wareforce

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No. 10

Wareforce Inc.

Business: Computer reseller

Location: El Segundo

Percentage Growth: 207

Wareforce Inc., which buys computers from large distributors and resells them to an account base of Fortune 1000 companies, is one of the few woman-owned companies among this year’s fastest growers.

Anita Gabriel, the founder and chief executive, owns an 80 percent stake in the company and has overseen its growth.

Wareforce’s 1996 revenues were $89 million, a 207 percent jump from 1994. The El Segundo-based company is projecting 1997 revenues of between $110 million and $120 million, according to Frederick G. Scott III, marketing manager.

The computer reseller industry in general underwent a major expansion from 1994 to 1996, when the biggest distributors enjoyed annual growth of between 25 percent and 28 percent, according to trade magazine Computer Reseller News. Still, Wareforce far exceeded those figures.

Scott attributed the company’s growth to its heavy emphasis on customer service. “The key is, we consider ourselves a computer solutions/support organization,” he said. “We just don’t dump it on their dock and leave.”

Managing computer-related assets is a complex undertaking for many companies today, Scott said, and Wareforce has succeded by assisting them with that undertaking.

The company is authorized to offer volume purchase agreements and “site license” agreements, which allow customers to install software at multiple workstations rather than buying a separate software package for each station.

Wareforce has alliances with companies it says are the world’s three largest computer distributors Merisel, Ingram and Tech Data.

Its customers include the state of Florida, Southern California Edison, Pacific Bell and the County of Los Angeles.

“We are expanding the business,” Scott said. “We used to be regional, just Southern California. Now we’re expanding nationwide because of new contracts” that are about to be announced.

Stephenie Overman

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