Chris Miles, founder and president of Miles Technologies, doesn't have to travel far to show a potential client how a business can successfully use his company's product. All he has to do is point to his computer screen, which is running the Miles Technologies brand of custom-designed business software.

"This system runs my company," Miles explained during an April 22 NJBIA Site Visit with State Senator Martha Bark and Assemblyman Larry Chatzidakis. "And this is what we do for our customers. We wrote this system from scratch."

Miles doesn't want customers thinking that they will be forced into using any one system. He's not a believer in "industry software that pens you into their business system."

Every program that Miles Technologies writes begins with an understanding of the customer's business system. The program is then created line by line to fit that system, rather than force the system into a generic computer program.

This approach has put Miles Technologies on the road to success. Chris Miles formed Miles Technologies in 1997 with no outside capital and little more than his business vision and computer expertise to trade on. Today, Miles Technologies is a $3-million-a-year operation, employing 35 professionals and servicing more than 450 clients.

The company provides a wide range of information technology services and targets small- and medium-sized businesses that are primed for growth. Miles designs systems to automate internal business processes and extranet and intranet Web site portals. Miles also installs and supports the networks to accomplish these systems.

Miles believes technology is key to business survival.

"If everybody is able to take advantage of technology and you can't, then you are falling behind," Miles said. "This is not about technology for technology's sake."

In 2003, Miles opened its new 28,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in Moorestown. The spacious headquarters features the latest technology, open work areas and an attractive entrance. More impressive is what Miles Technologies doesn't have.

For one thing, there are no filing cabinets. The entire office is paperless. Every document-invoices, service contracts, pay stubs, etc.-is kept electronically and can only be accessed by computer. Everyone in the office can access a customer's file from their desk, and they can also retrieve everything from marketing plans to driving directions.

There are also few individual offices. About 30 programmers design information systems and write software in a large auditorium-like room that Miles calls "mission control."

Finally, in what seems unusual for a company that boasts the latest technology, phones are not answered by an automated voice-mail system.

"Phones should be answered by a human being," Miles says. "That is something a computer does not do well. It doesn't sense frustration. It doesn't sense urgency."

While generally satisfied with New Jersey as a place to do business, Miles said he was concerned about the impact that ever increasing taxes would have, not only on his business, but on his clients as well.

Bark and Chatzidakis agreed that taxes were too high in New Jersey and pledged to fight against the so-called millionaire's tax proposed by the Governor.

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