Well it’s been a while since our last update and it’s probably easy to blame that on being busy but the reality is it’s more about focus. In the last 4 months since our previous update back in December we have seen a consistent uptick in the market. Compared to the same time last year we have averaged 25% more activity in the past 4 months and hit a number of milestones. We had our biggest revenue month in the history of the business in March and yet not one of our divisions (Managed Services, Projects, Consulting or Sales) had their largest month. So it was more of a widespread increase rather than one division outshining another.

On the staff side we have been actively recruiting to backfill vacancies due to this growth which again is hovering near 20% (for the fourth year in a row). So if you haven’t already spoken to them we have 4 new technical support staff in the team – Scott Whyatt (13 Years Experience), Erwann Texier (9 Years Experience), Christopher Bonner (8 Years Experience) and Ross Stokes (2 Years Experience). We are still looking for additional engineers and we also have a sales and marketing assistant (Tahnee Upton) starting in May.

As many people tell us the market is extremely tight for quality people and in IT there seems to be an even greater talent squeeze for support staff in particular. We have a number of projects rolling out over the next 3 months so we are not forecasting for any slowdown. What this does mean is we have been closely monitoring our satisfaction ratings for customer service and we appreciate any and all feedback given. It is critical for us that regardless of our activity levels our service delivery is what you have come to expect and judging by the positive scores recently the extra staff have helped.

Have a great month!

Zaun Bhana
Managing Director

It’s that time of year where the “we wish you a Merry Xmas” cards are rapidly filling up everyone’s reception areas and things start to quieten down. At Leap whilst our reception is full of Xmas cards things are definitely not quietening down. We have eleven projects underway, double the normal volume of service work, added a new staff member and making offers for two more. Plus we are finally shifting staff into our additional office space. So rest assured our office will be up and running over the Xmas period except for the public holidays.

We are also pleased to announce that Leap has again made the Channel Reseller News (CRN) list of the fastest 50 growing IT companies in Australia. This is our third year of making the list and our third year of growing over 20% each year. Leigh and I are extremely proud of our team and what they have achieved but even more we want to thank you our clients for taking us on this journey. Growth is never simple or easy and we have had our fair share of challenges (especially this year) but through it you have all supported us and given us the feedback we need to stay on track.

As part of the “award” theme I am also pleased to announce Leap has for the second year in a row been acknowledged as a Best Tech Workplace.This recognises our commitment to our staff and their engagement with Leap as an organisation. Ensuring our staff feel valued and connected helps us deliver better levels of support and this is reflected in the fact last month alone our average satisfaction rating was 8.57 out of 10 from 135 surveys taken from nearly 750 support tickets.

On behalf of everyone at Leap we want to wish you all a safe and enjoyable Xmas and a happy New Year!

Zaun Bhana

Operations Director

Whilst Leigh and I were overseas in the USA attending a conference there was an equally important event being held on the Gold Coast back here in Australia. Peter Sondergaard senior Vice President and global head of Gartner, provided the company’s latest outlook for the IT industry to an audience of 1500 Australian Chief Information Officers (CIO’s) and IT leaders. In it he said “The days when IT was the passive observer of the world are over. Global politics and the global economy are being shaped by IT. It is a primary driver of business growth. For example this year 350 companies will each invest more than US$1 billion in IT. They are doing this because IT impacts their business performance. Two-thirds of CEOs believe IT will make a greater contribution to their industry in the next 10 years than any prior decades. For the IT leader to thrive in this environment, IT leaders must lead from the front and re-imagine IT. This new era brings with it urgent and compelling forces. They include mobility, the cloud, social and an explosion in information.”

What is amazing is we literally heard the same message from Daniel Burrus the best selling author of FlashForesight whilst we sat in an auditorium in Orlando with 1200 IT business owners from around the world. He talked about how the forces of change around processing power, bandwidth speed and the explosion of storage is dramatically impacting businesses. Even if we consider the controversial NBN rollout, if it does proceed throughout Australia it alone will create industries and offerings that don’t currently exist in the market. The question is how can you take advantage of all these changes in IT when you are so flat out keeping up with everything in your own company?

