elucidates Chris.HMS has always focused on a global market and is fortunate to have numerous multi-national clients. Both foreign and domestic clients have shown increasing interest in how they manage challenges like data sovereignty. The company's short-term focus in the next quarter is to release TimeControl version 8.6. They have multiple editions of TimeControl to be updated, including TimeControl on-premise, TimeControl Industrial on-premise, TimeControl Online, their SaaS subscription in the cloud model, TimeControl Industrial Online, TimeControl Project and TimeControl Mobile. Chris and his team expect to do the on-premise releases first, then the subscription upgrades, which they do centrally for all subscribers who don't have to take any action to enjoy the new features and enhancements.HMS Software has been in the project management and timesheet software industry since 1984. Over 40 years, the company has seen revolutionary changes, so living in an industry where dramatic changes that no one would have predicted is familiar territory for them. Forty years ago, the Internet wasn't even a thing. Smartphones weren't in existence, and even PCs were relatively new and not ubiquitous. Chris has no idea what changes might come in the long term but in the short and medium terms, he can see a shift of enterprise applications from primarily large web-browser interfaces to more mobile options. The great shift of employees to work remotely has, in part, reversed. Still, it is not over, and he anticipates there will be a portion of technology industry employees who will continue to work remotely for at least part of their week for the foreseeable future. Preparing for change at HMS means being tuned into the clients, their industry, competitors as well as technology as a whole. For example, there has been much talk in the last 24 months about AI. Many software companies feel compelled to shift their development efforts to include Artificial Intelligence architecture or at least options. HMS has taken a pragmatic approach to AI and is already seeing pushback from the market to software publishers asking not just if they understand AI but how they are monetizing the technology. "We place a high priority on value at HMS, so we are making sure that our efforts are focused on how our clients can benefit from such new technology, not just promoting that we have it," says Chris, who seems to wear every hat in the company. In a single day, he can be having technical, marketing, sales, administration, finance, or partnership conversations, but that is his personal choice, in his role as a CEO, he concentrates on promoting the mission of the company foremost in his mind and making sure that all their investments and efforts are in support of that. "I'm highly focused on making sure our employees are taken care of and that they are taking care of our clients. I try to have meetings that include every staff member in some way every week so that everyone who might want to make a point to me personally gets a chance to do that," he adds. "If our mission isn't accomplishable, if we're not profitable, part of every week is making sure that our medium- and long-term financial goals are being met and, if needed, intervening to make sure they stay on track."Chris thanks HMS for giving him the opportunity to make a small difference to some of the largest and most prestigious organizations in the world. A timesheet system or project planning system might not be a huge part of every employee's week. Still, TimeControl is often distributed to literally every employee and sometimes every contractor at a client. So, HMS represents a tiny part of everyone's effort there and the clients do some amazing things. "They make things that cure disease and things that go into space or under the sea. They make amazing structures, or they help govern huge numbers of people or huge projects," he states. "They make the lights go on and make people safe. I'm a small part of that, and our team is a small part of that, but I can't imagine doing anything that will ever make as huge an impact that I've made with HMS. That gets me up every morning."For Chris, leading the people at HMS is a privilege that he hopes to have for many years to come, but it is the team that produces the result.
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