RYDER SYSTEMS has come a long way since it was set up in a rented room in Burnley back in 1998. Paul Haworth was the archetypical entrepreneur who spotted the opportunity to computerise information on telephone calls.

Today, the company is the European market leader in providing bill and call analysis solutions to the big telecommunications companies.

Paul has now taken over the role of chairman and a new management team - headed by managing director Stuart Finch - has been brought in to steer the company on the fast track to growth.

"Over the past 12 months, our turnover has increased by 50 per cent and we have increased the number of staff from 26 to 44," said Stuart. "We are looking to continue that level of growth and we are now targeting new markets in Europe and Australia."

Technical director David Latham was Ryder Systems' first employee. He has returned to the company after working for PA Consulting and clearly remembers the company's early days.

"Paul had seen how the switchboard at Turkingtons printed out paper reports," said David. "What he did was write a computer programme to capture that information and allow people to analyse it to see what sort of calls were being made.

"He created the call management software and sold it to hundreds of companies throughout the UK."

The next big opportunity came with the deregulation of the telecommunications industry that saw British Telecom losing its monopoly. The company developed innovative software that allowed new entrants like Mercury to demonstrate that their tariffs were cheaper.

"The software was very successful and helped Mercury and others to take a lot of business away from BT," he recalled.

As the battle among telecom companies for the lucrative corporate market began to toughen up, Ryder Systems went back to the drawing board and came up with a new range of sophisticated management tools for bill and call analysis.

Stuart explained that the telecom companies were operating in a very tight market. "Not only is it difficult to find new customers, you have to work very hard to retain them," he said. "They are having to minimise their costs while they maximise the opportunities for selling other products to their customers.

"Our products are key to them doing that. We help them to get the customer in the first place and, once they see the quality of our telecommunications management systems, they are locked in."

David explained that their telecom clients still sent out their traditional telephone bills to companies. However, an electronic copy also went to Ryder Systems were the data was analysed and broken down into management reports.

These were available to varying levels of detail and allowed companies to monitor both fixed line and mobile phone usage.

David said the company also offered a 'fulfilment' service for telecom companies, taking telephone calls on behalf of their customers. Ryder Systems is now located at the Daisyfield Business Centre in Blackburn. It is an ideal location even though the majority of its customers are in the South East.

"The beauty of the telecommunications industry is that location does not really matter from a geographical perspective," added David. "Keeping in touch with a client in Australia would be no more expensive than it would be anywhere in the UK."