DIALLING INTO BUSINESS ACROSS THE NATION

IN a little over a decade, Comscentre has gone from a one-person start-up in a home garage to become one of Australia's leading integrated telcos.

Founded in 2002 by Ben Shipley, the company has expanded its workforce to 120 on the back of 30 per cent growth last financial year, while the industry as a whole only grew by 3 per cent.

This success is set to continue with Shipley announcing Comscentre has more than $75 million worth of contracts in the pipeline, providing telecommunication services to around 670 Australian businesses.

Shipley was working as an executive in private enterprise and government when he recognised that only large organisations could afford unified communications networks.

"As such they had a distinct advantage over small businesses," says Shipley.

"As we know, small business is the backbone of the economy so I felt there was a giant opportunity here."

Shipley says he worked on the principle of combining "disparate providers into a single supplier solution". He also developed a "return on investment business model" to minimise or remove upfront capital outlay in favour of a medium to long-term contract.

He says this allowed him to develop a business model that is both attractive to smaller businesses and offers a stable income stream.

The core of Comscentre's services is One Touch Control - a fully managed, cloud based integrated communications service for business.

Shipley says businesses are attracted to Comscentre's ability to offer product, service and the whole of business communications for a fixed price.

"Typically providers of communications services have had to use multiple disparate software applications in an attempt to manage the many components of a communication network," says Shipley.

"Such complexity requires a range of tools and functions capable of performing isolated tasks but unable to integrate with neighbouring systems burdened with alternative responsibility.

"One Touch Control was born out of a vision to incorporate the many systems required throughout the lifecycle of customer engagement into one easy-to-use interface, capable of both internal and external presentation, addressing the varied requirements of a customer."

Comscentre is currently Queensland's largest privately owned communications company.

Comscentre's current customer base spans across a number of industries including transport, automotive, health and medical,  education, real estate, professional services and manufacturing.