Wellington-based Icebreaker makes fine wool outdoor clothing. It has 200 staff and sales of about $100 million a year, with exports accounting for about 80 percent of its business.

The company has opened four overseas subsidiaries in four years and plans two more in 2009.

Last year chief executive Jeremy Moon directed his CIO, Alin Ungureanu, to work with his senior managers to rebuild a computer system that was increasingly holding back company growth, demotivating staff and causing initiatives to be put on hold.

Moon says as the company expanded into new overseas markets, the IT system was buckling.

"We'd been growing our export markets very quickly and we'd set up a number of subsidiary companies in Australia, Canada, the US and Europe and with all of those coming online pretty quickly, it put a huge strain on our internal systems."

The company had been opening new overseas subsidiaries at a rate of one a year for the past four years and, with further European expansion planned for 2009, something had to be done.

"I knew the growth we had in front of us and that unless we made a solid investment it was going to become a really big issue. We did catch it at a reasonably early stage. It was about investing ahead of the curve," Moon says.

Moon, who started Icebreaker in 1994, admits to having little enthusiasm for IT. He had graduated from the University of Otago with a marketing degree when he stumbled across the potential for building a business selling clothing from fine merino wool.

From the outset, Icebreaker has been a design-led company that draws its inspiration from nature and places great store by innovation.

That's apparent in its market-leading product range, which succeeds in appealing both to fashion-conscious customers and those who follow outdoor pursuits.

But Moon's original thinking can also been seen in how the company sources the fine merino wool its garments are made from, sourcing directly from the growers.

Icebreaker's $100 million in annual sales are not just dependent on a loyal local following. About 80 percent of revenue is earned overseas. And Moon today has about 200 employees.

"I'm interested in design and creativity as a business driver, so the last thing I want to do is spend lots of money on IT. We've probably historically under-invested and it was causing problems - frustration and a loss of productivity."

It wasn't a case of catastrophic failure, but of "death by a thousand cuts", says Ungureanu, who had been hired to help rescue the situation.

Ungureanu carried out a system audit that highlighted a number of issues such as would be expected in a high-growth company. Benign neglect had resulted in some equipment having become obsolete, and some that had simply become unreliable.

Guided by the company's ethos of agility and creativity, and aware of the ongoing growth expectations, Ungureanu drew up a couple of solution paths: Icebreaker could invest in keeping the existing system going, or create a new IT infrastructure that would lower operating costs and have headroom for further growth. It chose the second path.

"We weren't looking for an evolution, we were looking for a revolution in terms of a solution. It was a radical shift in footprint in what we needed to cope with really fast growth in the organisation," Moon says.

Icebreaker worked with IBM, which designed and installed new hardware and software in a revamp that was completed at the end of last year. With the new system in place, Moon says morale has been boosted and productivity has risen.

"It's that simple. When things work people are happy and when they don't work they're not happy."

A potentially bad situation was averted, and the company is now poised for further expansion, with new subsidiaries planned next year in Germany and France.

"The key issue for us was making the investment before it turned into a crisis, and picking up the early signals. We've now got a system we can grow into, not grow out of."

Moon, with no inherent fascination for IT, is happy he can carry on doing what he likes best. "The best type of IT solution for me is something that no one sees and no one knows about because everything works, and that's what we've installed."

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