A Technology Giant’s Move Proves Atlanta is Good for Global Business

By Molly Dickinson

Moving your company’s entire North American Headquarters to the opposite end of the country is no small undertaking. However, if you happen to be relocating to metro Atlanta from, say, San Francisco, it just might be the smartest move you’ll ever make.

That’s exactly what OB10, the leading global e-invoicing network, discovered when it decided to seek out greener pastures in 2006. Ernie Martin, manager of marketing for OB10’s North American team and one of several Atlanta-area hires that joined the company soon after its move to Dunwoody, Ga. (located just north of Atlanta’s I-285 perimeter), says that OB10’s decision to trade the West Coast for the Big Peach was based on a host of key factors—with Atlanta coming out on top in every category.

“Number one,” he says, “San Francisco is a very costly place to do business. The cost of living and the cost of operating a business is significantly higher in San Francisco than in Georgia and specifically in Atlanta.” Over 45 percent higher, in fact, according to the New York Times’ cost of living calculator.

Secondly, Atlanta is better poised to meet OB10’s uniquely global needs. The company has established other regional centers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and, most recently, Sofia, Bulgaria, but its global headquarters is in London. “Atlanta aligns more closely with London from a time zone perspective,” says Martin, making communicating and scheduling with the London headquarters much more convenient.

“Atlanta is also a really substantial transportation hub,” he says, “not just because of its highways, but because of air travel. The Atlanta airport is the busiest airport in the world.” In addition to serving as the world’s largest airline hub, the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is also home to Delta Airlines, the world’s largest airline in passengers and destinations served, and the only airline to service six continents. “This gives us easy access to Europe and other parts of the country, as well as good access to Asia, the South Pacific and, of course, South America.”

OB10 can, on one hand, be considered a technology business—it facilitates its clients’ exchange of invoices and other crucial business data with suppliers by enrolling both into its network, a sophisticated system which allows discrete accounting software (for instance QuickBooks and SAP) to “talk” to each other through OB10’s Any-to-Any Data Formatting capability.

However, says Eric Self, vice president of program management for the Atlanta branch, it is primarily a service business. “If you were to draw a line from Chicago down through Texas and move east, 80-85 percent of our customers are east of that line. Because we are a service business with a technology component, it made more sense for us to be here in Atlanta.”

“Compared to San Francisco,” Martin adds, “Atlanta has a substantial service-oriented workforce. Some upper Midwest cities, like Chicago, or other parts of country, are focused on manufacturing. OB10 is not just a technology company; we’re a technology and services company. The technology we have is important, but the people we have providing that technology are just as important.”

Most of those people now working in the Atlanta headquarters came to OB10 from the city itself. “When we actually moved,” Self says, “we had zero employees. Now we have between 30 and 35. The majority were hired here in Atlanta.”

“Universities here are such a magnet for young people,” he continues. “Atlanta really attracts talent from all over the Southeast and East Coast. If you talk to the staff at OB10, two or three people might be actually from Atlanta and the rest are from elsewhere. That’s really allowed us to tap people of different backgrounds. Atlanta is a very cosmopolitan city. When we have people visit from the London office they are often very surprised that there not many people from Atlanta working here. The people working with us come from all over the U.S.”

According to both Self and Martin, that’s partly due to Atlanta’s welcoming business environment. Martin, who’s made Atlanta his home since the 1990s, says he can’t imagine living anywhere else. “You have access to anywhere in the world; the people here are friendly; the business climate is extremely receptive; it’s a place where anyone can just plop into town and start doing business. The chamber and other organizations make it extremely easy—they welcome you with open arms because they want you to succeed.”

And succeed they have. “We’ve grown over 50 percent in the two-plus years or so since we’ve been here,” Martin says. In 2009, a year when many competitors and peers in the industry were reporting numbers consistent with the economic downturn, OB10 saw a significant increase in customers and revenue. The addition of 14 new global clients (including Dr. Pepper, Hertz, Kraft and Pfizer), along with supplier additions and a 65 percent jump in daily network transactions, all led OB10 to post a 40 percent increase in overall revenue last year. In comparison, their overall industry grew by just a single percentage point.

“We relocated from San Francisco three years ago,” Self says, “and the things we moved here for have already been realized. We’re not moving again anytime soon.”