Irish Australian Business Awards Peoples Choice 2019

Equity Trustees is a worthy winner of the International Trader Award as an Australian company which has seen the opportunity Ireland has presented not just to expand our global footprint, but as ideal positioning to serve a growing global market marked by increasingly interconnected regional markets. Global fund managers can rely on a trusted 130 years-strong reputation of a company with highly specialised and proven expertise in governance, compliance and support services which deliver the best value and protection to investors. 

Equity Trustees is a highly regarded heritage Australian brand, established in 1888 to provide independent and impartial Trustee and Executor services to help families throughout Australia protect their wealth. As Australia’s leading specialist trustee company, we offer a diverse range of services to individuals, families and corporate clients including asset management, estate planning, trust management, philanthropic services and corporate fiduciary services for investment and superannuation funds.

A significant part of our business is the Corporate Trustee and Fund Services division, which was established nearly 20 years ago in Australia. It provides responsible entity (RE) services for nearly 300 managed funds (almost 130 fund managers) as well as corporate trustee services for structured products and security and escrow arrangements. Our RE services are the clear market leader for the provision of these services for Australian fund managers, and international fund managers with funds domiciled in Australia.

In search of business expansion, and after much research globally on regional demand for these highly specialised services in funds governance, Equity Trustees purchased a majority share in a boutique UK-based business which provided like-services to UK-based fund managers. Ultimately, the strategy was to also establish a presence in Ireland in order to better service the market in Europe and take part in the active globalisation of fiduciary services for markets with a combined USD $70 trillion+ of funds. The advent of Brexit, and the uncertainty surrounding the model of the UK departure from the EU brought forward the plans to initiate the new site – including locating an office in Dublin’s financial area, employing local expertise and securing authorisation to operate from the Central Bank of Ireland.

The Dublin office of Equity Trustees Fund Services opened its doors in February 2019, with two employees filling newly created positions, and more professional, specialised roles to be filled by Irish citizens as we grow the business. They are supported by our large Australia-based team.

Between the London and Dublin locations, Equity Trustees has positioned for growth in the provision of Authorised Corporate Director, Alternative Investment Fund Manager and UCITS Management company services on behalf of local and international managers.

Equity Trustees believes there is great opportunity to grow in Dublin which means we will be able to grow our contribution to the local economy, employment and investment as we expose our current local and global fund manager clients to the benefits of expanding products into the EU and Asia markets via Dublin and attracting new global clients.

Zico Formwork Pty Ltd is an established civil and commercial trade contractor. Zico success has been driven by implementation of its three core principles:

• Safety & Environment – Zero harm is our top priority
• Quality – Projects delivered to highest standard
• Program – Projects exceeding client time-driven demands

The focus of these three core values result in successful projects being delivered with reduced risk to client. The relationships built between Zico clients on the foundation of our core values is what delivers the continued return business.  The key drivers of the success of these 3 core values are Zico employees and the company’s investment in market leading technologies.

Zico Formwork operations span Eastern Coast, Central and Far North of Australia. Zico Formwork has the capability to deliver complex projects in regional locations through its core team of supervisors and lead-hands. This core team has been employed with Zico from its initiation, senior management have mentored this group and developed the skills and confidence within these individuals to help expand the company’s operations (regional projects completed in past two years included Mudgee Hospital, Roma Hospital, Roma Sale Yards, and Bridge Replacement on Burnett High-way)

Zico Formwork are continually working with leading formwork suppliers in the Australian marketplace. These companies include Doka, Peri, Acrow, Uni-span, and Partners Engineering. The core focus of Zico investment in leading formwork technologies is to improve safety on-site, guarantee a high standard of quality and increase productivity. Zico introduced a leading technology on the New Bunnings Development at (Newstead). The innovation was a new methodology (the client had not previously considered) to deliver false work for supports of precast beam shells and hollow core planks. The system 'Dokamatic' tables was relatively unknown in the market. Zico identified its advantages for the complex nature of the project (i.e. significant heights of suspended slabs). The investment and implementation of the tables was driven by the company’s core values. Safety was significantly improved due to all works conducted at ground level (i.e. eliminating risks of falls at height); Quality with the ability to adjust table height in supporting props at ground level; and program the use of a 10 square meter table reduced the re-cycle times of conventional systems (resulting in a reduction of time and labour resources). Through the identification of this innovation at time of tender Zico were able to secure the project in a competitive market by reducing risk.

