London-based Ship Shape Resources was founded in 2004 to provide recruitment and payroll services to the construction industry. It also has a construction division managing contracts for residential and civil projects. Chief executive Howard Hughes credits the company’s turnover growth to in-house software that it uses for recruiting, paying and allocating work to individual subcontractors, managing suppliers and invoicing clients. The comprehensive nature of the software and its simplicity has helped the company to sign up 900 contractors and 350 businesses to its services. Sales have grown by 89% a year, from £1.6m in 2006 to £10.7m in 2009.