Three senior managers from Butler Cox Plc, the consulting specialist in information management, left to start Pagoda Associates Ltd, based in London. Formed just over a week ago, the company will cover three main areas. Firstly it will work with the boards of major organisations, not only to show how information technology can be used to its full advantage in all applications but also to give a better understanding of its contraints. It will also work with major blue chip organisations looking into how they can manage information technology and the best way to exploit it within the company. They will be using a management climate tool, aimed at managers and designed to establish their views of information technology, how they want to apply it and in which direction they want to go. The aim of this is to put across the aims of management to the company as a whole. The last area is aimed at getting the best out of the people using and involved in information technology within companies. Often it is difficult for large organisations to treat people as individuals, Pagoda suggests. People have many skills that are not being used to their full advantage and often talents are not identified. There is shortage of information technology professionals, the average turnover of information technology employees over five years, is 20% in some firms, with the majority of staff leaving after five to seven years, according to Ms Cockroft of Pagoda. Pagoda aim to assess individuals’ skills, using tools developed in-house or bought in from the US, to enable the company and the individual to get the best out of each other, with the aim of reducing this high turnover of staff. The range of skills assessed will include not only management skills but individual attitudes and various aptitude tests. The results of the individual assessments will be consolidated so that personal findings will not be identified to anyone other than the individual. The three founders are Mary Cockroft, Judith Wainwright and John Lane who were managers of systems strategy, office systems and building systems respectively at Butler Cox. The company also has nine associate consultants. Seed capital of UKP500,000 has been put up by Investors in Industry Plc, which bought it a minority shareholding in the company. Further backing has been obtained from the team’s bankers, and Pagoda says lease finance is available. – Elvadia Tolputt