Zico Formwork operations are managed via project management resources bench marked to ISO9001 and AS4801 market indicators in the industry. The successful capture of on-filed information provides real-time reporting to senior management of projects success or challenges.
Zico Formwork financial health is due the dedication of its team members. The company’s growth within Australia competitive market continues to meet management targets. 

Having migrated from Ireland in 2012 husband and wife team, Sally Ann and Andy McDonald have built McDonald Surveys into an internationally recognised Surveying, Engineering and Technology company.

A passion for constantly improving the service quality provided by the business has been at the core of a growth strategy executed over the past five years that has seen it lead the industry in innovation and new technology, providing significant benefits to clients and, in the words of one John Holland GM, “…consistently providing step-change improvements in overall project success”.

An investment in people and technology is at the core of McDonald Surveys growth. With a staff of over 30, including 20 rail engineering surveyors and four engineering surveyors, the business is engaged across the state of Western Australia, working for public and private enterprise on a number of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects.

In 2013, and led by Andy’s passion for improving rail technology, the business introduced an innovative rail surveying system, the Trimble Gedo suite, to the West Australian market. It invested significant time and effort in educating industry on the benefits of the solution, leading to being awarded some of the most difficult to deliver projects in the state and established McDonald Surveys as the go-to provider for rail engineering solutions that overcome complexities and challenges.

After a successful major rail project in 2016, a client-debrief highlighted the lack of an efficient solution in the major projects market for delivering dilapidation services. Sally Ann realised the internal process McDonald Surveys had been using to deliver dilapidation services could be automated, thus investing in a project to transfer this to a software solution. Further research and development led to the creation of Inspective™, a cloud-based, full-service dilapidation surveying and reporting software solution that has redefined how dilapidation services are performed.

Always recognising the work ethic of their Irish heritage, McDonald Surveys employs seven Irish staff, and have assisted four migrate to Australia since inception. Supporting all staff with further education opportunities has been critical to maintaining service quality, not just from a surveying perspective but also for the administration and business management staff who are critical to the continued success.

The business has continued to support Irish activities in Perth, including the St Patrick’s Day Parade, is a long-standing sponsor of the St Pat’s Fundraising Golf Day, and attends various events throughout the year. It has also recently commenced sponsorship of the Palmyra Rugby Club as many staff members are huge rugby fans.

Andy is a member of the SSSI, as are all the surveyors within the business. The businesses risk and safety systems are aligned to ISO 9001-2015, while always ensuring client requirements are at the forefront of the OH&S mindset on site.

With a fresh five-year plan McDonald Surveys is looking forward to flying the Irish flag as it expands operations and continues to excel in the Australian surveying and engineering markets.

Established in 2009 and headquartered in Adelaide, Fragile to Agile is an Enterprise, Business and Solution Architecture service provider with a unique approach to business change specifically designed to resonate with business executives and drive digital transformation. It has been adopted by organisations in Australia, Europe and the US.

We exist to help visionary leaders transform their organisation’s agility to enable them to survive and thrive in an age of rapid and constant change. We do this by helping them architect their enterprise to become more responsive, adaptable and flexible. We offer consulting and management services based on proprietary frameworks and methodologies. Our Enterprise Architecture approach helps businesses and government make the one last big change they will need to become permanently agile organisations.