Well that is where we can help!

To give an example I spent yesterday with a potential new client and although the “cloud” was the reason for my visit he was more interested in how we could leverage IT to actually make him money. His existing IT company provider was a solid organisation with excellent skills but they were limited to just doing IT. In this constant and rapidly changing era that is the old standard. The new standard is acting as the CIO for the business and actually looking at the strategic side of the equation rather than just the technology.

We finished our conversation with the two major takeaway’s being how he could immediately bring forward some of his cash-flow and begin generating consistent recurring revenue. Ultimately IT will play a part in those new developments but the reality is they are not the main focus and that is the way it should be.

So if you would like to chat about potential methods and ways to increase profits, reduce risk and cut costs we would love to talk to you.

Have a great month!

Cloud, cloud and more cloud! That was the major theme of the Accountants Technology Showcase Australia in Melbourne I attended with a few of our clients earlier in the week. With nearly 260 accounting firms from around Australia and 31 suppliers to the accounting industry it is the biggest event of it’s kind down-under. One of the highlight sessions for me was the CEO Q&A. They had a panel consisting of:

Tim Reed – CEO of MYOB
Mike Chisholm – CEO of Acclipse
Chris Ridd – MD of Xero
Russell Evans – CEO of Wolters Kluwer Asia Pacific
Alan Osrin – MD of Sage Australia
Brian Coventry – CEO of Advanced Professional Solutions

The panel provided a significant insight into the directions, thoughts, trends and challenges that these companies see facing their industry, accountants and small businesses in Australia in general. What stood out was the different levels of cloud focus between the organisations and just how many different ways you can “skin the cat” when it comes to cloud.

A couple like Xero and Acclipse are pretty much fully cloud based already and offer their solutions as a Software As A Service (Saas). APS is launching a dedicated private cloud for their clients where all of their line of business products will be hosted, delivered and supported by them. Sage was promoting the development of mobility for their products as they were not yet convinced of the right cloud offering for their clients. MYOB on the other hand has a hybrid approach where their business products (as first cab off the rank) will be part desktop and part cloud based giving businesses the best of both worlds according to them.

Lastly Wolters Kluwer offered a bit of cloud, mobility and staying on premise so they were trying to cover every angle. Plus since they bought Business Fitness the makers of HowNow it is clear their intention is more likely purchasing those companies to build up their offering.

For those not in accounting the trend is no different. You just need to look at the latest survey results coming out like this one by IDC showing that 20.6 percent of SME’s and enterprises are currently using cloud computing, 32.4 percent are planning to use it within the next six to 12 months and 41.2 percent after 12 months.

So the trend is there, the suppliers are there and the next question is will you be there? Before you make that choice let us help you identify the right cloud solution as just like in the normal physical IT world not all offerings are created equal and the worst choice is making one without a well thought out and researched plan to follow.

Have a great month!

Looking back on August it is another great example of how the IT industry is constantly shifting and changing at an ever increasing rate. First the big news for a number of our clients that are in the accounting industry is Bain Capital edging out Sage Group to purchase MYOB for a rumoured $1.2 Billion. This is after Archer Capital and some other investors purchased it for what was estimated as $437 Million back in early 2009. Not bad return for 2 ½ years effort! There is a great opinion piece on the potential direction MYOB will head over here whilst speculation on what this will mean for Quicken and APS owner Reckon is over here.

The 2^nd big news item is that the Apple iPhone 5 release date is pretty much all pointing to October next month and potentially on the 4^th according to this article. At Leap we have commented a number of times about the trend for businesses to now have numerous Apple products operating in their environments. Our expectation is this will continue to grow and we are seeing organisations choose to deploy and roll out mobile devices like the iPad rather than a laptop or alternatively for those using Citrix roll out iMac’s on the desktop.

