From Accounting to Managed Services with Braddon McCleland of South Africa's Network Associates

Braddon McCleland, the driving force behind Networks Associates - a thriving managed services enterprise in South Africa shares how he transitioned from an accounting student, to owning his own IT company. Braddon's journey is a testament to the power of passion and self-motivation, as he pivoted to follow his love for IT. He candidly shares his experiences, mistakes, and the evolution of his team, plus his unique customer service approach that has his business thriving. 

His transition is filled with insights on the significance of robust management tools, effective operational procedures, and the power of marketing. Listen in for key takeaways from Braddon's experiences that could prove instrumental in your own path to success. This episode is packed with valuable wisdom, don't miss out!

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'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.

Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

decided along the way. You know, maybe this whole sort of pinstrap great suit thing wasn't going to be quite the thing for me.

Speaker 2: 0:25

This week on. Now that's it. Brad and McClelland, of South Africa, based Networks Associates, tells how he leveraged an accounting background to launch a career based on his passion for IT.

Speaker 1: 0:35

There's no particular playbook or model or step-by-step guide that you can follow, that just says do this, do that.

Speaker 2: 0:43

And how the move to manage services has benefited his business.

Speaker 1: 0:46

That, as a services model, allowed us to demonstrate the value we're adding to our customers' businesses more easily.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP success, when we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn managed services into the thriving sector it is today.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Mr Brad and McClelland, yeah, mcclelland.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:12

Very, very nice to meet you today. Okay, so I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about your business, your company, and why don't you just start a little bit about what your background is and how you got started in managed services?

Speaker 1: 1:26

Well, because interesting story. So I come from an accounting background. In fact studied and tried accounting and decided along the way, just before I finished that up, that well, you know, maybe this whole sort of pinstripe gray suit thing, and you know it wasn't going to be quite the thing for me and considering I love in IT, well, those two sort of backgrounds merged and before I knew it I was in the IT industry running my own IT business.

Speaker 3: 1:52

Brad, what inspired you? To start your own business.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Chris, well, you know, I suppose I've been pretty self motivated and the idea of probably working for myself and the freedom that that brought supposedly I thought that at the time was an attraction and because of the skills that I had at that particular point in time I just sort of naturally followed you know, when you start your business, obviously you have visions of everything working out.

Speaker 3: 2:18

you know really, really well and I'm sure you've had tons of, tons of success in the beginning. But what were some of those challenges that you faced sort of early on and how did you, what did you do to overcome some of those challenges?

Speaker 1: 2:29

So you know, I think in the early days, a lot of the time you're feeling your way by experience. There's no particular playbook or model or step by step you know guide that you can follow that just says do this, do that. So you're learning a lot out of criticism from customers, you're learning a lot from feedback from staff and you're doing it just a lot of sort of exploratory. You know, discovery along the way.

Speaker 3: 2:57

Awesome. Yeah, there's no magic manual of here's how you run a managed service business.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Not at all. I think the person that does that would make good money. That's right, that's great.

Speaker 3: 3:07

So this this is sort of the name of this podcast is you know? Now, that's IT, that's it right. And so, when I think about when, what was the point? When you realized that that this was it, that you had done the right thing, that that you were in business for the right reasons and you were, and you should have been doing this all along?

Speaker 1: 3:26

So we've probably been around for about 20, 25 years at the moment, so I suppose over two decades and I reckon it was around about the 2010s, probably 10, 15 years ago where, when the whole industry changed to a more as a services type model, I reckon that was the pivotal point in the industry and certainly in our business, when I realized, hang on, you know, this is something really good it's. It's something that allowed us that, as a services model, allowed us to demonstrate and demonstrate the value we were adding to our customers, businesses, more easily than what we were able to do previously.

Speaker 3: 4:04

How do you build that relationship, that partnership with that client? What's that feel like?

