Rising star status helps company to branch out

Peter Dickinson is thrilled with the boost to Greentree's credibility. The dog behind him is a company symbol. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Software maker Greentree International is counting on its new "rising star" status to boost its credibility overseas.

The Auckland maker of resource planning software was recently named one of the information technology world's "25 Rising Stars" by the Australian edition of Managing Information Strategies.

Having amassed 600 customers in the region, Greentree was among the firms that showed signs of seriously influencing how technology is bought and used, the magazine said.

Chief executive Peter Dickinson said the accolade should help the company in its next phase - expanding into the United States and British markets.

"We were just stunningly thrilled," he said. "In the sales cycle, with international prospects in particular, it gives us a lot of credibility."

Greentree traces its roots back to 1983, to CBA, a company that made software aimed primarily at accounting operations.

CBA was bought by a US software company, but did not do very well under that arrangement, Dickinson said.

Greentree was thus set up in 1998 with two aims - to buy back the rights to CBA software and develop an improved product.

The textbook approach to software development is to start small in a tight vertical niche, specialise and then expand, said Dickinson.

But Greentree threw away the book and set out from the beginning to develop a product that was suitable for a broad market.

"In terms of the early development cycle [it was] a big stretch, but it's now an absolute core strength."

The company primarily targets medium-sized businesses, in a broad $2 million to $100 million turnover range. Customers are predominantly in the domestic Australasian market and include a wide range of sectors including distribution, manufacturing, mining, fishing and education.

The customer breadth pays off.

"The fact that we can compete across such a broad sector gives us a very big base to market into."

Medium-sized businesses were also often sophisticated operations that had a strategic advantage in being able to react quickly to market opportunities, he said.

Firms able to easily reconfigure their core software to meet new opportunities could mean the difference between shelving an idea and driving the market.

Greentree also releases upgrades to its software as frequently as every two days on the internet, which gives the firm an advantage over those companies that traditionally only do so once a year.

Dickinson said the company spent 40 per cent of its near $10 million turnover on research and development.

GREENTREE INTERNATIONAL

Who: Peter Dickinson, chief executive officer.

What: Enterprise resource planning software.

Where: Auckland.

Why: "Some people would consider this to be a boring market. It's not. I consider it the food industry of the software world - everybody's got to eat."