IBM Business Partner Awards Supreme Winner: Integral Technology Group

“We work hard to understand the business drivers behind an organisation’s requirements. We look at what the client is trying to achieve and then tailor the solution to their particular needs." Integral sales and marketing director Catherine Blinkhorn

By Reseller News Staff, Auckland | Friday, 30 November 2007
In addition to winning the supreme award at the IBM Business Partner Awards, Integral Technology Group also walked away with top honours in the Infrastructure Innovation and Best Small Business Deal categories.
It was the Infrastructure Innovation entry that earned it the supreme award for a utility computing model it developed for business-to-business marketing company Jericho, which specialises in supplying email marketing software and related services under the brand SmartMail.
Integral was founded with a firm focus on customer service. From its humble origins as a garage-based start-up in West Auckland to today’s award-winning set of applications and services, Integral has never lost sight of its original philosophy: Happy customers pay the bills.

“Customer service is at the heart of the Integral business model,” says sales and marketing director Catherine Blinkhorn. “Simple, perhaps, but a key point. As a result of our customer-centric policies, we’ve increased our revenues 40 percent each year for the past three years and now have a turnover of around $35 million. We’re moving into a new building in Greenlane and are looking forward to further growth.”

Integral’s growth, while significant, has not overly taxed the organisation. “Our growth is very controlled,” says Blinkhorn. “We’ve made a few acquisitions – for instance we recently purchased Quanta Systems – and have slowly expanded our solution set and services portfolio. Many companies go through periods of rapid growth and then have to retrench at a later time. We’ve taken our time, mapped our path carefully and, as a result, built a sustainable and successful model.”

Integral has a five-fold mission statement that underlies the operations at all levels. “Our primary goal is to put the customer first,” says Blinkhorn. “Our founders came from a service background and they have never deviated from that mind-set. If customers are happy, they’ll continue to come back and that is a recipe for success in any business.”

“We’re one team,” continues Blinkhorn. “We all work together for a common goal and try to avoid working at cross-purposes. We integrate the various business groups, sales and marketing and management by keeping lines of communication open and available.”

Pride is another key factor in Integral’s success. “We put pride into everything we produce,” says Blinkhorn. “Every proposal, every product, every line of code is an extension of ourselves and we want to ensure that the highest standards are adhered to. And if we promise to do something, we do it.”

In addition to pride, integration and customer service, common sense is a critical component of Integral’s philosophy. “When you start from a garage and build from there you tend to keep your priorities straight,” says Blinkhorn. “Common sense at Integral starts from the top and works down. Successful businesses have two things in common. They generally make smart decisions and avoid making poor decisions. A good, common sense approach to decision-making goes a long way in ensuring success.”

And lastly, Integral is a progressive company, says Blinkhorn. “We don’t change for change’s sake. Every move we make is carefully thought out – again using common sense – so we have been able to evolve in concert with both the technology and the needs of our customer base. You have to keep up with the market without getting caught out by unforeseen changes. At Integral, we’ve been able to anticipate change and adjust our offerings as appropriate.”

The Integral solution set reflects its philosophy – its products and services are all customer-centric, in that they are optimised to give real value to the organisation, says Blinkhorn.
“We have a very broad set of solutions and services that cater to distributed enterprises. While we are set up along traditional business units – enterprise infrastructure, business solutions and services – there is a tremendous amount of cross-pollination in our approach as no job ever falls exclusively into one of those categories.”

Each project is owned by an account manager who has total responsibility for delivering the desired outcome, says Blinkhorn, adding a single-ownership model makes it easier for all concerned by having a single point of contact. “Because we are all working for a common goal – the number two point in our mission statement – we can focus on getting the job done right.”

Integral’s expertise in large IBM-based systems has given it an excellent background in providing robust solutions, says Blinkhorn. “IBM has a reputation for providing support for mission critical applications. Organisations have traditionally relied on their IBM systems to maintain their business. Just because companies are more decentralised in respect to their solutions and networks doesn’t mean that their requirements are any less critical. We’ve brought a mission critical approach to all solutions that we deliver.”

Integral has offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. “We can service clients around the country. While the Auckland office is the largest, we have considerable resource – sales, support, services and development – in the other locations.”

Integral’s varied solution set has given it a head-start when it comes to embracing new technologies, says Blinkhorn. “We have built up considerable UNIX expertise over the years and that has helped us embrace the virtualisation model for our clients.”

The company has also been offering hosting and data centre services, which has enabled it to increase its capabilities in software-as-a-service-based solutions and utility computing.

Integral has built its success by incorporating a customer service ethic into the entire organisation, says Blinkhorn. “We work hard to understand the business drivers behind an organisation’s requirements. We look at what the client is trying to achieve and then tailor the solution to their particular needs. We try to be proactive when helping them improve their operations and reactive when they come to us for help. Working with pride, common goals and a healthy dose of common sense, we’ve been able to help our clients harness technology for their own success.”

Technology used:

Infrastructure Innovation
IBM Blade Servers
IBM DS4700 Storage Area Network
VMware
Tivoli Storage Manager

Best Small Business Deal
Maximise ERP
IBM Informix Dynamic Server
IBM System P 185 server running AIX