2018 Annual Tribal News

MYOB Awards – Number 1 Partner of the Number 1 ERP

Earlier in the year our Management Team and representatives of Kilimanjaro attended the MYOB Enterprise Partner Conference in Byron Bay, Australia. The purpose of the conference was to review last year’s progress and discuss MYOB’s plans for the year to come. Most importantly, it is an event where partners are recognised for their hard work, and rewarded with a  moment of glory. It was a great year for Kilimanjaro. We remain in the top spot on the leaderboards, winning Excellence in Business Development as well as being recognised as MYOB Partner of the Year 2018. Thus, this means we can honestly claim to be the “Number One Partner” of the “Number One ERP solution”. We were also thrilled to retain  MYOB’s Diamond partner status, for the third year in a row.

In essence, we believe that the story behind our success is a combination of the Kilimanjaro team of highly skilled Sherpas, our high-performing clients, and the software we specialise in.  Coupled with our low-risk approach, we try to live up to our ideal of making every transaction a win-win. The tribal culture at Kilimanjaro is fundamental to our approach.

While our goal is to improve efficiency in our clients’ businesses, winning awards like this certainly encourages us to continue to do better.

MYOB Report

This year, MYOB interviewed 276 businesses across Australia and New Zealand,  to gauge the mood of the mid-market. The goal was to dive deeper into the business sector in order to better understand mid-size businesses current state and needs. The result was the MYOB “Transforming the mid-market” report. This gives insights into what mid-market businesses see as their greatest challenges. The report looks at future trends and provides a unique insight into how the mid-market operates. Download the report here.

Exciting Change

Over the past decade, our clients’ businesses as well as our own, have changed somewhat in character. Fashion, style and image have changed too.

This year, we decided our corporate image needed an update, to reflect the contemporary and cutting-edge nature of our services. The changes to our logo and brand, while quite subtle, were designed to reflect our position in the rapidly changing world of I.T. A new website is in the pipeline, and our offices will soon be adorned with updated value posters, methodologies and signage. We hope to attract more of our ideal type of clients and appeal to the larger, more complex businesses that we are so good at service.

Continuous Growth – New Tribe Members

At Kilimanjaro, we believe that our people are our greatest asset. We take pride in our high standard of work, our collaborative approach, and our teamwork. Welcoming new members to the tribe is always exciting, knowing that our clients will ultimately benefit.. This year has seen enormous growth in team numbers. We would like to welcome our new team members who have joined us in 2018. They have all settled right in and taken strong and inspiring strides up the technology mountain!

• Wayne – MYOB Exo Senior Consultant
• Wilson – MYOB Exo Technical Projects Consultant
• Adrian – MYOB Advanced: Senior Consultant – Implementation
• Vishal – MYOB Exo Projects Consultant
• Larissa – Accountant (Auckland Team as part of our joint venture with Enprise)
• Emily – Office Coordinator
• Kris – Support Consultant (Auckland Team)
• Anil – Accounts (Auckland Team as part of our JV with Enprise)
• Connor –  MYOB Exo Support Consultant (Auckland Team)
• Elvina – MYOB Exo Support Consultant (Auckland Team)
• Saadoun – MYOB Exo Support Consultant (Auckland Team)
• Ayron – Administration and Finance Assistant
• Mari-Liis – MYOB Advanced Support Consultant
• Candice – MYOB Advanced Consultant
• Nick – Support and Training consultant  (Auckland Team)

Management Team Expansion

“As companies grow, they become more complex” – so says Ronnie Baskind – Kilimanjaro’s Managing Director.  Kilimanjaro has been successful for more than a decade, providing first-class ERP software implementation and support services to Australian and New Zealand clients. We can proudly say we are Australia’s’ number one MYOB partner, and we implement Australia / New Zealand ’s number 1 choice in ERP software. The rapid and continuous uptake of the MYOB software solutions means that Kilimanjaro continues to invest in additional resources, not only in technology but also in talent. We surround ourselves with intelligent, competent people. With a growing tribe, it was necessary to also expand the management team that guides us. The Management team is now able to be more proactive We congratulate Kate Cramer, Steve Gillman and Stephen Friend on joining the management team and we are looking forward to improving our own efficiency through the clever use of innovative technology.

Meet the Melbourne Team

Kilimanjaro’s number of clients, team members and offices across Australia continue to grow. We recognize our clients’ need for local support. That’s why this year has seen rapid growth in numbers in our Sydney, Parramatta, and Melbourne offices as well as Kilimanjaro establishing a stronger presence in Perth. We are proud to see this growth and know that our clients will benefit from our expanded level of services Australia wide. Read more about our Melbourne Team of experts here.

Farewells

All hellos bring goodbyes, and although we hate to farewell our valued tribe members, they know they are always a part of the greater Kilimanjaro family. We wish them all the best with their next endeavours!

