Advancing technology has shaken the grounds of business. With the use of the latest and rapid processing technologies, a large amount of data is generated. This collected data needs to be sorted, filtered and documented. The 21st century enterprise communication centers are now focusing on designing software that can transform these data resources into forms, labels or documents that communicate, not complicate communications with customers, partners, employees and vendors. These e-documents, in turn, can be easily managed by the sales executives, marketing teams, human resource managers and legal professionals without any involvement of the IT teams. Owing to this, enterprise customer communication management is becoming one of the fastest growing markets of the world. According to Gartner, companies are now budgeting 9 to 12% of their entire annual budget towards customer communications1. Applications & software built on this platform are currently in huge demand.
Steve Luke is the Founder & CEO of Eclipse Corporation. Eclipse was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Cape Coral, Florida. Steve started his computing career at GE which provided him a terrific learning platform about business and technology. However, he soon observed that GE was not able to provide new and innovative technology that could simplify the workings of an enterprise. Taking a lead from these key observations, Steve started his first company, where he built an interface to allow IBM computers to generate advanced graphics and barcodes with off the shelf HP, Ricoh, Toshiba, and Genicom printers. At that time, this was like rocket science. In less than two years, his technology was acquired by a large Atlanta-based technology firm. Nevertheless, he had a burning drive to continue creating new and innovative technology which propelled him to move from the hardware side of the world to the software side.
Eclipse offers a full range of software solutions for all document design and automation needs – built from the ground up by the team that developed Adobe Central and JetForm. As pioneers in the enterprise document automation industry, the Eclipse team has the knowledge, experience and track-record that a company can rely on. Eclipse invites its future customers to modernize their company’s customer communications by taking advantage of cutting-edge marketing tools, without changing their current line of business software.
Home Team at Eclipse
At Eclipse, Steve has appointed a team of members who share similar values, passion and expertise in the enterprise forms and customer communications software industry. Approximately 70% of the team have worked together in the past. In some cases, the members have worked for the same company together or they have worked together through a partner relationship. The team’s relationships have been built on the mutual respect that they have for each other and this has played a huge part in the formation of a solid core team. The e-form software provider company does not work according to clocks; rather they function as per necessity and requirements of their customers.
Steve dedicates the success of his company to its team members who have religiously and innovatively worked round the clock to provide quality services to its customers. It is also one of the reasons why so many of the customers that needed to replace their aging or sunset document solutions chose DocOrigin and the Eclipse team. They had faith in the team and their industry knowledge. Aging forms and label software solutions were not keeping up with the demands of the market. Omni- channel, real-time, relevant, personalized information is demanded by today’s clients.
Services & Solutions
From Financial to Healthcare to Government, Factory, Logistics, Insurance and Telco, Eclipse manages to cover all the special document design, generation and omni-channel delivery software requirements. DocOrigin runs on AIX, AS/400, IBM i, Linux, CentOS and Windows. Delivering Enterprise class software with 99.975% up time and provides 24/7/365 services. Today, Steve and his team have designed and delivered software that provides mission critical documents and forms to companies as large as AT&T, to small Telco customers in more than 40 countries, banks in Africa, Portugal, Australia and OEM clients like Advantage 360, Exictos, GE Healthcare, Guidewire Insurance, Tyler Technologies and more. With more than 4,000 individual licenses installed, DocOrigin is delivering the most import information and communications a business generates, in real time for customers, partners, employees and vendors.
At the company’s forefront is DocOrigin Enterprise software, which allows its users to design, present, generate and deliver mission critical, dynamic, real-time interactive, batch documents and forms in any format, for print or electronic delivery, including Adaptive HTML, PDF/UA and PDF/A-3. Eclipse’s DocOrigin, Business Communications Center and Dynamic Business Documents have replaced more than 4,000 legacy forms software installations in the past 5 years.
Targets & Goals for Upcoming Years
Looking at the constant evolution of technologies, Steve feels that product improvements are their major priority where they work to continuously improve previously created products and make those features available to the company’s existing and new customers. With 20+ years in the software industry, Steve’s team has learned from its past mistakes. In 2017, under the leadership and supervision of Steve, the e-forms software company has begun to expand their worldwide partner relationships. In 2018, Steve and his team are planning to improve and expand their partnerships and customer base in the Pacific Rim.
Future Recommendations for the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
According to Steve Luke, “The key to success is attitude, effort, and knowledge, the right combination of these will accomplish your goal every time.” Further, he adds that one should not be afraid of failures or cut-throat competitors. Budding entrepreneurs, who have innovative ideas and concepts along with a passion for a certain type of sector, should go after it with full force. Focus on the pros and learn from the cons. Acquire the knowledge of the market and plan counter strategies to gain its focus.
Advice for young entrepreneurs:
My advice to young entrepreneurs is to find something you have a passion for, something you are confident you can do better than the existing products or services offered or something brand new that you know is missing from the market. Before you jump in with both feet, talk with a mentor or someone you trust about your ideas and ask them to convince you that you are wrong. Defend your product or service and if after this you still are confident you have the right idea, jump in with both feet. Don’t worry about failure, focus on success and adjust as you learn the ropes. You may stumble a little along the way, but don’t give up easily if someone doesn’t come along and show interest in your product or service early on.
Get advice from a consultant! Yes, this is going to cost you, but it may save you from making a huge mistake. I sold the rights to my first technology for hundreds of thousands of dollars and learned later it was worth millions. I was a technology visionary, but a lousy business man at that time. If someone offers to buy your product or service, assume they know more than you about the opportunity for growth and the value of your product. It will cost you to get a third-party valuation. However, if you have a valuation from a skilled third party, you will have a much better idea of how much you are giving up to sell your dream. If the deal is right, you will have the resources to continue working with the buyer or go out and create your next business!