So our 3^rd big news items is we are pleased to announce that Leap Consulting is now a fully certified Apple Reseller for the full range of their products including the iMac, Mac Mini, iPhone and iPad. We have also trained up some our technical staff to be Apple Certified Consultants and will spread this to more engineers over time. So if you are thinking about Apple in your business or even just for home Leap can now help you make the transition to Apple and provide the full backup and support you need.

Lastly we have a new Senior Systems Consultant called Chris A’Pathy on-board. Chris has been in IT for over 11 years and comes to us with a very strong technical background in Citrix and Microsoft along with a passion for helping clients use technology to help grow their business and make their staff more productive.

Have a great month!

Well after a trip to Hamilton Island for the family and I and a trip to Bali for Leigh and his kids we are both refreshed and ready to go. Emily our new trainee starts on Monday along with Aaron our new Systems Consultant. Geoff our new Service Coordinator has been with us two weeks now and many of you will have likely already spoken to him. Aaron, Emily and Geoff will obviously take a short while to find their feet so we appreciate your patience during this period. We still have two newly created additional positions to fill and in the current IT jobs market and with our level of requirements they are not easy to find. So if any of you know an IT person in a support role who is looking for a change we would love to talk to them!

Talking with a number of new clients recently and the common theme amongst all of them was their business is flat out and they can’t keep up. Earlier in the week though I spent time at a seminar and the talk was about how quiet and constricted the market was. On one side they couldn’t hire people quick enough and on the other they weren’t sure if they were going to keep their existing staff due to lack of work. It was one of the most concrete examples of the so called two speed economy talked about in the press that I had come across.

How this is playing out in IT is that decisions to refresh equipment and upgrade servers that used to be tick the box exercise’s are now interwoven with questions about the cloud, hosted servers and virtual computing. With the announcement that the NBN will begin operations in Geraldton, Mandurah and Victoria Park next year companies are even looking at the length and term for Internet connections. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation in the marketplace and decisions are being made based on advice that is not future proof, commercially naive or in some cases just plain irresponsible.

So we encourage each of you that are updating your budgets or considering the next steps with your IT to let us spend some time working with you on what the choices and options are now and just around the corner.

Have a great month!

If you use Window XP, it might just be the time for you to upgrade (or at least start planning to upgrade) as Microsoft has announced plans to pull the plug on Windows XP support in 2014. While that may be a couple of years away, it never hurts to start assessing your options so the eventual move to newer Microsoft OS will be as smooth and efficient as possible.

Part of using any sort of software is the inevitable need to upgrade. Most if not all software needs to either be replaced and upgraded as the demands of the market entail more efficient processing of the various data and information a business handles.

Such is the case with Windows XP. While many continue to use this proven straightforward operating system, Microsoft has decided to stop support by the year 2014. Microsoft further recommends upgrading to its latest OS, Windows 7, in order for users to continue to receive OS support.

While there are some lines of business applications that have not been upgraded to work with Windows 7, most have — and there are alternative approaches. Also, your business needs the security and protection that only a current, up-to-date operating system can provide.

We understand that changing your OS will entail some expense, including new licenses, hardware, and some training. Fortunately, these things are designed to help you operate more efficiently and increase your productivity in the long run. But such change will take time, and if you are interested in starting to plan for an upgrade now, we’ll be happy to sit down with you and develop an upgrade process that meets your specific needs.

Well they always say that good things come in three’s and June was definitely one of those. Leap had its biggest year ever and it looks like we have for the third year in a row grown at over 20% in revenue terms. Realistically we owe a big thank you to all of you out there who have been working with us through what was a very tough period for Leigh and I. The other thank you has to be for our team here at Leap who has gone above and beyond to keep the ship powering along. In fact we have just had a celebration for Jamie and Howard for 5 years of service so they are now the proud owners of Apple iPad’s as a thank you from us for their hard work and loyalty. Roslyn and Scott are also approaching their 5 year anniversaries so Leigh and I should be VIP Apple members soon with all the iPad’s we are buying!

