Playing in the big league

Recently named Microsoft`s Newly Recruited Partner of the Year at the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards, Centurion-based Acctech Systems is making its mark in various global arenas.

AccTech says since its inception a decade ago,  it has designed, implemented and supported some of the largest ERP implementations in the world. The company, now with representation in 18 cities across the continent, develops unique solutions around and outside of ERP systems, building on the experience it gained in part by being the biggest Sage Accpac business partner in the world. It has held this position for the past five years.

According to CEO Tertius Zitzke, the key to the company`s success has been a diverse and specialist pool of staff and alliance partners, most of whom are not technical people but rather business experts specialising in different solution fields with specific industry knowledge.

"Our people include accountants, business and system analysts, project managers, development staff and consultants, so we can really understand our clients` business problems, the trends impacting their industries and the processes required to achieve results," he says.

THE EDGE

Zitzke explains that what makes AccTech`s Microsoft offerings unique is that the company is the only Microsoft Business Partner in this space. "About three years ago we decided to partner with Microsoft because we saw strategic opportunities in the ERP space. Then we saw the potential in our client base for other Microsoft services, so we used our brains trust and a lot of software developers to enhance our core offerings using Microsoft technologies, and today we have 13 Microsoft competencies," he says.

"The Microsoft offerings, such as collaboration services, enterprise project management, business productivity set, business intelligence and office business solutions, to name a few, have emerged as complementary solution sets which we took to market with huge success."

Currently 30% of the company`s staff complement occupies itself with software development, configuration and customisation, and all of them are Microsoft Certified Professionals.

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards recognise Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the last year. The Newly Recruited Partner of the Year award recognises partners who, after having been successfully recruited through the competitive recruitment initiative, have built practices with Microsoft.

"All areas of Microsoft business are covered, including systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISV), and Microsoft Dynamics partners. The judges were looking for a significant investment in the technical training of the partners` staff, amazing customer wins in competitive situations with great customer quotes about the chosen solutions and how the partners delivered solutions using Microsoft technologies, and evidence that the solutions were implemented seamlessly, as measured by high customer satisfaction, customer references, and a future pipeline on Microsoft technologies relevant to the investments and wins. AccTech excelled in all of these things."

Zitzke adds that being one of the two finalists in the ISV/software solutions and information worker solutions, office deployment categories this year as well was a very big honour for the company.

"We are a Proudly South African organisation, but in winning the award we are more than that  are very proudly African," he says.  "Internationally there are more than 640 000 Microsoft partners and being announced as a winner among the elite of the elite is a feather in the cap for African businesses."