• Belle – MYOB Advanced Consultant
• Guru – Exo Consultant: Implementation
• Maria – Payroll Support Consultant
• Mark – MYOB Exo support consultant
• Marco – Exo Consultant: Client Services
• Matt – Media and Marketing Assistant

Partnership with BI4 Cloud

The core purpose of Kilimanjaro is to improve efficiency in businesses through the clever use of creative, innovative and proven technology. We try to deliver the best solutions for our clients. We establish long-term relationships with external software vendors to provide our customers with solutions we can trust. In July this year, we added a new solution to our connected services product portfolio. BI4 Cloud is a business intelligence solution affordable to all types of business. BI4Cloud understand how important data is, delivering real-time reporting that easily integrates with MYOB Exo. For more information about how BI4 cloud can improve the scalability and flexibility of your software, visit the BI4CLOUD page.

MYOB Advanced helps Soul Origin

One of our greatest achievements of the year was the implementation of MYOB Advanced for Australia’s fastest-growing fresh food franchise, Soul Origin. The biggest challenge Soul Origin faced was rapid growth. The business needed access to their data 24/7 in order to make fast decisions. With MYOB Advanced, Soul Origin could access real-time information at any time, improving the process of identifying any issues and consistently working on improvement.

Kilimanjaro believes that every implementation is unique. We have a structured, methodological approach in order to get the most out of a system. This works two ways: first, we must understand the unique business needs and secondly, the organisation must take ownership of their project and commit to change. This is why Soul Origin’s implementation was so successful. Read the Suil Origin Case study here.

RMHC and MYOB Exo

Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) is recognised worldwide for the amazing work they do for by offering houses, family rooms, retreats and learning programs for families of seriously ill children who need hospital care away from their home.    As you can imagine, this means a lot of fundraising, and although they are one institution, all houses run their fundraising support programs individually.

We chose to support RMHC on more than just an ERP level. Not only did the MYOB Exo team implement the software across all their chapter houses to alleviate the frustration of outdated manual processes, but the tribe also got together to participate in one of their biggest initiatives, “Make a Meal” which encourages teamwork in the kitchen, cooking with love for the families in need. In addition to knowing all the great things RMHC do for families, we felt inspired to make their work as simple and easy as possible. We are happy to say, RMHC is now able to keep track of financials on a national level. Kilimanjaro’s approach was to give the global charity the ability to work smarter due to better financial systems and reporting. MYOB Exo provides a central information system and technologically environment with individual databases for each of the 13-chapter houses. Read the full story about how MYOB Exo helped RMHC here.

News in Training

After a very busy year of training, we look back at some of the highlights:

• Over 200 individuals attended our 130+ courses, with many attending more than one course.
• We ran our popular Clarity Report Writer courses in Canberra for the first time
• Our Payroll Support Team and MYOB Advanced Implementation Team ran webinars on Single Touch Payroll and new features in MYOB Advanced v2018.01.

Additionally, we have trialled a new way for clients to book and pay for our classroom courses via the Kilimanjaro Training Portal. This proved very successful and we will be rolling this out to all of our courses in 2019, allowing our clients to bulk book and pay for our training courses!

You speak, we listen

Our bi-annual MYOB Exo User Group Forums, hosted by Kilimanjaro and Enprise Solutions, is a chance for all MYOB Exo users to get together in an interactive format to discuss the Exo product and ways to improve their experience with it. The user groups provide good, solid business information, beyond the products,  delivered by our insightful guest speakers. 

This year, we delved into ‘Business Transformations and Metrics that Matter’ in the first quarter of the year and finished off with ‘Transforming the mid-market’ inspired by an insightful Mid-market report provided by MYOB. In 2019, we will be focusing on improving the attendees’ experience by expanding on our popular focus groups and encouraging discussion amongst our users. We will still continue to share all the “need to know” information from the Kilimanjaro MYOB Exo experts. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to exchange ideas, learn and discuss with fellow MYOB Exo users. Keep your eye out for the save the date notification. Check the MYOB User Groups event calendar here.

Summit – reaching new heights

Every year, the entire Tribe gathers to review our successes and challenges, celebrate our achievements, and make plans and commitments for the future. The Kilimanjaro’s 9^th Annual Summit took place at the Intercontinental Hotel Double Bay, Sydney. The Summit gives every member of our team the opportunity to make input into how we can “sharpen the spear” and make improvements over the next year.

Our special guest speaker this year was Andrew O’Keefe. Andrew is the author of Hardwired Humans and The Boss. He is an associate of three of Australia’s leading business schools. In 2011, as he did in 2008, Andrew joined with the chimpanzee expert Dr Jane Goodall when she was in Australia to speak to business audiences about the implications of our social instincts for the leadership of organisations.

CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility is important to Kilimanjaro as a company, and to the members of our Tribe, as we try to give back to the communities that contribute to our own success.

Therefore, on September 13^th, the KC tribe got together for RU-OK Day (as we do every year). By simply asking our fellow Team Members how they are going today, Kilimanjaro strengthens our organisational culture and helps in a small way to remove the stigma around mental health.

November was dedicated to spreading awareness and raising funds for men’s mental and physical health. One inspiring member of our team managed to rally together 14 brave tribe members who all participated by either growing their facial hair or running 60km during the month. The “Movember” team, with the support of the entire tribe, did an amazing job and managed to break all 4 of our fundraising goals! Also, we look forward to being a part of this initiative again next year. To hear more about our CSR involvement, visit our page here.

Support over the year

Over the past twelve months, our support teams have gone through process changes and improvements to cope with an ever-increasing volume of cases.

The Exo Support Teams are now located in both Australia and New Zealand,  allowing a greater timespan in which we can offer support and more flexibility on public holiday coverage.

The backlog of MYOB Exo support cases has been reduced from 703 this time last year, to 445 cases today. Our new recruits are rapidly getting up to speed with the products, and are providing a better client experience every day. With a continued focus on lowering the number of outstanding cases,  this will allow us to concentrate on increasing knowledge in the team and consequently providing better customer service.

As an ambitious goal, we look forward to our Net Promoter Score being the highest in the MYOB Partner channel.

Single Touch Payroll

Single Touch Payroll was introduced this year, being mandatory from July 1, 2018, for companies employing 20 or more employees. This means that salaries, wages, PAYG and superannuation information now has to be reported to the Australian Tax Office directly from the payroll software. Kilimanjaro has helped many of our clients to make a smooth transition over to the new system. We encourage businesses with under 20 employees to be aware that STP will be mandatory for everyone to come July 2019. Therefore, don’t panic. Kilimanjaro will keep you informed, and are always here to help! If you feel you need support with STP, don’t hesitate to contact our Payroll support team.

Long way back – One man’s journey back to his roots

Many of you may be aware that our long-time strategic partner, Picket Studio, is owned by Ronnie’s son, Dave. It may appear to be nepotism, but Picket has done an amazing job on our web strategy over the past 13 years.

In September this year, just a few days after facilitating a session with Kilimanjaro to define the MYOB Advanced buyer’s profiles, Dave set off on a trip he has been planning for years: London to Cape Town on his KTM 900 motorcycle, including the notorious Paris to Dakar Rally route.

The impact of the internet is amazing, as we have been able to stay in touch using WhatsApp. Also, he carried a satellite tracking device, which sends out a signal every hour while he is travelling, so we can see on a map, exactly where he is.

Technology, being what it is, means that neither of these two systems is 100% reliable. Some countries have poor internet connectivity. Others are in the Satellite “black spot”. Something like our own NBN.

During our last conversation (he is currently in Mali) Dave said one of the starkest differences between Western Culture and West African Culture, is that in Morocco/Mauritania/Senegal/Mali, tribe is everything. The societies are very multicultural, but Clan comes first and is more important than the individual. This resonated with me, as I would like to think of the Kilimanjaro tribe as adhering to this principle.

A more detailed account of Dave’s continuing journey can be found here.

A brief extract from one of his posts:

Mohammed took a real liking to me and was very interested in my trip. He likened it to his boyhood dream of getting his pilot’s license which he has now achieved and has over 500 hours of solo flight under his belt, and a Cessna. A flattering comparison but he is out of my league.

That evening I stayed at Auberge Samira, a nice hostel and overlanding hot spot with friendly staff and hot showers! Met some nice people there in various states of travel including a couple, he Canadian and she Argentinian who had been travelling for near on a decade including a long stint in Aus.

I also met a guy called Ibrahim, a local in his late twenties who spoke great English. Charming and likeable if a little too cool for school, I thought he worked there initially but seems he was just a friend of one of the reception staff.

Things didn’t quite add up with Ibrahim but it didn’t really affect me so I brushed it off. He told me he was a policeman, but he didn’t really seem like one. I thought he was probably just bragging and liked to impress Westerners…….

….So we’re off at 6am before dawn with a stop to get me some petrol (rare here, 6 fuel stations with none before we find one) and to pick up another passenger…..

To find out what happened, follow this link.

It’s not goodbye, just see you later!

It’s 12 years since we began our journey as Kilimanjaro Consulting. For those who have been with us since the beginning, we thank you for your trust and commitment, it is all of our valued clients that have been fundamental to our success. The tribe at Kilimanjaro wish you all a  Happy and Safe New Year. For all the necessary and exciting updates throughout the New Year and into 2019, follow us on our various social media channels to stay in the know. Additionally, feel free to fill out the contact form if you would like to subscribe to our newsletters which include Peak Promotions, Events, Training and more. See you soon!