Regional Roundup: Bendigo

Ian Gillard, director, Bendigo IT

In 1979, Marie Denham and I founded a company known as Scientific Business Software Systems. These days, we are Bendigo IT and have 11 staff. Marie and I have always been directors.

We worked with Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1970s and 1980s. Then Microsoft became big in the 1990s. Later on, Digital was bought by Compaq, and Compaq was bought by Hewlett-Packard, so nowadays field services and subcontracting for HP desktops and high-end servers is big for us.

I started in the industry the year before the internet was invented – 1968. I came to Bendigo in 1973 to be a lecturer for Bendigo Institute of Technology. Marie is a Bendigo native and was a programmer at the institute.

The best thing about living and working at Bendigo is the commute. A downside of being in regional Australia is that the big guys like IBM and Accenture set the charge out rates in Melbourne, even though the cost of living is much lower in Bendigo.

Marie and I would both like to retire. And to that end we have sold the business to another Bendigo provider, Maxsum.

IntTec was established in 1998 and we have 33 employees. I am the general manager and my brother Stephen is the technical director.

We’re mainly concerned with ICT product sourcing, projects and services and work with vendors such as Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, Zultys and Citrix. Outsourced managed services are a growth area for us at the moment, while product resale is a real challenge – margins are diminishing.

Some of the clients that have taken up the managed services include accountancy firms, Hillier’s Chocolates and a mining company in the Northern Territory.

We’ve now started supplying customised Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions that are hosted on-premises or in a data centre. Eaton UPS and Ubiquiti Networks are new offerings for us as well.

An advantage of operating in regional Australia is the reach, logistics, and servicing – particularly for clients with multiple points of presence. And the lifestyle is hard to beat.

We’re excited about expanding into Darwin and Melbourne due to the growth in clients.

I was 19 years old when I started the business in 2001 with my brother-in-law.

He guided me through the early period, then I bought him out after two or three years.

Our main game is desktop PCs and servicing – hardware repairs and software maintenance like virus and malware cleanups. We look after businesses and a few schools, including on-site work. Our vendors include Gigabyte, Intel, Nvidia, Logitech and LG; MSI is our preferred provider for laptops, especially for gaming. They’re a smaller provider so we enjoy a personal relationship with them. Our biggest disties are Synnex, Altech, and Com1.

A growth area for us is out-of-warranty servicing of Apple. The Mac1 chain closed its Bendigo branch in January and that’s led to people coming to us. We’re not an authorised Apple agent, but they’re still coming in.

I love not having to fight the traffic to get to work in Bendigo. And you get to know the people better in a smaller place like this. I’m a Bendigo native and know the place inside out. The disadvantage of not being in a big city is the smaller market and not getting the visits from vendors.