our_Solutions.htm . He continues to illegally market HR StratPlan and illegally use the Trademark symbol. He continues to have the same number of customers he had in 1999! Also search "hr stratplan" in Google and other search engines.
- There have been a number of other people who have heard about what happened and have approached me for the product. Nothing has ever come from these discussions, possibly because I am honest in all my dealings.
[Note in 2026: although this is now old news and lots of the links don't work anymore, I feel that people going into business can learn from my mistakes and hopefully not make the same mistakes themselves.]