Other big news comes from the Microsoft front with the release of Office 365 which is the updated version of their cloud productivity suite including Exchange (Email), Sharepoint (Intranet), Lync (Communications) and Office Pro 2010. It is all based on a per user per month subscription model starting from less than $10 a month. In IT terms this is the game changer the industry has been talking about for the last 2 years. The first major announcements of clients migrating to the service have already happened with Curtin University and Fortescue Metals indicating their entire work forces will be shifting to the cloud. Given the budget, expertise and size of the relevant IT departments in each organisation there is a significant shift when they elect to move away from doing it themselves to letting Microsoft do all the work for them. So I would question why any business would consider running IT services in-house them selves when it is the exact opposite of what companies are doing right now. Expect to see a lot more press and coverage about Office 365 as Microsoft has a committed a massive marketing blitz to promote what they are doing for small businesses and enterprises alike.

As a certified Telstra Internet and Communications Technology partner we also excited to announce our very own special news. Leap has been selected as one of a few partners Australia wide to be exclusive agents for the Telstra Laptop Embedded Program. If you are buying a laptop in the next 12 months you definitely need to be aware of this new purchasing model which is akin to the mobile plan many us already receive our mobile phones under. Except in this instance as long as you subscribe to a Telstra Next G service you can purchase the laptop over 12 or 24 months at zero interest. Yes I know you are expecting me to mention the steak knives but it’s pretty simple. As long as you meet the requirements and have the NextG plan you can purchase your next Dell Laptop for $0 interest over 12 or 24 months. Even better there is no residual and you own the laptop straight away. Of course there are the normal terms and conditions and subject too bits and pieces but please speak to Nathan or Ramzi in our account management team to find out more details.

Lastly we are in the midst of hiring some additional staff to address the increased work coming through and hopefully we will be introducing those people to you all shortly. Have a great month.

Last week Leigh and I attended an event with one of Microsoft and Citrix global licensing partners discussing the “cloud”, Hosted Desktops and Software as a Service (SaaS). You could replace Microsoft and Citrix with just about any major IT vendor at the moment and the message would fundamentally be the same. The effect of the Internet is sweeping through industries and you only need to take a look at the recent fall of book store chains in Australia to see that this disruption is now at our doorstep.

The question for your own business is threefold.

1. Can your business benefit from this new wave of “cloud” services?
2. Is your business actually ready for “cloud” services?
3. What do you need to do next?

While we know none of you are in the book business the questions are designed to get you thinking about a shift that is currently one of the most significant changes since the advent of the Internet itself. So although it is quite easy to ignore it or dismiss it there are companies that are transforming and adapting themselves that very well could be your closest competitors.

So if you would like us to help with any of those three questions above or you actually don’t understand what any of this “cloud” stuff actually means to start with then get in touch!

Hackers continue to target online banking transactions as many SMBs do not realize the vulnerabilities in their current arrangements with their bank. Left unaddressed, you run the risk of allowing cyber-criminals to steal tens of thousands of dollars right from under your nose.

In a recent attack, cyber-thieves managed to get away with $63,000 after they exploited vulnerabilities in the online payroll system of a small business with its bank.

First, the crooks managed to infiltrate the company’s system through a piece of malware called the Zeus Trojan. This gave them access to the company’s data, including the password and username used in transacting with the company’s bank. The thieves then created several new ghost employees and created payroll accounts for them, which they sent to the bank and authenticated using the company controller’s username and password. And to cover their tracks, the hackers erased the confirmation emails regarding the transaction.

This incident highlights the need for better security systems in both the business and their bank – as security experts cite online banking transactions as one of the favorite targets of cyber-criminals. Cyber-attacks such as this one exploit weaknesses in many existing systems that rely on very simple and automated authentication procedures to confirm transactions.

A direct threat to your business finances is not something to be taken lightly. You not only need to review your current online banking system, but also the current security protocols you have installed, since hackers and cyber-criminals are constantly updating Trojans and other malware to adapt to changing IT protection systems.

We encourage you to have us take a look at the systems you have in place to determine if you are at risk for attacks like these. Please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to draw up custom security solutions that address your specific needs.

References:
Sold a Lemon in Internet Banking
Cybercrooks Drive Away With $63,000 from Car Dealership