How Two Mates Built MB Test Partners with Grit and Heart

0:00Hey, good morning. Today I've got Brett and Mark from MB Test Partners. They've been my clients for a while. Awesome people. it's great to have two people joining the podcast this morning. Love to share the journey that they've been through. It's amazing journey to where they're at and they've got some really great stories to tell where they're from and where they're at at the moment. I know them pretty well. So, I can't wait to do the sessions.

0:26Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks. your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry. Our podcast features not only the seasoned professionals charting their start to exit journey, but also the key contributors who help ensure the success. We delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm, encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles. Join us, be part of our growing community, and engage in the conversation. hosted by Ian Markram of Loading Growth.

1:03Brett and Mark, welcome to the show Thanks, Ian. Thanks for having us. Yeah, fantastic. So, today I'm going to start off with Brett cuz he's for he's my on the left hand side of my screen on the podcast on YouTube. I'm going to start off with Brett. And Brit as I mentioned early on today, we really want to showcase, you know, where did people start out? How do they get involved in the IT industry? we do IT software companies and we do IT services companies. You are predominantly a services organization, IT services organization. You target large enterprise and you solve some big problems there around that. And you obviously get paid accordingly to solve those problems. And as I always say when I coach, the bigger the problem you solve, the more people will tend to pay for that. So you do solve a huge problem there. and that's why you guys are going gang busters. So Brett, let's start. Let's talk a bit about your background, where you grew up. You're obviously Sydney based. I see you guys all the time, but where did you grow up in Sydney?

2:03Yeah. So, I was actually I was born at Bankstown in Sydney, Bankstown Hospital, and we used to actually live in a housing commission house in Villwood. So, that's my background. My mom and dad live with my grandparents. My grandparents, my grandfather actually worked for South Sydney Council as a a garbo. Used to drive the garbage and cleaning truck. and my grandmother worked at Bankstown Hotel pulling beers. So that's sort of the the background of of the family.

2:31And for people from overseas, what is Bankstown listening for? What's the Well, yeah, look, it was it's it's sort of a lower back then it was certainly a lower socioeconomic area. A lot of immigrants, you know, would live there. Villawood, you know, it was sort of always, I guess, the detention center and and places like that it's been known for lately. Yeah,

2:52But back then it was a real workingass area. You know, he he's sort of where it was and in the housing commission house we're in. My dad was actually in conscripted Vietnam. So he was over there and I was born actually while he was in the field. So it's sort of an interesting sort of background, right? So where I where I came from eventually fast forward a few years or few years my dad got a war service home and get this he had a choice of Mount Drew, North Rocks or Wari were the three areas he had a choice from. So people who know Sydney, they're all very very different, very different areas. And he put his name down for Mount Ruit because they're from the western suburbs and that seemed to be the best place.

3:32By the time it got to him, all the mount houses were gone. So he had to choose something else. So it was either Wari, which is, you know, Sai Tamara area or or North Rocks. And he chose Wari because there was a train station. Anyway, so that's where we ended up moving. I went to school up that way. And what's interesting is all throughout my school years. you know, I played a lot of sport. I was not very good at English or those history subjects, but I was always a maths I was a maths guy is what I really did. And I wanted to be a dentist actually. So, when I look back in my year 12 annual, what what was I going to be? I was going to be a dentist.

4:12Anyway, luckily for me, but didn't get into dentistry. And then I remember talking to my dad. He was in insurance and worked in an office and this is back in 8087 and he said, "Oh, these computers are sort of taking off. I I think you should, you know, they they might be the future. You should look at look at doing it." So I I went to uni went to city uni and did I did a bachelor of science but majored in computer science and pure maths

4:44Was my background. So that's sort of where I got to how I got into computers a bit by accident for sure, but I did study it really. Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's just pause you there so we give a mark a bit of a go as well. The duo act just, you know, bit of a hard upbringing there, Brett. You know, I've spoken about it personally. I've had a hard upbringing myself and it drives people. I believe it's a it's a big driving force to keep people motivated and people still don't understand why I work. And I think it's down to one of the core principles why I've had is you got to work really hard to to be at the top and we've come from such a low position at the bottom of the food chain. Do you want to say it that it's natural for keeping working? I presume that's that's partially for you as well. Do you think that's the case?

5:29Yeah, I think it is. I think what it does just grounds you a little bit, Yeah. you sort of know and you see how hard it is for people to work and because not everybody's as lucky as we and you sort of see that and I think I think what it does it just makes you realize how lucky we are one to get an right but two to be able to work in a in an area that that does you know pay well and also I've had the privilege of working overseas traveled

5:54The world you know so I've lived in Hong Kong Singapore those things right which none of my grandparents or you know really have the opportunity to do. Okay, great. We're going to pause you there. We're going to get back to where your travels led you just now. Let's get on to the other superstar, Mark. Mark, you know, where did you grow up? yeah, I've got the same kind of sad story that Brett Brett's got, but you know, the road hard road of hard knocks, but look, I grew up in in the southern shy boy for those in city who know what that means. So, there was a lot of let's say similar cultural background. So it wasn't as mixed as as say Villawood where Brett grew up or Bankstown. I went to the local primary school. My parents were were strictly middle class was a was a a manager in a security company. It's a sales guy and a qualified accountant. very big on education in our family to try to get ahead. So we were definitely battlers. And in my neighborhood, everyone had the same type of house. You had a red or a cream brick one. You had a Ford or a Holden car out the front. The kids would literally would play out the street and get bindies in your feet. and in summer and all that kind of good stuff. So, it was a pretty good upbringing. And then I similar to Brett, we we valued education. So, mom and dad had been saving for most of their life. They put me into a into a good high school and my sister. So, that was always a common theme. And you've touched on working hard and and mentioned being grounded.