Our independence from Product Vendors and Systems Implementers ensures there is no conflict of interest and enables us to focus entirely on delivering the optimal architecture and maximum value to our clients.
Our value proposition is to enable the delivery of our client’s business strategy whilst minimising total cost of ownership and risk and maximising benefits and agility. A modern technology environment, correctly architected for the organisation, will deliver a step change in efficiency, time-to-market, cost-to-income ratio, customer service/insight and ability to adopt new technologies rapidly. There are no technology blockers to achieving this; it is a matter of appropriately governed execution.

Why Fragile? We contend that if an organisation isn’t making this change, one or more of its competitors is and that makes them vulnerable.
Our engagements start with business stakeholder consultation to understand their strategy and short to medium term desired outcomes. We then analyse the current state of the business and technology systems and their ability to support the desired outcomes. We then define a target state that does support the outcomes as well as materially change our client’s agility - flexibility, adaptability and efficiency. Finally, we develop a costed roadmap, including benefits to that target state and assist in governing its execution so that both they are “doing the right things” and “doing things right”.
Our clients span a wide variety of industry segments and include but are not limited to:

Government: Bundaberg Council; City of Adelaide; City of Holdfast Bay; DCSI (SA); DEW (SA); DPC (SA); DPTI (SA); IP Australia; LPCC (SA); PIRSA;
Financial Services: Adelaide Bank; AMP; Credit Union SA; Delaware Investments (US); HomeStart Finance; LFS (Germany); Macquarie Bank; ME Bank; MyBudget; People’s Choice Credit Union; Pillar Superannuation; Tilbrook Rasheed;
Utilities: ActewAGL; ElectraNet; SA Power Networks; SA Water;
Telecommunications: Adam Internet; Internode;
Defence: ASC; BAE Systems;
Manufacturing & Distribution: Blackwoods; Fielders; Haigh’s Chocolates; Hills Holdings; Orrcon Steel; Pilmico (Philippines); Sigma Healthcare
Not-for-Profit: ACH Group; Cancer Council (SA); Choice; Orana; United States Pharmacopeia (USA);
Health: HAMBS; SA Health; Sigma Healthcare; Teachers Health Fund;
Construction: Hansen Yuncken; MPC Kinetic;
Education: Deakin University; Flinders University; Monash University; University of Adelaide; Westminster School;
Transport: Adelaide Airport; RAA;
Primary Industries: Beach Energy; Wine Australia; WineGrapes

Christina Moloughney (Chris as she is commonly referred to) is a prime example of Irish Export at its best. Made in Ireland and born in Australia, Chris has engineered and transformed a small family business in 2003 to a leading SME independent agency in Emerald Travel which now has four staff. A personable and family friendly approach to travel, Emerald Travel’s success has been attributed to the attention to detail of tailored corporate and leisure travel.

Chris’s experience in travel and hospitality extends from;
• Concorde Agency – consolidation and offshore airline representation
• Australian Sales Manager – Brendan Tours (Irish / American Company)
• Axis Resources – development of online travel portal in partnership with Ninemsn / Expedia

Emerald Travel has demonstrated YOY growth with overall revenues increasing from 2003 to current day. Agents of Emerald Travel take a sense of pride as the experts in travel to Ireland and over the last 16 years have expanded their expertise to incorporate mainland Europe, UK, North America and Asia as well. Flights, accommodation, tours and insurance are often the DNA of any agency. Much of this can be replicated from one agency to another. Emerald stands apart from the competition by providing personally escorted tours, developed from the ground up by the experts with the traveler, the family, the customer at the core of it all.

Whilst Emerald Travel is an independent agent, through their ticketing agency they are now part of a wider network that allows them to access more deals and opportunities to pass on to clients. Dealing with all airlines, Emerald’s strength is being able to work with selected carriers that provide the best quality and return for their customer base. Through their loyalty to these major airlines Emerald Travel have built up a reputation that allows us to have private airfares that others don’t, therefore this provides Emerald Travel a better opportunity to secure business and provide for our clients.

