PHOTOS BY BILL HAGEN/SJ-R James Schien, vice president of sales and marketing for Karmak, stands outside the Carlinville headquarters.

Carlinville company doesn't see language as a barrier

By NATALIE MORRIS
STAFF WRITER

CARLINVILLE - Ten-four, good buddy. Parlez-vous francais? Habla espanol?

Those are among questions Karmak officials began asking potential employees last year when the software specialist to the trucking industry expanded its market outside the United States.

Karmak custom designs software, including its own, to serve an international marketplace.

The company, based in Carlinville, built its reputation on knowing the language of truckers. Karmak itself is an offshoot of the Schien family's body-and-equipment shop for heavy-duty vehicles.

Now, James Schien's daily planner holds three stacks of business cards, and they're all his - English for his U.S. customers, French for the Canadian province of Quebec and Spanish for the Mexican market.

"It's a huge difference when you walk in and give a company your business card in their language," said Schien, Karmak's vice president of sales and marketing. "It's learning the language, but also more importantly, learning the business practices, the culture of the company."

Karmak's software helps truck manufacturers and mechanics do everything from inventory control to accounting, parts sales to core management. The Carlinville business serves nearly 1,900 locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Puerto Rico.

The company, which also has an office in Springfield, Mo., has a work force of 220. Roughly 150 employees are based at the Carlinville facility on Illinois 108.

Knowing the business practices of the trucking industry from the inside is basically how Karmak got its start.

Founder Richard Schien, James' brother, built the original computer program in the late 1970s for his dad's truck-body/equipment business. The Schiens had to create their own program because other software packages available - basically, rehashed versions for the auto industry - just didn't meet their needs.

James Schien said customers at his dad's shop started asking how they could get a similar software system.

But the Schiens didn't take software seriously until 1981, when the agriculture market was hit hard.

"When Karmak formed, it was kind of, 'Gosh, if it could just help us recover some money until the auto-body business comes back,'" Schien said. "I don't think anyone thought we'd be going to Australia in 200l."

Schien, who will be researching the Australian market this summer, at least won't have to add to his business-card collection for that venture. Europe is the next target market.

Entering foreign markets carries other expenses.

Last year, Karmak began running classified ads for employees fluent in Spanish and French. Such bilingual employees are needed to man the support lines, as regional managers and trainers teaching customers how to use the software.

And then there is the need to cover the time zones the company's customer base stretches across. Serving the Australian market represents a 14-hour time difference from central Illinois and creates a need for a third shift of workers to man the phone lines.

But Schien isn't daunted.

"I'm taking my order pad when I go in July," he said. "I'm taking orders."

Natalie Morris can be reached at 788-1542 or natalie.morris@sj-r.com.