This regular column looks at partners on the upward move - irrespective of size or longevity, these are companies to watch.
Hafizah Osman asks business leaders to file reports on their companies.
Barhead Solutions
Credit: Barhead Solutions Number of staff: 20
Age of company: One-year-old
Products/solutions it brings to market:
Barhead delivers solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the associated suite of products. We provide Customer Relationship Management solutions enhanced with analytics and machine based learning, customer and partner portals, Internet of Things, BOT technologies, field service and the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 project services.
Business differentiator:
Founded by the same team that founded Cloud Sherpas (a platinum Salesforce partner acquired by Accenture), Barhead is uniquely positioned to provide pragmatic advice and expertise on a range of cloud CRM technologies.
With almost 20 years of CRM experience, and the last 10 being cloud only, the Barhead team understands how best to use Microsoft Dynamics365 to deliver business value.
Future plans:
Barhead believes in the Microsoft stack and is investing in educating the broader market on the capabilities of Dynamics 365 and associated tools. Future plans include launching a strategic analytics practice, expansion across the East Coast of Australia, and launching our Dynamics365 for financial services accelerator on the Microsoft Appsource.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
For the last 10 years, Salesforce has not had a competitor. Microsoft Dynamics365 changes this paradigm. Barhead sees this as a great opportunity to give customers a choice and deploy solutions that best suit their needs, at a reasonable price point.
Saasbi
Number of staff: Six
Age of company: Four years old
Products/solutions it brings to market:
Saasabi delivers cloud-based business intelligence (BI) and analytics tools for better, data-driven decision-making. Saasabi offers solutions for independent software vendors; systems integrators and consultants; governments; accountants; franchisors; and nonprofits.
All Saasabi solutions are delivered as software-as-a-service and are built upon the Saasabi OLAP engine. Architected for performance in the cloud, the Saasabi engine offers an elastic and parallel architecture.
Business differentiator:
We have two main business differentiators - flexibility and affordability. Because we are a cloud provider, we’re not using virtual machines as most other BI vendors do. This gives us the ability to deliver a more flexible solution in terms of provisioning resources.
For example, an accountancy can scale up compute power to meet financial year-end requirements and scale back down once demand subsides. Partners can also deploy our analytics engine at a fraction of the cost of similar solutions.
Future plans:
We will continue to expand the performance and functionality of the Saasabi engine, and we plan to expand our offerings for the government sector over the coming months.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
If you’re not selling your customers business intelligence and analytics functionality, jump on board now. With the proliferation of BI providers in the market, someone else will sell it to them if you’re not doing so.
Converged Communication Network Applications (CCNA)
Number of staff: 54
Age of company: Eight years old
Products/solutions it brings to market:
Converged Communication Network Applications Pty Ltd (CCNA) offers unified communications, contact centre, wired and wireless networking network applications and data centre solutions either as a hosted or premised based either CAPEX or OPEX sales.
We deliver leading technology solutions and services within the enterprise, government, and carrier market place. The innovative design, development, and implementation of converged communication network applications are our core area of expertise. Our approach is to provide our customers with a flexible outcome driven road map to their technology needs.
CCNA focuses on ensuring network continuity for the above applications and other real time service offerings. Our convergence design and implementation planning is initially focused on ensuring customer network readiness for deploying any converged applications.
Business differentiator:
What sets us apart is providing end to end business based IT solutions with exceptional service.
Future plans:
We aim to continue growing our hosted solution customer based by offering exceptional service and growing by customer references. CCNA partners closely across Asia and the world with a range of other IT service providers offering complimentary solution offerings which enables great growth.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
Relationships within the IT industry are important. CCNA works closely with other IT service providers to deliver good customer solutions.
NTT Communications ICT Solutions
Number of staff: 200 (Australia)
Age of company: Three-years-old (with 20 years experience in the local market)
Products/solutions it brings to market:
NTT ICT provides the secure IT foundations of network, data centre, infrastructure, cloud and security that enables smooth IT operations combined with the scalability and innovation to help organisations transform for the future.
Business differentiator:
NTT ICT specialises in harmonising existing technology investments with next generation ICT, to provide the best ROI for Australian customers. We have a unique operating model that combines a depth of local engineering expertise in the delivery of network, cloud, security and technology services, with the backing of NTT ICT’s global reach and investment in services and innovation.
Future plans:
We are focused on continuing to anticipate and provide the products and services our customers need. Whether it be providing infrastructure, IaaS, global connectivity or helping manage legacy systems whilst offering flexible commercial models, we will continue to meet the high expectations of our customers who are impacted by the fast evolving digital landscape.
Key message to the channel in 2016:
It’s all about what the customer needs and we at NTT ICT equip our people to provide the best operational and commercial outcome for our customers. With the backing of a global company, and a strong partner network locally, we have the flexibility to respond quickly to the changing market dynamics and requirements of our customers.
This article originally appeared in the November issue of ARN magazine - to subscribe, please click here
