Profile: Enspire changes direction

Enspire was established in 1999 and merged with another small IT company in 2004.
The reseller focused on selling technology and internet connections but soon after the merger realised there was a future in providing remote desktops.

"We recognised the future lay not in the traditional IT integration and ISP business but remote desktop or remote access desktop - really the forerunner of cloud computing," says Nicholas. "We spent a lot of time building what we now recognise as a prototype environment as a remote desktop." The reseller took on its first remote desktop customer in 2006.

Business was good but not great. "We had constant but not spectacular growth, we never made massive amounts of profit," says Nicholas. A lot of money was fed back into the business. The management team felt that there was a glass ceiling that prevented them from expanding faster.

"It was quite frustrating; we couldn't work out why. We've got good people, we're all passionate about what we do, we all get on well together - why aren't we growing quicker and better?" says Nicholas.
Enspire engaged the services of an external strategic adviser, David Austen, lecturer of Melbourne University, to review the business.

The after snapshot

The rebranding exercise emerged last year from a strategic review of the whole company and its plans for the next five years.

Nicholas sought to make a couple of "one percent" changes when he took on the role of managing director in January. These amounted to significantly more than a handful of percent; Nicholas changed Enspire from an engineering, technical led firm to one focussed on customers.

"In the last four months we've definitely achieved that [goal] to create a brand identity or icon - ‘Our Big E', as we call it - so we can hit the market and become an industry name with clients and the channel," says Nicholas.

The website literally reflected this change by replacing tabs on products to an emphasis on services that can help customers.

"It's like a complete makeover of the business. It really represents the journey that we as a company have gone through over the last 14 months," says Nicholas.