(FORTUNE Magazine) – INTER-TEL Inter-Tel is discovering that small customers can mean big business. The company, in Chandler, Arizona, designs and sells telecommunications equipment, software, and services to offices with between five and 500 extensions, considered the small to medium end of the telephone market. "Part of our philosophy is to be a one-stop shopping place for the businesses we serve," says Inter-Tel's CEO, Steven Mihaylo. The company, which was begun by Mihaylo in 1969, has sold more than 150,000 telephone systems that manage some three | million phones in North America. Its main products are four versions of digital telephone systems. The most basic has features consumers now expect as standard: voice mail, conference calling, and speed dialing. To that, Inter- Tel can add more advanced capabilities, such as faxing. Other Inter-Tel products include software upgrades and switches, the basic control units of an office telephone system. Although most of Inter-Tel's customers are small businesses like doctors' offices and law firms, it sells to a few large companies, including US West, Cray Research, and Bechtel. Last December, Inter-Tel began marketing its most advanced computer- integrate d telephones, called Axxess. These link a company's telephone system to its computer database for both local and wide-area networks, allowing numerous computer tie-ins between a customer on the phone -- say, a patient calling his doctor -- and the computer files for that customer, in this case, the patient's medical records. Inter-Tel has already sold more than 400 Axxess systems, which range in price from $6,000 to $50,000. Anthony Langham, an analyst at NatWest Securities, expects net income to surge 75% in 1994, to $6.7 million, on an 18% increase in revenues, to $105 million. The stock traded recently on Nasdaq at $10, or 16 times Langham's estimate of 1994 earnings per share. Besides making and selling telephone equipment, Inter-Tel is in the long- distance service business. In 1991 it began collecting and sorting billing statements, as well as establishing 800 numbers for many of its customers, services that contribute about 5% of revenues.

SANIFILL Most of us don't think about waste disposal until the trash collector is a day or two late. But at Sanifill, garbage is always on everyone's mind. The Houston company owns and manages 41 nonhazardous waste disposal and treatment sites, mainly in the South and West. It was formed in 1990 from a group of three small disposal companies. Besides managing landfills, Sanifill provides such services as garbage collection, recycling, and waste treatment. While disposal companieshave been hit hard by the recession, Sanifill has performed better than most, in part because of its limited business in the Northeast. Analysts also credit the company for a good mix of profitable recent acquisitions: It made 13 of them in 1993. Late last year Sanifill bought a large private landfill operator in Tijuana, Mexico, an acquisition expected to increase revenues by 6%. "Our goal is to double our revenues in Mexico in each of the next two to three years," says CEO Lorne Bain, who joined the company in 1991. Andrew Barish, an environmental securities analyst at Robertson Stephens in San Francisco, expects 1994 net income to rise 49%, to $18.5 million, on a 30% increase in revenues, to $158 million. The stock traded recently on the New York Stock Exchange at $22.88, or 20 times Barish's estimate of 1994 earnings per share.

DURACRAFT When Bernard Chiu arrived in the U.S. from Hong Kong in 1983, he went to work for Holmes Products, a small maker of portable heaters, humidifiers, and fans. He left in 1988 to found Duracraft. Aside from managing a fast-growing company -- revenues should reach $100 million this year -- Chiu, 37, is giving Holmes a run for its money. Duracraft, in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, also designs and builds portable heaters, humidifiers, and fans. Although the company contracts out some manufacturing, the heart of each product is a motor, which Duracraft insists on making itself, mostly at leased plants in China and elsewhere in Asia. Major retailers like Kmart, Sears, and Service Merchandise sell Duracraft brand products. Harry Wells, an analyst at Adams Harkness & Hill in Boston, expects 1994 net income to rise 61%, to $8.4 million, on a 34% rise in revenues. The company went public in October at $14 a share. Its stock sold recently on Nasdaq for $31.25, or 21 times Wells's estimate of 1994 earnings per share. CEO Chiu owns 40% of the company.