Craig Morrison from Business Connexion

On first glance Craig Morrison from Business Connexion looks too young to even be in business, let alone be a business owner. That’s the thing with I.T. these days, the younger they are the more they actually know about it. Craig started the company just three short years ago with his business partner Deon Bester. He identified that the Sunshine Coast needed an I.T. provider that was based on fixed cost. So because of that they base their solution on proactive, not reactive I.T. That means they don’t wait for the break to fix the problem. Craig says that not everyone understands the difference between reactive and proactive I.T. Reactive I.T. exists when you call your I.T. company on an ad hoc basis when something breaks and they bill you per hour, whereas proactive on the other hand, is when your I.T. company works with you on a regular basis, monitoring your systems, performing maintenance and updates, providing recommendations and I.T. strategic direction and solving problems before they break.

With proactive I.T., because they actually charge one set amount, and everything is covered by that amount, they are constantly assuring prevention, rather than a cure after the fact. The fixed cost model allows clients to be able to relax in the knowledge that they won’t pay by the hour, and gives incentives to the I.T. company to keep clients’ systems as stable as possible compared to the traditional per hour model. Craig believes up to 90 percent of I.T. business on the coast is done reactively, simply fixing problems as and when they arise. The proactive approach of his team attempting to assure that in some cases the problems don’t happen in the first place, ensures you, the end user, less downtime.

Business Connexion is a Microsoft Gold Partner. There are only three or four Microsoft Gold Partners here on the Sunshine Coast and Craig says having it allows clients to have more faith in their I.T. team. To attain the Microsoft Gold certified partner status you need to have a number of Microsoft certified technicians in your team along with meeting various other Microsoft requirements. In the I.T. industry there are no formal qualifications so this is something that, along with experience, allows clients to have more confidence in their I.T. partner.

Business Connexion now use the latest technology to fix clients’ computers - some of the time by remote, again saving on time for the customer by not having to sit and wait for a technician to come out. The technician simply logs on at the Business Connexion headquarters and fixes the problem from there.

So what’s Craig’s advice on things that you just have to do, things that you just can’t leave any longer when it comes to embracing technology? Craig says the main this is, “Don’t get left behind. It is never too late to start learning, adapting and changing.” One of the main things he says that people tend to put off is implementing recommended backup solutions because they don’t want to spend the money. Craig says the best back up system is an image based backup system that takes a snap shot of your computer that allows you to restore in that point of time to your existing server, or in some cases, to a completely different new server. Most standard back up systems just back up your files so if something goes wrong, yes you have your files but you’re down for hours, trying to install windows again, trying to install your printer again, your MYOB, your applications and to bring those databases back etc.

So what does Craig think about the new cloud technology? The cloud technology has come about through the demand of wanting to reduce capital expenditure whilst wanting to increase data availability, redundancy and scalability, Craig says. “The particular product that we are working with is a Microsoft product. It is called Office 365 and basically it gives you hosted Microsoft exchange emails in the cloud, which means that it stores your emails in the cloud, and the cloud is accessed through the internet in a Microsoft data centre.”

“But what if I have a bad internet connection?” I hear you say. “How will that affect cloud technology?” Craig says that if your internet access is not working or not good, you are not going to be able to download your normal emails anyway. So even if you are using your pop emails, you are still not going to be able to get them without email. If the internet is down, there is no difference - all computers keep a certain amount of emails on them anyway.

A lot of bigger businesses have this anyway. A lot of them already have their expensive infrastructure in place on a dedicated server, so this is about reducing capital expenditure. It is also good for big business, because they don’t need to buy all the expensive infrastructure and then manage and maintain it, they can just pay per month.

So now with the new Office 365 you don’t have to have a copy of Office for your home computer, your work computer, your laptop etc. you just have the one and you pay one price per month and that gives you five licences. You can also save your Excel and other Word documents in the cloud through this system.

What other technology should we embrace for business? Craig says that he loves the iPad and sees a massive opportunity for it to become a handy business tool as customised applications are developed that are specific for businesses.

In closing Craig adds that he is really excited about the
future of the I.T. industry. It is an ever evolving and exciting industry to be part of with the constant changes and therefore constant need to up skill for himself and his
now team of 11.