VIDEO interview: Holocentric’s take on becoming a successful Australian IT company

Holocentric. The company’s philosophy is simple - it is here ‘to help organsations improve performance.’

The company does this by offering a ‘Business Management System’ or BMS, which Holocentric says ‘is a living reference and communication platform for all organisational knowledge, including strategies, plans, policies, procedures, people and technology.’

In business since 2003, the company’s CEO is Bruce Nixon, the head of a vibrant team that started by building its first product, a business modelling tool, funded by a government grant.

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Since then the company has continually innovated its offerings, investing significantly in R&D, and in 2009 the company released its ground breaking business management system (BMS) platform. In April this year, version 3.0 of Holocentric’s BMS was released.

According to Nixon, who I interviewed recently (with the full video interview embedded a little below,) 'there’s no doubt the tech industry in Australia is a relatively small pool. There’s clearly some interesting start-up activity, and a number of success stories (with Atlassian a prime example) but most people would be hard pressed to name more than one or two Australian-based tech companies.'

Holocentric notes ‘this is compounded by the well documented barriers in the tech industry in Australia, for instance, talent shortage, increased level of offshore outsourcing by Australian companies and market limitations in terms of size and investment opportunities, forcing many tech companies to go abroad.’

So, to remain competitive and be successful in Australia’s tech industry, as Holocentric can proudly boast of being, you need perseverance, innovation and lateral thinking - which Nixon and his team have ably demonstrated since the company’s inception, and which Nixon discusses in the video interview.

Holocentric says it has ‘defined the concept of BMS in Australia,’ a category it says ‘has been typically little understood by analysts and the market.’

So, when I interviewed Nixon, he was able to explain that Holocentric’s strategy has been to focus on the areas large companies are struggling with, be it compliance, knowledge management, transformation, enterprise technology implementation or complexity, and create solutions that can help bridge these gaps and challenges.

The company certainly has a client list to back up its claims. Holocentric has worked with companies such as Australian Tax Office, Westpac, Airservices Australia, NSW Transport Management Centre, Qantas, Sydney Water, UGL Services, Western Power, Iceland Air and IP Australia.

In the video interview below, Nixon discusses some of the challenges Holocentric has faced as an Australian tech company as well as his strategies for staying innovative and competitive against larger, international technology providers.

So, here is the video interview - a summary of the questions we discussed is listed below!

I started by introducing and welcoming Bruce Nixon, and asked him to tell us about the history of HoloCentric and where it is today in 2016 - along with some career highlights.

We then discussed the recently released version 3.0 the company’s Business Management Software - asking what it is and what new capabilities version 3.0 brought to the market.

We talked about digital transformation and more companies running Holocentric’s BMS platform, after which we looked at why Nixon believes more Australian companies are being ‘forced abroad.’

Nixon spoke about and explained been Holocentric's strategy for success, and shared some of the company’s local and international customers, and how BMS can help smaller companies compete against multinationals.

We delved into what the future held for the industry over the next decade, great advice that Nixon had received during his career, and any final messages he had for iTWire viewers and readers, and the company’s current and future customers.