The Hot List looks at partners on the upward move - these are companies to watch.
Each month, ARN examines the companies that have risen to prominence already or are progressing beyond start-up origins, asking business leaders to file reports on their companies.
NK2IT
Number of staff: Less than 10
Age of company: Six years
Products/solutions it brings to market:
NK2IT is a Sydney-based systems integrator and ICT consultancy provider for SMBs, corporate businesses and government agencies, offering datacentre Infrastructure solution(s) including hardware and software products from vendors such as HP, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, VMware, Symantec, ATEN, and APC by Schneider Electric.
The ‘Lifecycle Consultation Process’ (LCP) is at the core of NK2IT’s consultative solutions development. Our LCP system enables us to provide comprehensive, holistic support to clients throughout every stage of their business’ lifecycle.
This is through consultation, innovation, implementation, after-sales support and ongoing maintenance assistance, and continual improvement.
Business differentiator:
Our strong partnerships with strategic vendor principles to provide high quality solutions, additional value to clients, competitive pricing and additional support is our key business differentiator. In addition to that, we pride ourselves through low overheads, people satisfaction and expertise.
Future plans:
NK2IT is looking to grow its cloud offering solutions mainly focusing on the hybrid model.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
Data is everything. Every single business needs an efficient system having adequate tools, processes and policies to manage their data. Simply moving to cloud from an on premise solution may not be sufficient, as it would transfer the problem rather than resolution.
eNerds
Number of staff: 40
Age of company: 16 years
Products/solutions it brings to market:
eNerds is a mid-sized MSP servicing businesses with 10 to 250 employees throughout Australia. Bootstrapped in 2000 by founders Jamie and Tristan Warner, eNerds has grown organically.
Clients sized 10 to 250 staff partner with eNerds because they need a midsize MSP to deliver service excellence and a one-stop-shop experience. If a business has outgrown its current IT provider or ‘one-man band’, then it can take advantage of our full service approach.
We provide support and maintenance, consulting, Cloud services, Microsoft Solutions, Internet and procurement.
Business differentiator:
eNerds has built a suite of software, called NerdSuite, to differentiate ourselves in the market. Our flagship product, NerdPanel, delivers a fully branded IT portal experience to our clients and end users - it helps win new business, reduce client churn, reduce in-bound support calls by 50 per cent and increase profit.
Future plans:
We intend to double the size of the company by 2020 and launch a spin-off global SaaS business in 2017.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
As former GE CEO, Jack Welch, said, “if the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near”. In other words, innovate or get left behind.
Four Nines
Number of staff: Four engineers/consultants with a target of 10 engineers by the end of the year
Age of company: Less than a year old
Products/solutions it brings to market:
Four Nines is a technology services provider to the channel including VARs, MSPs, distributors and vendors. We provide technical pre-sales, professional services and managed services to partners that complement their current products and services and allow them to extend the reach into their customers and prospects.
In general, we focus on the top two vendors in each segment of the infrastructure stack including HPE, VMware, Dell, EMC, Datacore and Veeam.
The most common solutions we are working on are hybrid cloud design and implementations, migrations between sites, infrastructure and cloud and upgrades to various environments.
Business differentiator:
Our core differentiator is flexibility - to work with a large variety of partners and the endless array of challenges their customers bring them. It is also important to be flexible commercially, not just with time.
Sharing the risk with both our partners and their customers brings together a new level of partnership. We see great opportunities with partners that understand the power of partnering in winning and delivering customer outcomes.
Future plans:
Four Nines plans to grow in both the number of engineers and specialists as well as local resources in Melbourne in the next 12 months - the team is located in Sydney.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
Partnering will not just bring your businesses greater capability and capacity, but if done well – that is with transparency, unity and trust, will allow you to contribute more to your customers’ outcomes and objectives.
Seccom Global
Number of staff: 19
Age of company: 13 years
Products/solutions it brings to market:
Seccom Global offers our customers a wide variety of solutions that range from fully managed and hosted solutions, WAN and connectivity solutions, infrastructure solutions, consulting, auditing and implementation services.
Our business was founded on providing managed firewall services to our clients partnering predominantly with Fortinet, but we now provide a far more comprehensive and sophisticated range of services.
Examples of the services we have developed include our SecureSTREAM solution, SecureINSIDER, and a SIEM solution delivered in the cloud.
We also provide IaaS solutions with SecureHOST and Antispam services with SecureMAIL. Our products have been developed so that we can deliver successfully to all size of business from SME to enterprise.
Business differentiator:
One of the areas that sets us apart from the competition is in the way we have been able to take enterprise level solutions and develop services around these solutions and deliver these services at a price point palatable to the SME market.
Future plans:
Although we are still very much in the managed security service sector and continue to develop strong solutions and services targeted towards this sector, we are also very focused on being Australia’s leading cybersecurity company.
We are now putting a lot of focus towards disruptive and emerging technologies in areas such as CASB and UEBA and will be working towards building strong relationships with the organisations we feel will emerge as the leaders in these areas.
Continuing to build our presence in the Australian market through the expansion of our offices in Australia is a strong focus in the next 12 months. Also, developing a strong presence in Asia and potentially the US through expansion or focused partnering is also an objective.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
Adapt your business to provide solutions that meet your client’s requirements. It is important that we provide our clients with the best solutions for their business.
Far too often, I speak to customers that are being sold on FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Also don’t get so caught up in future growth that you lose focus on existing clients.
This article originally appeared in the September issue of ARN magazine - to subscribe, please click here
