Spotlight: Western Australia's Software Optimisation Services

Filipa Preston (Software Optimisation Services)

The 'ARN Spotlight' series explores partners operating in the local channel landscape right around the country, from Cape York to Hobart, Byron Bay to Fremantle and beyond. In this edition, we focus on Western Australia and Perth-based advisory firm and managed service provider (MSP) Software Optimisation Services.

Whether it’s in business or in society, empowerment is important, and both the story of Software Optimisation Services and its CEO and founder Filipa Preston have it in spades.

Finding a home base

Software Optimisation Services’ history started with Preston moving to Australia in 1994 from South Africa, working for a local distributor selling Microsoft software with Microsoft Product Manager. She then stuck with a systems integrator for eight years and survived five acquisitions in her time there.

Then in 2011, she saw a gap in the market for an independent advisory firm, as well as a coach and a trusted source for organisations to work with.

Today, the Perth-headquartered business has eight employees on what Preston calls her 'A bench', with her 'B bench' populated by specialist experts that come in when required.

Preston does see business opportunities in Perth but is frustrated about the attention east coast businesses get, despite having an office in Sydney, as well as a presence in New Zealand.

“We don't have some of the access that our partners on the east coast have, and yet I can get on a plane, it's not a problem. We've got teams and you've got video, so, why not? Why do we have to be on the east coast?” she said.

The ups and downs

Microsoft has been an important partner for Software Optimisation Services, achieving gold partner status for competency in software asset management in 2013.

Other businesses Software Optimisation Services works with, to which Preston referred to as her tier two software vendors, include Movere, Snow and Licence Dashboard, while other vendors the business has rubbed elbows with, but hasn’t been a part of in terms of formal partner programs, include IBM, Adobe, Oracle and SAP. 

Empowerment is a big theme for Preston, and it’s no surprise to see that some of Software Optimisation Solution’s biggest achievements have also been empowering for the business and the CEO.

The first success for Preston was being published by research firm Gartner in its first and second market guides, which have been career highlights for the CEO.

“It was Australia Day 2018 and I saw this message come through. I almost deleted it because I thought it was spam. It was about 10:30 at night, and then something made me look at it,” Preston recounted.

“It was from one of the Gartner analysts to say that I've been chosen to be represented in their first ever market guide. I literally jumped out of bed!”

The second highlight was the business’s win for Microsoft's worldwide Partner of the Year in software asset management, which Preston claims Software Optimisation Solutions was the first business to do in Australia as well as the Asia Pacific region.

Off the back of the win, Preston was nominated to Microsoft’s Partner Advisory Council and Software Asset Management Partner Advisory Council – she was the only Australian to receive the honour in the former council for her three year tenure, as well as the latter council for a four year period.

However, businesses can't always be successful. For Software Optimisation Services, one of the biggest challenges has been securing external funding.

“I'm the funder and the founder, and in true transparency, I didn't have a massive trust fund that I could just tap into,” Preston said.

“We're not a tool vendor, we haven't developed an application, but we've got IP, we've got an approach and we deliver immediate savings to organisations, from the banks to big global organisations and we've never not had a project where we haven't delivered savings. “

To prove her point, Preston cited working with a blue chip organisation for 200 Office 365 licences, where the business was able to find $110,000 in savings over a 24-hour period.

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Another operational challenge for Software Optimisation Services has been locating staff that go above and beyond.

“For example," Preston said, "you can get a technical engineer to implement some of the tooling, but sometimes to get that technical engineer to go beyond just installing a tool and to spot that the customer's told us one thing, but the environment and the data is showing something completely different.

“So, have we missed an environment? Have we not scanned something? Why is that? So just trying to get some people to go beyond just what we've asked to them is sometimes is a challenge," she added.

Another challenge related to staff that Preston has faced has been trying to get more women getting excited about working in technology businesses, as she sees “so much lip service” about women helping other women and is striving for an environment where actions are taking precedence over words.

As a sign of pushing past that lip service, Software Optimisation Services currently has a 97 per cent female workforce.

“Some of the interns I've got at the moment, they're at university and one of them has studied engineering. I just love showing her what's possible, because at university, they're not seeing these possibilities,” Preston said.

“They're absolutely seeing the possibilities of creating an application that can show glaucoma, but they're not seeing, in my limited experience, the power in being a change influencer to organisations to say: 'Look, if you're moving to Azure right now from a NextDC, there's a bunch of change that has to happen and education for your service desk team.'”

Some early hires have also been an issue for the business, and while Preston conferred with an external board, some decisions were made in a hurry that seemed right at the time.

“I believe in people and I believe in their potential and sometimes the people that I've hired, they didn't see that for themselves, but they couldn't pivot, they just couldn't be what I was hoping they could be with the right drive, with the right vision,” she said.

“There's a few people that I would have loved not to hired and also wasted so many cycles and months when you knew after the first month, ‘I don't think this is going to work,’ but then I've listened to external accounts and then think, 'She could be okay,' because those are very expensive mistakes.”

Staying true to yourself

Preston believes the key to all of Software Optimisation Services’ success lies in clearly defining what the business does and doesn’t do, and the CEO thinks more advisory firms and MSPs should be doing the same.

“I just stayed relevant, I've watched the trends, and making sure that the business didn't wake up too late, that the business evolved early and that saw what was coming and because we're nimble and we small, we could do that,” she said.

Preston recalled a conversation by a customer where they claimed they didn’t want a big named system integrator to assist them, they wanted a niche independent partner instead.

“I just feel that there's so much a flood of everyone doing everything, but what about doing a niche area really well? Stay focused and not get distracted by: 'Oh, yeah, sure we can sell you mice and hardware'. 'You guys have a cyber firm, why are you selling mice and hardware?' That's just crazy. The customers want experts.”

“I often I speak to partners and you're talking about something that they're supposed to be so niche in and yet, they say, 'Well, we could do that,' but you go: 'Oh, but I thought you guys are the SharePoint guys,' or, 'I thought you guys were the Azure specialists,' or, 'the AWS specialists,'” she said. 

“I'm very clear on the business that I'm in, and the business that I'm not in.”

Want to be featured in 'ARN Spotlight'? Send an email to arn@idg.com.au with the contact details of the partner you’d like to nominate for us to profile.