Perth-founded information technology provider Velrada is growing a fastpaced reputation for its advisory work and integration of Microsoft software solutions for clients operating around Australia and offshore.
The company, which started primarily as an IT consultancy in 2009, has expanded its breadth of servicing to become more established as a business and technology systems integrator using enterprise Microsoft technology such as Dynamics365.
The 2015 Microsoft Australia Partner Awards winner for “Excellence in Business Insights and Data”, Velrada is an expert at designing and implementing business systems for clients in both the government and private sectors.
Co-founder and Executive Director Rob Evans said Velrada had capitalised on the inability of some companies or organisations to optimise their use of technology.
“It is good business practice for commercial enterprises and government to understand the outcomes and processes with the technology they employ,” Mr Evans said.
“The best systems investments focus on building real business outcomes. There are a lot of projects that are run for the sake of technology, and not for the sake of the business.
“Our point of difference is that we are building the software collaboratively with the clients to realise their objectives of having the knowledge and technology working to their best business advantage.”
Mr Evans cited an instance where Velrada had delivered a strategy for a client bidding for a $2.5m facilities contract for a major resources company, and then delivered systems to service the business across 50 locations in six months.
“We helped our client develop a strong technology value proposition to its customer, and present something cost effective, cloud based and costed on a consumption model” he said.
Velrada has a strong focus on providing technology support for the Australian resource, oil and gas sectors. It started with Santos and also BHP Billiton, which gave the company its first break on requirements for its iron ore and the Olympic Dam projects in South Australia and since with minerals exploration in Singapore.
It has now completed more than 100 projects for BHP.
Other major projects followed for the SA government, SA Water and WA Department of Health (30 projects). It has also contracted with major resource operations, such as Chevron, the largest holder of natural gas in Australia, plus our largest operator of oil and gas production Woodside Petroleum, South African-owned gold producer AngloGold Ashanti, the engineering group Monadelphous and for Sodexo, which recently won a $2.5 billion tender for leading global mining and metals giant, Rio Tinto.
Since being founded in the mid-1960s, Sodexo has focused on quality of life services and among them is the provision of food within construction management sites and other on-site services.
In this case, Sodexo helps create a comfortable environment for those living and working in the Pilbara, the vast and sparsely populated area of northern Western Australia where Rio Tinto has around 30,000 employees living across 50 sites.
“Velrada delivers systems that leverage the mobile/cloud capabilities of Dynamics365,” Mr Evans said.
For example, we have provided solutions for remote workers in the facilities and health care industries that support mobile operations coordinated through a control function.
“Field workers have hand-held devices for reporting on maintenance that has been completed or is required, for delivery of occupational and health related services, and logistics such as waste management.
“There is generally a strong safety culture within our client’s business. An example is that teams managing ground transport functions have tablets and mobiles to check that they have the right people and numbers on their work buses, for instance, so no one gets left behind.
“Our systems all make a huge difference for clients at the sharp end. They can analyse what they are doing and become more efficient, building understanding of their operations over time and using predictive analytics to model and improve service delivery and cost optimisation”
Velrada’s rapid growth has seen it expand to 140 staff with offices in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin, Sydney and Singapore and with others on the horizon.
Nexia’s Perth office has supported the company over the past five years with taxation and R&D advice and auditing.
“Nexia has been very good for us,” Mr Evans said. “We’re well looked after with servicing and not pushed down the food chain to juniors as occurs with some other practices.”
