By MATT CHANDLER
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

High taxes, lack of business incentives and, oh yeah, the weather. All three are regularly given as reasons why companies either leave New York state or don't consider bringing their businesses here in the first place.

For Network Critical, when it was time to expand a business founded over the pond in England, Buffalo was the first choice.

That decision was certainly influenced by the fact that Christopher Bihary, managing director of the Americas for the company, is a Buffalo native. But roots aside, he says he views Buffalo as a great place to centralize operations for a company in the technology-driven era where the location of a home base takes on relative importance.

Nuts and bolts of the operation: Network Critical is a manufacturer of network access technology. Asked to describe what that means, Bihary says the company provides the foundation and the ability for companies to monitor their networks.

"For example, if two people are having a conversation and our technology was placed between them, it would repeat everything both individuals said. When you look at computer networks, people want to monitor for different purposes," he says. "Perhaps for security reasons, for intrusion detection, perhaps you want to protect your network from data leaking out."

There are three primary components of a company monitoring its network activity: accessing the data, capturing the data and storing the data.

"What Network Critical focuses primarily on is more the access of getting copies of the data," he says. "We focus on the foundation piece. We literally take a copy of everything and anything that is happening on the network."

History: The company was founded in Reading, England, in 1997 by President/ CEO Alastair Hartrup. It began as a reseller and distributor of technology, focusing on security products.

"We actually got into the business of manufacturing our network access equipment based on a specific requirement from a customer," Bihary says. "We changed our business model between 1998 and 2000 to being 100 percent focused on manufacturing our own technology and taking it to marketplace."

Customer base: "There are really five main industries that we are having a lot of success in right now," he says. "We are doing a lot of work with the federal government, insurance companies, financial and brokerage houses and telecommunications companies."

He says the products Network Critical offers aren't industry specific and though it primarily works with Fortune 1000 companies, the equipment sold is available and useful for companies of all sizes.

Doing business in WNY: The company opened its current U.S. base of operations in Cheektowaga in 2005.

"Alastair was looking to grow sales in North and South America. And without having any local presence, there was difficulty in trying to expand in the U.S. while being based in the U.K.," Bihary says.

He is regularly asked why Buffalo was chosen for the North and South American operations. As a graduate of St. Joe's and Canisius College, it was a no-brainer that this was the place to be.

"Buffalo offers us a great base of hard-working employees to choose from," he says. "Plus, it is a great city in terms of the intangibles like commuting, traveling out of the airport and cost of living for prospective employees."

Competition: Network Critical has four main competitors, all based in the United States, vying for a piece of the network access business.

"We have really approached the market differently," he says. "Everything we have designed for our customers has been based on their requirements and demands to really provide a data center-quality system. We believe it is important to let the customers decide what they need, rather than us trying to tell them what they need."

By the numbers: The company has 45 full-time employees - 19 in the United States, 24 in the United Kingdom and two in the Netherlands. Of the stateside employees, 11 work in Buffalo with plans to grow that number to 20 people in 2011.

21st century business philosophies: Though Bihary says it may not be as unique as it used to be, his company employs a mobile strategy via phone and computer systems that allows its employees to live and work anywhere in the world.

"In addition to our offices in England and here locally, we have remote people in the Netherlands as well as regional sales reps across the country," he says. "I think the new global approach for the small to mid-sized company is that you have offices and people around the world, and our approach to technology allows us to hire somebody in California today and have them up and running on our phone system and computer network right away."

A decision was made early on to focus energies on Network Solutions' core business and outsource IT needs.

"I'm not in the business of managing a phone system," he says. "We stick to what we do best, and outsource the support services."

Revenues: Bihary says despite the tough economic times of the last few years, his company has seen healthy growth.

"Since 2005 we have experienced, on average, about 90 percent (annual) growth. We see that continuing this year and we are looking to build on that success," he says. "To be honest with you, it's a niche technology and everyone in our field is doing pretty well." Annual revenues are about $15 million.

Strategic growth: Network Critical recently completed construction of a 10,000 square-foot-building in Reading. Likewise, Bihary is shopping for commercial space to relocate the Cheektowaga offices to downtown Buffalo by April.

"We are looking to roughly double our space to about 6,000 square feet to meet our growing needs," he says.

Also planned is an inside sales team in the Buffalo office in 2011, as well as increasing the technical support staff.

"We made a decision that we are going to grow that part of the business in Buffalo to help support our business in North and South America," he says.