The company ran just fine on the expertise of a staff of experienced billing agents, account managers and administrative specialists--whose primary tools were one giant customer database built on Microsoft Access, Exchange email and the anachronistic but effective use of paper invoices delivered via fax or snail mail.

It ran just fine until Irene made Abrams realize that if power went out in the main office--on the second floor of a strip-mall office in blue-collar Stoughton, Mass.-- Diesel Direct wouldn't be able to send out that fast flurry of invoices every day.

Without that, the cash-flow situation would get ugly very quickly.

"This is a very blue-collar business," according to Callow, who runs the consultancy Prescient Thinking with one partner and took over as de facto CIO/CTO at Diesel Direct last fall.

"Fleet managers understand quickly how we can save them money by letting them trade a few extra cents per gallon of fuel for the FTE cost of having their own people handle the fuelling and maintenance and reporting, plus the cost of having the truck off the road while they're doing it. Diesel Direct lets them skip most of that."