Aussie IT services firm taps into crowdsourcing

Melbourne-based software services firm Revolution IT is celebrating its 10-year anniversary knowing it has weathered the dramatic shift in the sector from licence sales to managed services and now annuities, along with changes to traditional business consulting models.

The company, which specialises in software testing now finds itself contending with a new and emerging challenge as its customers start to engage crowdsourced solutions for testing.

"What we are starting to see is that rather than getting an organisation like ours to do the testing of their software, they are crowdsourcing the testing of the apps. This is a trend that is starting to hit Australia and it will have an impact on our industry," says Revolution IT director and co-founder Hamish Leighton.

He, along with fellow directors and equal shareholders Michael Quill and Jamie Duffield, started the business a decade ago, bringing skills and practices they learned in the UK back to Australia.

But rather than fight against the rising tide of crowdsourcing, Revolution IT is pivoting to exploit the opportunity, says Leighton.

"You have to take a trend like this and think about it as something we can offer our customers. From talking to our customers it won't replace what we are doing but it can certainly augment it in some circumstances. The reality is that it may be a more economical path for them," he says.

"We are looking at partnering with offshore companies that are doing this successfully already. Our view is, lets white label it, bring it in and offer it as a service. "

It's this kind of agility that has enabled Revolution IT to grow quickly and successfully in the highly competitive Australian software testing market. These days the company has over 230 employees and offices in Melbourne Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Singapore.

"We have grown quite a lot during that time but the core software testing is still about 70 per cent the work of the company, " he says. "Our core business is still determining how apps are delivered, whether they work correctly, perform correctly and deliver what the business needs and expects."

"Most of our work is still done in Australia – as much as 85 per cent," says Leighton who anticipates further growth ahead, both via organic performance and acquisition.

"We envisage that over the next few years we will see a few more acquisitions as part of the growth strategy."

Previously its key acquisitions included Qualtech in 2007, Ascend Business Systems in 2008 and Independent Test Services in 2010. Apart from enhancing the capabilities of the business each of these deals was important in increasing the company's geographic footprint.

“Looking back, what makes me most proud is the purpose of our mission”, says Leighton's colleague and Revolution IT CEO and co-founder, Jamie Duffield. “And that’s our over-riding belief in quality.”

“We think of Revolution IT as the software services equivalent of a premium brand. Of course, we don’t charge premium prices – we’re highly competitive – but with everything we touch, we believe it needs to work superbly, be crafted and supported skillfully, and give clients total confidence in the value of their investment."

The third amigo, Michael Quill says the trio were always confident they could do it better than anyone else. "Since then, we’ve stepped up with other services – Work Management, Requirements Management, BSM, Agile and Enterprise Applications – and each time we’ve driven a vision for how to do it better. It’s this passion for innovation that energises our staff, and over the last 10 years, staff turnover has been remarkably low.”