When your customers span verticals across agriculture, from grain, fruit farming and winemaking, to manufacturing, education and healthcare, you’re forced to wear many hats to best deliver a particular solution.
As a business-facing IT provider in rural NSW, Leading Edge Computers Griffith can’t afford to focus on any one industry but must support a broad range of local operators, says managing director Tegan Le Page.
Griffith has a strong agricultural community, and Le Page says the company is seeing growth from a lot of areas, “be it cotton, grapes and wineries, chickens, crops and citrus farming”.
“There are also a lot of innovative businesses operating within the farming community and the manufacturing industries that support them. We see growth everywhere and it’s good because it’s sustainable growth, it’s diverse. It’s not dependant on one single thing.
“We have clients who are wineries, clients in manufacturing, we work with medical centres, motor groups and there’s various other verticals that we touch in as well. You have got to be diverse in an area like this. It’s not big enough that you can specialise in one single sector so you have to be capable in a number of them.”
After acquiring the business in 2010, Tegan and her husband, Aaron, have grown revenues by 440 percent in eight years, shifted to a large new premises – previously occupied by the town’s Dick Smith store – and built up their roster of staff, from three full-timers when they purchased the business to eight today, with recruitment in progress for a new member of the B2B team.
The IT provider offers managed services, traditional break-fix and “a lot of things in between”.
“We maintain the networks and sites for a number of clients, including backups, cloud solutions, Office 365, security, environment design and implementation and day-to-day management of their IT systems,” Le Page said.
Leading Edge is not alone in Griffith and shares the local market with some competent competitors, which has spurred the company to deliver conscientious outcomes to meet clients’ business challenges.
“Our point of difference is that we like to simplify solutions,” Le Page said. “We don’t like to create overly complicated solutions for our clients. We want to be able to make it easy for them to understand and make it relatively straightforward to maintain on an ongoing basis.”
“We’re down to earth, we’re approachable, and we really like to work closely with our clients to make sure we come up with the best solution for them. There’s never a cookie-cutter approach.”
The success of the Le Pages’ business saw them recognised as Leading Edge Computers’ store of the year in 2017 during the buying group’s annual conference, and both Tegan and Aaron returned to the event in 2018 to present to other members, and enjoy industry insights, networking and reunions with friends.
Le Page, a steering committee member of LEC, places a lot of value in the group’s ability to support buying power, billing, regular vendor meetings, marketing, branding and a network of business peers.
“There’s a like-minded brains trust of people whose businesses are similar to yours; they have gone through the same challenges, enjoyed successes and none of them are in competition with you because we all have our own areas so it’s very unique in that way,” Le Page said.
“Everyone wants to see the success of the other members. It’s a great atmosphere.”
This Regional Reseller profile was written in partnership with Leading Edge Computers.
To find out how the Leading Edge Group can support your business, call 02 8732 9524
or visit www.leadingedgegroup.com.au
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