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Welcome Note - from Brian Armstrong 

I am sure I speak for many when I say that the years seem to be flying by. Giving some context to the point, it is now 10 years since APS took steps to look beyond home turf in New Zealand and take on the Australian and UK markets. Looking back to 1998, our many detractors said we couldn’t possibly succeed. At that time both markets appeared to be sown up with Solution 6 and Xlon (now MYOB) almost exclusively ‘owning’ the Australian market for Practice Management, Professional Accounting and Tax and a myriad of suppliers jostling for a position in an already very crowded UK market. Ten years on and APS has continued to expand in New Zealand from an already dominant position. In Australia we have captured a very large market share, working with firms of all sizes and, to use a benchmark that everyone can relate to, we are now the primary software supplier to more than 70% of practices that make up the top 100 firms, as well as hundreds of other small and medium size firms. In the UK, we’re an important part of the accounting landscape with more than 23 of the top 100 firms.

Of course, we’ve achieved a great reputation because we have received an incredible amount of support from the accounting and consulting professions. Winning that support and trust, we believe, can be attributed to three fundamental elements, all inter-linked.

1. Technology & Platform selection

From the early days of APS in Auckland in 1991, we’ve always been first to understand the future working environment of the clients we serve. We were the first to see that Microsoft platforms were the way ahead and we had Australasia’s first fully functioning Windows based practice software in the market by 1994. We were first to move to the MS SQL Server database platform in 1997, knowing that product collaboration and database integration would be the way of the future as different software developers looked to work on a common platform. As a Microsoft Gold Partner (the highest partner level attainable) we continue to keep on eye on the future at all times so that the software we write is designed for our clients’ current and future needs.

2. Understanding the professional service provider

A critical success factor has been our constant liaison and dialogue with our clients and potential clients over their business needs, their systems and their processes. In this way, we have built a product suite that is moulded around the professional service provider, not the other way around. We know the practices we work with and they assist in a very practical sense in taking our applications forward in the ways they want to use them.

3. Building exceptional relationships

The relationships we build flow through everything that we do. The way we develop our software, as explained above, is based on constant and open dialogue with practices of all sizes. Of course, the hallmark of the APS business philosophy is that, first and foremost, we are a relationship based service organisation.

To live up to this business philosophy has always meant that we must find the right people for our team, the right people to work in and around highly exacting professional firms. This is something we have always invested in and is the reason why so many practices have made the active decision to move over to APS from their incumbent supplier.

In essence, our team, our software and our performance are accountable, collectively and individually.

As we look forward to the next ten years in all our countries of operation, we have a very clear picture of what you, our clients, want from us. The ‘Practice of the Future’ is what all our energies are directed towards – and as such we know that this will be a collaborative setting where we will need to help clients to select from the APS suite as well as from a host of third party providers.

While we look back on 10 years in Australia and the UK and almost 18 years in New Zealand, we relish the period ahead. Relationships will continue to be our focus as we strive to provide fully accountable technology.

Brian Armstrong
CEO, APS Group