2012: Year of the reseller testing new waters

Tech and broadband supplier, Southern IT, may add online backup solutions to its offering

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Gore-based Southern IT was started in 2009 by Glen Perkins. He says that because he started his business during the recession, he still does not know what a normal year would have ended like. As it stands, with the global financial crisis still impacted business all over the world, Perkins says 2011 was still a great year to be in the technology business.

The company supplies broadband to farmers via Farmside and also offers a range of IT equipment for sale, as well as doing upgrades and repairs. “We’re a very small company – only three staff, myself included,” says Perkins. He adds that, building on the success of 2011, this year will hopefully be one of growth, not just in terms of revenue but also in terms of staff numbers. “We are definitely looking at increasing staff numbers and, at this rate, it might happen soon,” he says.

The small company has plans to grow this year, both by expanding Southward and also by growing online, where there are no geographic boundaries. “We want to move into online applications such as online backups and web services. We currently resell online backup solutions but we are seeing a huge amount of interest in it and we want to have our own solution,” says Perkins. “We will aim it at our existing client database but, really, we can sell it anywhere in the world.”

Closing the door on 2011, he says it was a “brilliant year” and adds that the end of the year “was a lot busier than usual with a lot of new computer sales”. “I’m not really sure why. I think people are starting to feel happier about spending money again. A lot of our clients are schools and businesses and we noticed businesses starting to spend more money,” explains Perkins.

He expects 2012 to be “a very busy year” and it is already showing signs of that with January being full of bookings for network and hardware upgrades.