Speaker 1: 4:11

We've always had the belief that taking the worries of IT support away from the customer is a very important motto, or even belief within our business, and making IT the least of the customers, of their business's operational concerns, is important to us, Because if those things are the center, if the IT issues are center, of their business, well you know what? It's not ideal. So being able to onboard a customer, make them understand that our process is to drive efficiency and remove the concern of IT certainly from an operational point of view out of their business is probably in most cases the first thing that we do, and thereafter you start walking the journey with them.

Speaker 3: 5:00

That's really smart. I mean, most businesses don't go into business to run their own IT right, they've got another reason, and so for you to be able to take that worry, that burden off of them so that they can focus on why they went into business, I think that's great.

Speaker 1: 5:15

I think a lot of business owners don't realize how time sapping and how much resources go into supporting the IT system until it fails and they have an entire office. Compliment that is not functioning. That's great.

Speaker 3: 5:33

Well, speaking of the customer. What's your approach to customer service and how do you ensure that your customers are really satisfied with the work that you do?

Speaker 1: 5:44

So there's no one particular success factor that gives us that recipe. I'll be the first to admit that we've made plenty of mistakes along the way. Sure, Again, I think a lot of. It is how you fix those mistakes. But certainly employing the right staff with the right attitude does a lot more than any kind of formal qualification in a staff member Having years of experience. I suppose collectively, when you bring the team together does help Measuring those success, or certainly measuring certain turnaround times, KPIs and so on with the customer internally does help drive success. But at the end of the day it comes down to a collective team effort. That's great.

Speaker 3: 6:28

Very, very good. And then, how's the business evolved over the years? I mean, you said 25 years, 20, 25 years. What are some of the key milestones that you've reached along the way?

Speaker 1: 6:38

Well, I started off as an IT support business, a lot of the time just doing break, fix, add-on support. So that was the model 20 years ago that a lot of IT companies followed, and certainly I say five or 10 years into it, the Azure services model became more prominent and that allowed us to really change and evolve our business to the extent that I'd say at least 80 to 90% of our business, of our clients nowadays are on a services model of sorts. Simultaneously in terms of milestones in between, that we brought in and certainly due to my background in accounting, we have I brought in our other division, which focuses on all the sage accounting and payroll consulting services. So we've got a big division or a big team that focuses on that as well, and those two really opposite but complementary divisions within the business allows to deliver a very sort of rounded solution to a customer.

Speaker 3: 7:38

That's fantastic. That's great, Brad. So this is a fun question. I always like to ask business owners this. So for me, if I'm going into business or there's somebody else that's thinking about going into the managed service business, what's that one piece of advice that you would give me? Or that entrepreneur that's thinking about going into managed services? Don't do it. You want to pay the debt.

Speaker 1: 8:08

You have to ask the question again.

Speaker 3: 8:12

That's good. Okay, Brad. What advice would you give to someone that's just starting out in the business or just starting their managed service business out?

Speaker 1: 8:23

I think it's invaluable to invest in systems, and I speak of systems both in terms of RMM tools, enable being obviously an invaluable tool, but I also talk of finance systems, reporting systems. Anything that allows you to be able to make an informed decision and be able to get informed reports out of the business would be an absolute, invaluable tool in terms of being able to get the business running efficiently.

Speaker 3: 8:57

What goals for the future do you have for your business? How do you plan to achieve those goals?

Speaker 1: 9:06

We've always grown our business organically and I think one of the things that we haven't been good at is certainly marketing the business. We've relied very heavily on organic growth, word of mouth and that's been good to us. But certainly, going forward, I would recommend, or certainly think, that we can invest a lot more time in marketing the business. Now that we've got that base, that foundation in place, certainly in terms of having the right management tools and the operational procedures in place, I think that growing the business and potentially even looking at acquisitions that we can take on with us would be advantageous.

Speaker 3: 9:47

I wish you the very best of luck in the future, braden, and I thank you very, very much for being with us today.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Thanks, chris, it's been a pleasure too.

Speaker 2: 9:54

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