The perceived disruption to travel agents as a direct result of Online and Direct to consumer bookings have forced much of the industry to rethink their theory of business. Emerald Travel’s unique selling point is not one single form of tech – it is the ability to connect with all customers across all mediums regardless. What has remained constant through this developing period is the ability to stay connected at all levels. Whilst technology is extremely important the human touch has proven to be a winning formula – especially when there is a crisis, natural disaster or that phone call when a family member is sick overseas. Emerald Travel is on call 24/7 to help deal with these situations during what can be a very stressful time for the traveler.

Networking is an integral part of Emerald Travel’s success over the years. The ability to connect with and be involved has proven to be successful. However, the strength of this is being a part of the organisations and communities and taking an active role. Chris has immersed herself in the following as a participant or committee member:
• Community Radio
• Festivals
• Sponsorship of events and charities (for example Melbourne Irish Festival and Emer Casey Foundation for Ovarian Cancer)
• Community connection

As Emerald Travel approaches 20 years in business we would like to further cement our agency as the experts in travel to Ireland but also ensure that we are in a position that all past and future clients are aware that we can do all types of travel and manage both leisure and corporate arrangements.

At CIM Enviro, we believe that well-run buildings deliver better economic, environmental and social outcomes for everyone. Large buildings have thousands of stakeholders, carry significant daily foot traffic and play an integral role in the everyday life of their communities. They also have a significant impact on the carbon footprint of the built environment, accounting for up to a third of the worlds' greenhouse gas emissions. By integrating building intelligence, machine learning and virtual engineering expertise, our award-winning ACE platform is helping buildings run better by reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions and increasing sustainability and transparency. 
 

 
We have seen incredible results from our Australian partnerships with airports, shopping centres, universities, museums and commercial buildings, delivering benefits such as;

- Increased asset profitability - Reduce outgoings and operations and capital expenditure
- Improved asset resilience - Optimise equipment efficiency and extend equipment lifespan
- Energy savings - Improving sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment
- Reduce carbon emissions and increase environmental ratings
- Improved thermal comfort and customer experience
- Streamlined operations process - 24 x 7 virtual engineering expertise and accurate real-time building analytics to support on-site teams and improve operational decisions
- Improved stakeholder engagement and productivity - Facilitate a collaborative workflow to quickly resolve issues

We’re disrupting the traditional building management industry through data-analytics to improve the way the built environment is operated. Our building data analytics helps asset owners and operators optimise existing equipment to get rid of all wastage, future-proof future investments in new energy sources and gain visibility over site and portfolio performance for more intelligent capital and operational investment decisions.

We're now ready to have a bigger global impact by helping building asset owners and managers in the UK and Ireland to embrace and deliver on their social and governance goals. We’ve just expanded to Europe and have Asia in our sights as we work towards our goal of helping buildings run at their peak performance while realising better outcomes for the environment. 

To counter the Work Health & Safety risks posed by friable asbestos on our remediation projects on the Western Sydney Airport, OCON installed Negative Air Pressure Filter Systems on our plant and equipment used for handling asbestos materials. The pressure system works by keeping the cabin of mobile plant dust free using a highly effective filter system. It was the installation of these systems that resulted in our award of our initial contract at Western Sydney Airport.

Our clients Asbestos Assessor praised us for going above and beyond industry best practise, and being possibly the first contractor within NSW to use this method.
With Silica Dust now a focus within the industry due to its harmful impacts to the respiratory system, and our business’s potential exposure to the substance, OCON now use the Negative Air Pressure Filter systems on all our rock and concrete breaking activities such as demolition, crushing and screening and hammering. 

Ciaran under a sponsorship visa, travelled to Australia in January 2011. He started OCON Services in January 2015 following 4 years within the NSW civil construction and plant hire industry. OCON started originally as a plant hire business with Ciaran hiring a machine and Operating it himself on a "WET HIRE basis" however due to Ciaran's excellent work ethic and providing a slick streamline approach this quickly developed into civil construction following major long term contracts awarded from IXOM Chemicals and Caltex Refineries Australia within the first year of operation.

