Reseller profile: Thomas Duryea

He always worked very closely with his clients and was beginning to hear common complaints about the major integrators.

"It appeared that these integrators were focused on conducting transactional business," says Thomas.

"Obviously clients wanted their integration partner to focus on building an ongoing relationship of trust. I also saw many projects sold with the promise of 'cutting edge automation', and then delivered using very manual processes in the background."

Thomas says he founded Thomas Duryea on the core values of relationships and technical excellence, with a vision of becoming the number one technology solution provider in the country.

"In simple terms we figured we could do it better," he says. "Build stronger relationships, develop a winning culture, and deliver true technical excellence and the automation we promised."

Before he struck out on his own, Thomas was working in desktop automation and installing Windows NT 4.

"My early projects involved large-scale desktop transformation, migrating to NT4, packaging applications and bringing the desktop under management using products such as Novell Zenworks and the early versions of Microsoft SMS.

"Very quickly my interests moved toward project management and I took on a number of merger and acquisitions related projects."

He set up Thomas Duryea with four university friends in January 2000.

His partners, Evan Duryea, Micah Smith and David Stagg, all studied Computer Engineering and Science together at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

"I met Evan through an electronics project. He was paired up with the only guy not present in the lab that day - I was off shark fishing down on Point Lonsdale. Evan figured that any guy choosing to skip class for shark-fishing must be a decent bloke," he says.

"It was back in the late 90's, all of us were freelancing, and we gathered around my coffee table to hatch our plans.

"We talked to a few different people about joining us at the time, and finally settled on the four that remain the same to this day."

Thomas says setting up the business coincided with the dotcom bust.

Their first offices were on the Southbank in Melbourne and were promptly demolished to make way for the Crown West End carpark.

"We moved from there into a 'garage' in the backstreets of Richmond, which we rapidly outgrew to the extent that on some days we had up to six guys all squeezed onto the couches with laptops on knees.

"We now have offices in Richmond, Melbourne and the Sydney CBD. Both are beautiful old heritage listed brick buildings, with polished boards, exposed beams and a great feel that supports our culture."

The company now employs 80 staff across Australia and New Zealand which includes engineers, consultants and solution architects.

The company client base reaches from lower mid-market through to upper enterprise, and state-based to global.

Thomas says the company works predominantly in the "infrastructure space" which means it can move from sector to sector.

"Our service offerings are tailored closely to client requirements, which allows us to work just as efficiently and effectively with a 700 seat government client as with a 5,000 seat manufacturing firm with sites throughout the Asia Pacific region," he says.

When they set the company up their first two clients were local government councils in Victoria; the City of Boroondara and Wyndham City Council.

They worked with Thomas Duryea because they trusted the staff initially as individuals, then gradually as a company when the brand began to flourish, says Thomas.

"We are extremely proud that both Wyndham and Boroondara remain much loved clients to this day, almost 10 years on," says Thomas.

"We grew slowly in the early days, purely by referral, and did so without a sales team for the first six years.

"We believed that we were only ever as good as our last job, and wanted to build life-long relationships with our clients."

The company started to grow in recognition about four years ago when it saw the value virtualisation could bring to organisations.

Thomas Duryea found that installing VMware and centralising storage could revolutionise the way IT departments managed their infrastructure.

"We quickly became the most trusted name in virtualisation and moved to a similar position in storage and data management," says Thomas.

"The value proposition around these technologies was, and still is, a very simple one. Successfully implemented, clients can leverage incredible cost savings, do more with less, and achieve much greater reliability and management control.

"Couple this with the environmental aspects of power and cooling reductions and the solutions speak for themselves."

Thomas says the best aspects of the job centre around the people.

He says he has attracted some of the most amazing people to the company and he was proud to be associated with them.

"I love coming to work to be around their energy, passion and drive," he says.

"We all love winning, we love coming up with new and innovative ways to serve our clients, and our success has afforded us the opportunity to do this over and over again.

"We started the company before making the opportunity to back-pack round the world.

"I've been fortunate enough to travel a lot during the last 10 years, but I still miss the fact that I didn't sling the back-pack over one shoulder and head off without care or concern for things back home."

Thomas Duryea work with clients across manufacturing, finance, government, health, entertainment, not-for-profit and education. It has about 500 customers.

The company was also recently named VMware Partner of the Year.

"We've delivered more virtual infrastructure projects than any other integrator in the country," says Thomas.

"We were also named VMware Market Maker of the Year. This award came as a result of our early endeavours in bringing virtualisation to the Australian market.

"In fact, Australia is one of the most mature countries in the world when it comes to technology adoption, and especially virtualisation."

The integrator was ranked in the BRW fast 100 two years running; placing initially at 18, then last year at number six.

"We achieved these results by delivering approximately 300 percent growth year on year, for three consecutive years," says Thomas.

"Last year we were awarded the BRW Fastest Growing Private Business award, ranking us as the number one fastest growing privately held business with $100 million turnover in Australia.

"Our growth has been achieved by bringing together a group of like-minded individuals who share common goals related to technology and client service."

The goal for the company now is to continue its strong growth and evolve the services it offers as client needs change and technologies advance.

"It's an exciting time to be in IT. Technology continues to advance at an extraordinary rate, all the while affording us new and innovative ways help organisations meet their needs," says Thomas.

He says he and his partners love cloud computing. "It's early days and there's a lot of noise in the market at the moment, but as the dust settles a few clear leaders will emerge with services that will again revolutionise our industry," he says.

Thomas Duryea plans to be at the forefront of cloud services in Australia.

"We see great benefit for our clients in both the near and medium term, and we look forward to positive change we can bring to their organisations through a catalogue of new cloud services," says Thomas.

"I'm an entrepreneur at heart, so there's always plenty of ideas swirling around in the background."

He adds resellers that should be focusing on their clients' needs because most organisations have gone through a tumultuous shift over the preceding 12 months. Many are looking to their service providers for help, advice and new ways of achieving their goals.

Talking about the biggest obstacles to date, Thomas says his has been the limit of his own capabilities.

"I've been fortunate enough over the years to have been surrounded by some of the most capable, talented, helpful people in the country.

"Learning to automate Windows NT was hard enough, but learning to bring 80 brilliant minds together has been harder than herding cats.

"Through the years I've worked with some great business advisers and coaches, and I've managed to build an management team who've made dreams a reality."

Thomas says he has made his work his life but because he has made many great friends through work it is enjoyable, rather than a chore.

"I try to strike a balance by matching the 'work-hard' with the 'play-hard'," he says.

"My friends and family know that Thomas Duryea takes a very special priority, and I'm very fortunate that they're all incredibly patient, and forgiving when that Blackberry goes off or my plans change at the eleventh hour."