ERIN McGUIRE

In the middle of an IT landscape that was constantly changing, Codec-dss had to rethink their business model.

With the introduction of cloud computing, mobility and bring your own device (BYOD) technology, the company had to look at what it offered and how that fit in with customers’ changing needs.

Its customers, especially SMEs, were struggling to access the capital funding they needed to invest in their IT infrastructure.

It became apparent that the company’s model was no longer a viable solution for a lot of Irish businesses.

Gavin McShera, the company's infrastructure solutions manager, joined the Codec-dss team a little over a year ago. Before that, he was a sales consultant with Microsoft, primarily working on cloud-based sales and solutions. But he started out as an internal IT person.

“I know how IT works,” he said. He joined the company to keep it up to date. He looked at what it was doing and thought about how to take it to the next stage and keep things current.

“When I came on board, we looked at the IT solutions we were providing in the Irish market. I saw that the solutions were either a product or professional services or hardware.”

He also noticed companies were buying IT solutions in different ways. Computers are a capital expense; software and professional services are operating expenses. Companies were dipping into different budgets to buy those things.

“I saw we sold the hardware in one way, and people bought cloud services in another.”

Rather than continuing to sell those components in isolation, McShera started thinking about combining products and services. "I thought, 'why can't we bundle that all together?'. The way UPC and mobile phone companies work, it's usually a bundle. If you look at the consumer model for UPC, you get everything you need for one cost per month. That's what PC on Demand is: everything a user needs. It's a combination of hardware, software and support.

“You don’t buy your mobile phone outright; it’s part of a package. We’ve taken that model and have come up with a way to do it with IT services.”

McShera said the package deal also gives the customer better buying power.

“It’s much more cost effective.” For businesses buying IT products and services, “it’s very hard to understand how much it’s all going to cost”.

McShera thinks businesses are going the way of subscription, pay-as-you-go, no waste models.

“This is us tapping into it early,” he said.

Figuring out how to put capital expenses and operating expenses together into an affordable package was a challenge. “That was the hard work there,” said McShera, who “did the technology bit”. The business end of the company helped him shape it up.

“I used the expertise of the company that had been doing this for 30 years,” he said.

What McShera and his team came up with is a subscription-based service where businesses will get all the benefits of cloud computing combined with hardware and all the support services they need for a single monthly subscription payment.

There are no large overhead costs for hardware and software. It’s all included in the monthly fee. Businesses sign up for three years of tech support. At the end of the three years, PC on Demand users will get new computers, laptops or devices, and the company will take back the old ones.

McShera says: “Customers will never have to buy a PC again.”

The package includes hardware from HP, delivery/installation and anti-virus software. Customers will choose from a selection of HP personal computers, laptops and mobile devices. The service also includes enterprise-class email and collaborative tools powered by the cloud.

“On the hardware side, we’ve been providing HP hardware solutions large and small for a long time. We combined our two vendors. PC on Demand is powered by HP and Microsoft,” said McShera.

PC on Demand customers will be ale to access data from any device, no matter where they are.

“Business owners want the latest and greatest. They want to access everything from an iPad and don’t want to be stuck behind a desk,” McShera said.

There are four service plans available, ranging in price from €24.99 to €69.99 per user per month.

They already have a few customers lined up for the service. One is a SME with about 25 employees, and the other company has 300 employees.

“If you need a PC or laptop to do your job, this is for you,” said McShera, adding that the service is a good way for businesses to stay current.

Codec-dss currently has 110 employees and an annual turnover of €31 million, with offices in Dublin, Cork, London, Cologne and Warsaw.