Due to Ciaran's past experience and lessons learned with an economic downturn within Ireland. Ciaran’s vision for OCON has always been to provide an extremely professional service to our clients with no compromise to provide the highest level of bespoke service available, capable of delivering on all requisitions thus ensuring OCON to become a trusted partner to our clients and provide continuity of work to our employees

OCON Services has been growing annually and 2018/19 has been our most successful to date with works awarded on Sydney’s most prestigious projects, an increased client portfolio and a turnover that has more than tripled in the previous couple of years.

Ciaran's hands on approach to obtaining work and building new relationships within multiple Australian business sectors has gained OCON an excellent reputation within Australian circles. Described as the new kid on the block by established construction business professionals Ciaran's motivation and drive will ensure OCON continues to deliver and grow at impressive speed for many years to come.  

Growth for a marketing agency in the current climate is more difficult than ever. And as a smaller player, in a niche category, we were looking for new sources of growth. Last year, GHO won the SME-award based on largely, the innovative approach that Eithne McSwiney, the MD and I had taken. This year CoLab is bigger, better and more successful than ever.

When defining our strategy, we didn’t look at what other agencies were doing. If it had been thought of already, then GHO was not going to be ahead of the game. In the wise words of Siimon Ryenold, if your competitors zig, you need to zag.  The solution was to find a way for our agency to solve broader business-problems and to ensure GHO as an agency was set up for the future iso that it could drive better value for clients, and ultimately to the bottom-line of our clients businesses.  

The challenge however, is that broader business-problems are more open and complex than communications-problems. Whilst a communications problem may be the focus of one team; marketing, business-problems often transcend teams to incorporate product, sales, marketing, customer service and so on. Also, a business problem does not often have a predetermined solution, like communications.

So with this new goal, came a new way of working; one that put a greater emphasis on collaboration and with the freedom to create solutions outside of communications, efficiently.  We launched our new innovation-facility ‘CoLAB’ in April 2016. CoLAB’s mission is to solve business problems through creative collaboration, at speed. 

Critical to the success of a CoLAB design-Sprint is the collaboration between our team of design thinkers, and our clients’ cross-functional team of experts. Whilst traditionally marketers would dominate in these types of workshops, we have found that the wider and diverse roles within a company that participate, the better the results. One recent CoLAB Creative-Sprint were representatives from; product, legal, customer service, IT and marketing.

Ultimately, what this allows our agency to do, is to be actively involved in solving big business-problems for our clients, using customer-centric design.. And not only this, with the global trust-crisis currently at play at a macro-cultural consumer level, it also allows for us to directly navigate the uncertain future for our clients’ businesses.. And the direct-effect on our clients’ business is just the beginning of the success story.  

Representing and originating from both North and South of Ireland, the Nuamedia founders have established a solid and innovative cloud communications business that is continuing to grow and disrupt the ICT industry both in Australia and back in Ireland.

Our vision is simple. We want to ‘continually improve how businesses and people communicate’ and we take great pride in achieving this through our flagship ‘Communications Platform as a Service’ (CPaaS) product, CamlinConnect.

Our previous 2017 IACC SME award was well received and provided a shot in the arm, industry recognition and endorsement for the Nuamedia team’s hard work. The business has since been able to secure more tier-one business with Enterprise and Government customers both locally in Australia and Ireland.

Technology innovation, as a key ingredient of Nuamedia’s DNA, underpins our continued success and growth. As the pace of technology continues to skyrocket – and with over $8m invested in R&D to date - Nuamedia continues to work closely with our partners such as Amazon, Twilio, Paypal, Google, IBM and Microsoft to deliver Voice and Digital Automation and Customer-eXperience (CX) solutions that are ahead of the curve and resonate strongly with both consumers and businesses alike. 

For both customers and business employees, the social impacts are abundant; Nuamedia’s view is that all customers deserve a seamless and frictionless experience across all engagement platforms. Many companies talk about this, Nuamedia is the realisation of that, delivering first to market unique and truly game-changing solutions that simplify on a day-to-day basis how employees do their job and how customers interact and communicate with BIG organisations.

