Melbourne entrepreneur Nathan Krake may be surrounded by high-tech equipment and IT software all day, but doesn’t see himself as a member of the technology industry.

The director of The Right IT provides technology solutions for small to medium-sized businesses and has trained his staff into recognising that the customer is always number one.

Krake has experience working for corporate companies and government departments, and has used his knowledge to applying big business thinking to smaller start-ups without inflicting hefty costs.

“There is a lot of competition with our business but it’s our experience that sets us apart,” he said. “We’re not a small shop that’s growing up – essentially, our people have worked in a larger organisation and taken that knowledge over to provide experience to smaller-scale customers.

“We add a personal touch to our relationship with our clients – I always say to our staff: ‘We’re not in the technology business; we’re in the people business.’

“Technology is just what we use to deliver that service. If you’re not making that connection with clients, then it doesn’t matter what technology you throw at it, because you just won’t understand your customer.

“Once you gain that trust, it’s also much easier to come up with solutions that meet their technology and budget requirements.”

Founded in 2009, the company was born out of a passion for serving customers and the challenge of bringing cost-effective solutions to smaller businesses.

Krake spent more than 15 years managing large customers from private enterprises including Shell across a range of varying roles, but was seeking a different sort of fulfilment from his job.

This set the wheels in motion and an entrepreneur was born.

“I decided to go out and do this work on my own instead of working for organisations, where I was spending a lot of time and effort trying to make solutions work, and they’d typically never end up seeing the light of day,” he said.

“The idea behind The Right IT is to take that knowledge and experience from my work with the larger enterprises and bring that understanding to smaller businesses, giving them the same access to information and allowing them to take advantage of that.

“From a personal perspective, I wanted to seek a better fulfilment and achievement, because now I get to see the direct results of the work actually coming about and the real benefits of it.

“Getting this sort of satisfaction in a corporate environment can be difficult to come across when you’re part of a larger team, buried between layers of management.”

To Krake, having quality technology installed correctly should be of extreme importance and makes the difference between good and bad quality service for customers.

Despite his belief, he said that IT was usually the first and last thing on his customers’ minds.

“IT is the first thing people worry about and the last thing they understand – it’s so important, but everyone is so worried about their business that they don’t really focus as much on IT as they should,” he said.

“So we make things simple to do, easy to understand, and effective with results to show for it.

“The last thing we want is for our clients to look less than professional to their customers, so we provide products that we know will work every time – this way, they have fewer services to worry about, don’t have to go out and buy expensive systems.”

Services offered by The Right IT include:

Managed IT services
• Providing traditional IT support for businesses or groups, The Right IT assists with setting up computers, networks and access, with a proactive slant which picks up on problems before they impact a client.
• The service comes with different levels of engagement, and can be engaged ad hoc or on a prepaid basis with fixed-cost plans. The service scales up to having The Right IT staff permanently onsite with customers, should the client require an in-house specialist.

Data and internet connections
• Web connections from ADSL up to enterprise-grade high-speed connections can be installed, along with the ability to connect multiple offices to one network.
• An IP telephony service is also available, engaging similar technology to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), but with superior results.

Hosting
• The Right IT has a relationship with the Melbourne Datacentre’s premium hosting facilities, with a connection in the space. This allows the company to run and maintain applications for clients in a secure, facilitated environment which has 99.999 per cent up time, giving clients peace of mind.

Other services
• The company offers additional second-tier services, including personalised project management, where Krake and his staff discuss a client’s requirements, conduct technology consultations and roadmap the business’s future, technology-wise.

If you are interested in updates from The Right IT, follow them on Twitter @therightit, LinkedIn or visit their website at http://tri.net.au/