Hosted solution drives growth at Micronet

Company: Micronet Systems Australia

Web: www.micronet.com.au

Key business focus: Developer and supplier of business software systems and end-to-end hosted solutions, for small to medium sized enterprises.

Key challenge: To fins a partner committed to delivering robust, high availability hosted services coupled with a strong customers service ethic

Macquarie products and services: Managed hosting and security solutions; storage on demand; dual homed VLAN; managed load balancing; Macquarie DSL with service level guarantees.

Key results:

• Delivery of a high-availability, scalable, fully-serviced hosted solution that forms the backbone of Micronet's own hosted services offering.
• Development of an alliance program that delivers benefits to both businesses
• Partnership approach sees Micronet on track to achieving 15% growth in its hosted services business by the end of 2003.

Alliance approach delivers real results to both businesses

“The results speak for themselves. Under our previous suppliers our business had stalled and was at a critical point. Since partnering with Macquarie Telecom, Micronet's business is burgeoning and we are easily achieving our customer take-up targets. This demonstrates the value of a good partnership.”
Drew Arthur,
Director, Micronet Systems Australia

Overview

For many businesses, the decision to outsource their technology can be relatively clear-cut. A lack of infrastructure, limited capital and insufficient resources can mean it is the only sensible option. Finding a suitable vendor however, and getting the company to deliver on its promises can prove to be a long, difficult and frustrating journey.

For Micronet Systems Australia, finding the right vendor was vital. The growth and success of its new hosted services offering was counting on it.

After two failed outsourcing attempts, Micronet partnered with Macquarie Telecom for the provision of a high-availability, complex managed hosting solution. The result is a relationship that is of benefit to both companies: as demand for Micronet's infrastructure and services escalates, Macquarie Telecom's revenue base increases correspondingly.

The Opportunity

Micronet is a leading developer of commercial business systems specifically designed for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Since it began in 1983, Micronet's range of financial accounting software has been implemented in over 2000 importers, distributors, retailers, job costing, manufacturing and service based companies throughout Australia.

Over the years, Micronet has increased its product offering to include Warehouse Management Systems, CRM solutions and eBusiness applications. This enabled the company to provide clients with an entire suite of business-critical software ranging from point of sale (POS) and accounting right through to people management and paperless picking and packing products.

Micronet saw an opportunity to build on the products and services it offered and become a one-stop technology shop for SMEs.

Its goal was to offer current and potential clients hosted data, storage, security and disaster recovery services. These would be backed by customer support, warrantee fulfilment, and ongoing training and development.

“We wanted SMEs to be able to connect and forget,” added Mr Arthur.

Micronet did not have the infrastructure, capital or resources to build and manage its own network and data centre. It needed to find a partner with a strong customer service ethic that could deliver the infrastructure and help it achieve its business goal.

“Like many of our clients our main concern was cost. This was a new market we were entering so we were focused on finding a partner that would provide a lot of infrastructure upfront and support it with a flexible payment option to mirror the growth of our client base,” he said.

Despite appointing two consecutive companies – one of Australia's largest telecommunications companies and a smaller hosting specialist – Micronet was unable to find a service offering that met its needs.

Its hosted services business was stalled and at a serious risk if the company did not find an effective partner.

The Solution

Following a three-month evaluation period, Macquarie Telecom was selected from a short-list of three companies. Macquarie Telecom provides Micronet with a high-availability, complex business managed hosting solution. This includes provision of multiple managed services, storage on demand, dual homed VLAN, managed load balancing, managed firewall services and managed intrusion detection systems.

“It was Macquarie Telecom's commitment to going that extra mile and desire to understand our business which made it stand out from the crowd,”

The infrastructure is supported with 24x7 security monitoring and detection, regular patch upgrades, application optimisation and regular performance optimisation. It is all underpinned by Macquarie Telecom's business class DSL service and delivered via its nationwide data network.

Macquarie Telecom worked with Micronet to develop a contract that was sensitive to the start -up nature of its hosting service.

The result is that both companies are now working together to grow each other's business.

According to Glen Noble, Macquarie Telecom's General Manager Hosting Solutions, “We developed an alliance program with Micronet that sees Macquarie Telecom's revenue base increase as Micronet experiences demand for its infrastructure and services escalate.”

Results

Since the move to Macquarie Telecom, the biggest single result Micronet has seen is the reduction of downtime to insignificant levels. This has been supported by a four-fold increase in server performance and extremely high levels of customer service.

“The alliance program means we now spend less time managing the contract than ever before. As a result we have been able to focus our attention on growing the business and exceeding our customer targets,” said Mr Arthur.

More than 10 per cent of Micronet's client base is currently signed as hosted services clients. It is on track to reaching a targeted 15 per cent by the end of 2003.

“The results speak for themselves,” said Mr Arthur. “Under our previous suppliers our business had stalled and was at a critical point. Since partnering with Macquarie Telecom, Micronet's business is burgeoning and we are easily achieving our customer take-up targets. This demonstrates the value of a good partnership.”