Camlin’s rich set of options for connectivity with existing business applications and its ability to bring advanced services into a dialogue (e.g. artificial intelligence, language translation) means that businesses can sustain, leverage and maximise reuse of their current systems and operations.

Applicable across all industries, businesses are therefore now able to deliver superior customer-service exploiting newer digital and voice channels for a fraction of the price of traditional development methods, and in so doing, improve customer advocacy, loyalty and ultimately retention and growth. Indeed, our product can switch conversations to keyboard/display format (i.e. using a smartphone) while retaining the voice channel. Ideal for situations requiring complex data input or noisy environments, or where a user is impaired in hearing, speech or eyesight.

Keeping a strong local community presence has been an important factor in our growth in Australia. We take pride in maintaining our R&D hub and head-office in Manly, NSW, which facilitates a great work life balance for our Sydney based employees.

Within Nuamedia, people and culture are king and with a strong Irish heartbeat existing at the core, the company continues to pioneer and keep Ireland and Australia on the map building the new digital economy. This is strengthened and facilitated with the continued backing of Irish Australian business community.

Nuamedia are very proud of the industry recognition that came with the IACC award and we were also honoured to recently host a delegation of Irish Business Leaders at our headquarters in Manly to showcase our capabilities and innovation, share war stories and help build better ties between Ireland and Australia. This was very enjoyable and well received by all parties and we look forward to continuing this in the future and remaining a key contributor to the development and growth of the Irish Australian business-community.

Quitch is an EdTech company established in March 2016. It has attracted global interest from it’s beginning. Quitch has been the recipient of numerous awards including the American Accounting Association Award for Innovation in Education. Quitch is a content neutral, gamified mobile learning platform. It is also industry agnostic. Quitch has established a product market fit in Education Institutions, Professional Associations and Corporates. We generate annual recurring revenue by licensing the platform to the Institution.
 

The Quitch platform comprises:
• A downloadable phone application for both iOS and Android devices
• A highly scalable cloud architecture for data delivery
• A simple-to-use web interface for educators to upload and manage educational content
• Robust data analytics about learners, including time-on-task, errors, and engagement
• Data dashboards to assist educators and administrators to understand how their learners are progressing

Technology is revolutionising the way education is experienced, consumed and purchased. Quitch is part of this solution. Growth in Global Education Technology expenditure is expected to increase from $152 billion in 2015 to $342 billion in 2025. Major disruption in the way education is delivered globally is expected to occur by 2025. This is defined as the creation of a new market or value network or displacing established market-leading organisations, products, and alliances. There are many benefits to Edtech and each of these is provided by Quitch; it can support and improve the provision of online learning. It enables delivery in markets that were previously inaccessible, such as those in developing countries. It allows connections with customer segments that are not easily engaged in classroom learning, such as adult learners with established careers. It enables assessment at scale and with integrity. It facilitates lifelong learning and supports efficiencies in administrative functions. Quitch is well placed to be a major player in this sector. 

Earlier this year, I presented Quitch, at an Education Technology Conference at IT Sligo, in my hometown. Following this presentation, I was approached by IT Sligo, Ulster University, ACCA Ireland, AIB Sligo, and CPA Ireland to investigate Quitch for their own unique training purposes.

We are currently setting up Quitch (Initial Phase) for these entities. This demonstrates a true market demand for our product in Ireland and the region more broadly. We have commenced discussions with IT Sligo about an office space for Quitch within their Innovation Centre and to establish a presence in the North West to head up operations for a roll out across Ireland/UK and Europe. We have also commenced discussions with IDA Ireland about potential funding opportunities and support for our set up. Funding for cross border collaboration between Ulster University and IT Sligo is also being investigated.

I am the Founder and CEO of Quitch and have raised ~ $700,000 in funding from family and friends. Two years after this initial funding was received we were successful in winning a competitive grant from the Department of Education and Training, Victorian Government. We received $1.86 million in partnership with Swinburne University to enhance our technology for the Vocational Education Sector.