TechBrain stays the course

Mike Fernando (TechBrain)

Despite the disruption of a global pandemic, IT service provider TechBrain still has its business priorities in check as it looks to keep on growing.

This is coming in the form of a move to a larger facility with custom build areas and fit-out, according to non-executive director Keegan Crage.

But the growth isn’t just geographically-speaking, but for headcount too, as the currently West Perth-based provider is looking to bolster the number of employees it has.

“Our vision to be Australia's most trusted SME [small- to medium-sized enterprise] IT support business and our strategy of achieving this through geographical expansion remains very much in play notwithstanding COVID-19,” Crage said.

In fact, he added that he believes technology providers will still manage to find success post-pandemic as they would have pre-pandemic.

“Listen to your customer, innovate your service offering to meet evolving needs and deliver solutions that lower the real cost of IT,” the director added.

That being said, Crage sees customer spend decelerating on the whole, but select areas will pick up, like unified communications, cyber security, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

It’s these latter three areas that Mike Fernando, general manager, believes play part of a larger role in the SME market, as he said these TechBrain customers are pursuing these technologies.

“In the SME market, accelerated migration to 'as a service' cloud based solutions is taking place,” he said. “Improved security features such as enforced multi-factor authentication, single sign on, teleworker security protection such as DNS-level protection [and] remote content filtering technologies are also attracting a lot of interest.”

Meanwhile, the former area, along with collaboration technology, presents a key opportunity for customers to capitalise on in Fernando's mind through vendors like Microsoft and 3CX, which are providing free software trials and licences for six months and three years, respectively.

Crage added that, due to COVID-19 and the resulting possibility of rolling community closures, he anticipates customers will take their time considering the most optimal working from home set-up, which involve cloud moves and IT security improvements.

ARN Advance is a centralised editorial resource designed to help partners access forward-looking content as the Australian market attempts to reposition for growth.