This investment was spent on office space and employing a highly talented team to develop the tool further. Within the first year of operations Silverfish version one was released, and it has proved to be highly effective.

The company's South African base gives Southeaster a strong competitive advantage over American or European-based software development firms. Operational costs are lower and South Africa's advanced but relatively insulated IT industry implies that the product can be tested discreetly and refined ahead of an international debut.

As the company increased in size, there became a need to define the roles and responsibilities of each person and the management challenge was to balance the need for definition with the sometimes over zealous corporate "re-structuring".

In defining roles and responsibilities for the Southeaster staff, job descriptions became less important than the context within the various job functions were performed. It became necessary to define the responsibilities of the functions, rather than the people performing those functions. From this process grew the team structures , with each of the 13 teams having a specific role or responsibility to fulfil.

Operationally, the operations manager keeps track of all projects in all teams, checking and validating all plans, managing cross-project dependencies and ensuring that all teams are aligned with Southeaster's business strategy.