Interview: Perry Blackney, CEO at Synergy

Blackney: There’s no doubt that if we want to move the business from where we are today, we need some money to do that. If we’re going to make acquisitions, if we’re going to expand the company quickly, it’s going to take money. The fact that we have a pretty solid brand in the company today, I don’t think it will be too hard for us to raise some funds to do that. We will definitely list in the next six months.


CRN: So you will be acquiring some companies?

Blackney: We’ll certainly look for acquisitions in the areas where we particularly have weaknesses at the moment or where we want to grow.


CRN: What are those areas?

Blackney: We certainly want to expand the franchise to become much bigger in NSW. Given the amount of IT spend that’s in NSW, we do not have our share of revenue out of that space. We want to build the Melbourne model in Sydney but make it bigger.

So we probably need to make some acquisitions in NSW and maybe Queensland. We won’t move away from our core competencies and the acquisitions will have to be in line with [our] technology focus areas, and number two, culturally they’ll have to fit.

In Sydney we have competition with companies like Data#3 and we believe with the model we have in Melbourne, if we can build that in Sydney we have a great opportunity to challenge them in this market.


CRN: What model are you referring to?

Blackney: The end-to-end model -- the hardware, software, services all based on IBM-only technology, which is unique in this market. We are probably one of the few people in Australia that are IBM-only partners. I think that relationship is unique.

CRN: Why do you think the company has gone that way? Other companies have diversified and reduced their reliance on a single vendor.

Blackney: Basically ex-IBM people started the company. So the culture is very IBM-oriented. Once you’ve worked for IBM, the culture is so strong, you never get rid of that ‘Blue’ blood. I’m glad that we’ve only ever been an IBM-only partner. If you look where IBM is in the marketplace today -- and there have been times over the last 10 or 15 years where IBM has stumbled -- today in the marketplace IBM is without doubt the leading IT company in the world.

I don’t think IBM has been in a stronger position than this for a long time. Back in the early 1990s, why [Synergy] didn’t move away from IBM I have no idea but today I’m happy to sit here and say it stayed the way it was. Synergy has IBM culture through its veins.


CRN: Has their been a big cultural change for you coming into the channel?

Blackney: Being on the other side of the fence gives you a different perspective as to what is required from a channel partner to be successful. Having been on the other side, we knew what it was for a multinational to be successful. Now I’m going to IBM and saying, ‘I know what you guys have to do to be successful, let me tell you what I need to do be successful’. Having that perspective is certainly helping me now.


CRN: What’s the financial position of the company at the moment?
Blackney: We’re currently a $40 million company in annual sales. Even without acquisitions, we can grow that 25 to 30 percent in FY2005-06. By 2008, we want to be a $100 million company.