Infotech Weekly, Issue 478, by Tom Pullar-Strecker
Wellington data warehousing consultancy Sysware has set up a shell company in Australia to capitalise on a big contract
with a financial institution in Melbourne.
Sysware, founded by four "like-minded" independent consultants in 1997, employs eighteen staff, four of whom are working
in Melbourne on the contract with the unnamed client. Sysware Consulting Group describes itself as a "vendor-independent
developer and designer of data warehouses and related software". Director Ian Munro, one of the company's co-owners, says
Sysware is keen to secure the foothold it has gained across the Tasman by ramping up its Australian subsidiary into
a fully fledged operation. Business Development Manager Peter Denman says this is likely to happen in the next three
to six months.
Most of Sysware's business comes from "word of mouth" and it is hoped its Melbourne contract will lead to other
opportunities. Sysware has boosted staff by 50% during the past year, and expects to more than double revenues this
financial year.
In the financial services industry, data warehouses provide a home for data that is captured during interactions with
customers - information that can then be "mined" to feed Customer Relationationship Management (CRM) systems to give
their operators the chance to "cross-sell" and "up-sell" to their customers. Mr Munro says that high street banks are
racing to establish data warehouses and CRM systems to provide all their staff with a "single" view of each of their
customers. It is believed that this will help them market services to their customers, at the right time, based on
individual customers circumstances, and so retain their key clients. "Leadership in the race has passed from bank to
bank as staff engaged in Data Warehousing projects have switched employer", he says.
While many financial institutions are centralising activities in Australia, Mr Munro predicts control over the data
gathered on New Zealand customers may well shift back to New Zealand in "three or four years" as part of the
Trans-Tasman cycle of centralisation and decentralisation. But whether this would necessitate shifting the data
warehouses themselves and related software development work is less clear. In the interim, by securing work in Australia
the company can ensure that at least some of the revenue from banking projects comes back to New Zealand, he says.
Sysware also numbers a few government departments among its clients. Mr Munro says that, because of its growth, the
company is reaching the stage where it may have to evolve from its relatively "informal" modus operandi and adopt more
formal structures. Quite what this might entail is yet to be decided. "We want to go to the next step", but want to
retain our low overheads and remain "lean and mean".
The company's other co-owners are Charles Chinnaiyah, Laurie Fleming and Donald Stanley.
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