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Sydney-based Within Reach Software rebrands to Cloud Fixers

After 10 years the company is repositioning itself in the market

Sydney-based collaboration specialist, Within Reach Software is changing its name after 10 years to Cloud Fixers.

Within Reach was started in 2009 by current CEO, David Perks.

He told ARN that FY19/FY20 will be a "repositioning year" for the business, which has so far mainly been based on its partnership with Microsoft. 

Although the relationship remains important, Perks said the company had mostly been building integrations with Google platforms, while exploring Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the past year. 

“I expect we’ll see the balance shifting this year and next,” he said. “We’re also expecting to help late cloud adopters with strategies to move away from Small Business Server, SQL, Windows 2008 and Windows 7 as all of those product fall out of support. 

“This is a year for those businesses to really think hard about what the next five years looks like for them and not to get stuck with fixed assets that hold them back. This isn’t just a question of technology but also organisation design, job functions and business models, which our strategic planning services align with tech savvy talent management frameworks.”

The company will continue to provide software development and SharePoint services, but is also focusing on further SaaS product development. It already has two products including a specialist strategic planning platform called Goal Huddle and an employee experience platform called Pay Compliment. 

“We also expect to work with customers to build the integrations, add-ins and interfaces to modernise customer and employee experience as things move away from keyboards and closed applications, and towards API's, voice interfaces, chatbots, virtual agents, sensors and predictive intelligence,” Perks said.

“When we first started no one knew what the cloud was. The decision businesses needed advice on was whether to move to the cloud or not. Nowadays, it’s common for companies to use multiple clouds (six is the average) and with the wide availability of SaaS, it’s becoming second nature to take a cloud first approach.”

Along with the name change comes a new website and workshops such as The Waste Workshop and Cloud Value Review, which help determine opportunities to reduce waste and become more efficient.

Perks said it also formed strong alliances with security, networking and mobile apps experts, as well as CRM and ERP providers. 

“We’re playing to our strengths around strategy, innovation, automation and integration,” he said. “That’s requiring us to build strength in new types of interface like chatbots and voice as well advanced analytics.”

On top of this, Perks said it has developers working in rural NSW, and recently spent six months working with clients in the UK and Jamaica.

In the meantime, Perks said it has been beta testing its new value proposition and gaining good traction with the types of clients it services such as accounting and law firms.

“We’ve also shifted as close to a zero fixed asset company as we can.  We’re working out of a co-working space and remotely to give us the maximum flexibility to be where we need to be,” he said. “It’s much more about being lean, adaptive and developing the right processes, content and relationships, than trying to do it all ourselves.”