7:20So, definitely being grounded. coming from that kind of background. there wasn't a lot of money going around back in the day and and then with the the education you you you appreciated being given that opportunity. And I I think that that kind of value you know it was a privilege to get to go to to a to a a school where you had to pay extra money and get you know focused and we played a lot of sport like Brett mentioned so it was it was bit more of a rounded education. It wasn't all just purely academic. but you know, I I think about that really laid the foundation of my entire life. probably similar to how Brett's described it and maybe self for sure.

8:02So that that work ethic. always I think I've always had a job since I can remember since I was 12 or 13. So I think the legal age in Australia is 14 or 9 months and I I know that. So I've known that since I was 14 or 9 months and I think at least be proud to say I've always had a job. So again, that was just another common theme in our family was you work hard, you save money, you get a good education, and you try to make the best of your life.

8:26Yeah. Nice. Nice. That's great. Great to hear that, Mark. you know, you guys are a fantastic company, and I know a lot of pilots on the inside obviously that we're not going to share that too much, but I know you guys are successful, and it's awesome that you got a successful story from where you guys have come from. So, let's get back into Brett. let's get him, you know, you've done your university. Yeah.

8:48And what happened after that? Right. Yeah. So, when I came out of uni, I'm going to guess it was about 92 92 and that was the recession we had to have. and so it was quite hard. So, before that there were heaps of IT jobs and all of a sudden jobs were hard to find. So, I actually applied for 127 jobs. I sort of, you know, back then there was no internet, right? So, but per se. So, you had to apply, you had to buy the paper, right? and and apply to companies and right away like write a a real letter.

9:19So, I did that. So, I applied for I kept a log of everything I applied for and got all the rejection letters and everything like that. So, standard, you know, IBM, you know, all these companies I was applying for. But I I ended up getting a job as a computer programmer, a C boss For an actuarial company. So, a small actuarial company. and I used to write the software for essentially actuarial models to to demonstrate sort of life insurance and superenuation modeling at different interest rates. So this is you know back in the early 90s there when a lot of you know super was coming in the disclosure of commissions and all that. So I did that for a while and it was while I was doing that I sort of discovered testing really. was I a good programmer? Not really. I think I was average personally. they were much better much better people than me. but I used to enjoy the testing of the software and the other developers hated the testing.

10:21But essentially I said to them, look, why don't you write my code and I'll just test all the code. I'll just do the testing. And that that's sort of where it all started really because you know I didn't really enjoy the coding and they hated the testing. So we sort of did a bit of a swap and that's where I sort of got into testing really. and started enjoying it and things like that. Now I I had a go after that at I worked at Osborne Computers for a while

10:49And had that a go. I was like a a management trainee consultant there very young. I gave that a go but didn't really enjoy it and then sort of that was only a couple of years then moved back into testing. and then started working as I guess a a I worked I I was telling Mark story before. So throughout my whole career, I've only ever worked for another test manager for 3 hours in my whatever 30 years or whatever it is. So I started work for somebody and then I'd been started at 9:00 and then at 12:00 she told me that she was leaving and she hired me to take over.

11:25Brilliant. So I became the test manager after 3 hours and I've sort of led led testing teams ever since really and so this is you know back in the 90s. Great that I started that and that was at that was at TA actually work at TA and still to this day it's probably one of the best groups of I guess bestrun programs I've worked with. There are some really good senior people who knew what they were doing.

11:50And it was an excellently led sort of program. you know the leaders there had hired sort of some really good contractors in project managers and and the like and we used to write all the student information systems and I ran the testing there. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. So that's that's hell of interesting. So for those people who should have started out and my bad is you guys run an awesome testing company. So hence Brit was talking about testing when my heyday when I was a consultant. So I could do a bit of coding not great. I could do workshops fairly well. Well, I can bring everything together, but the man that the the worst thing of all was the testing. So, it's like no one wants to test. So, obviously that's, you know, it's gives you the opportunity to rise above and take an opportunity that no one wanted. So, that's good. So, I want to go bit further after that. Brett, how did you I know a bit more of your obviously your story to get to MB test partners. Can you just carry on a little bit more of a story of how you got to MBTS partners and then we'll flick over to Mark?

12:53So I've been working as a a contractor. I then essentially moved over to Singapore, worked for Barcup. I got into banking and was running testing teams there. So I worked in Singapore for a few years. I then worked at Mcquaryy Bank for about four years. Sort of ran testing for a big part of the organization there. And then eventually I moved to JP Morgan and I was there for six years living in Hong Kong and I was the global head of testing there. So I did lots of you know primarily equities and prime brokerage and things like that. But I had quite a big team of about 300 people you know a lot of people based in India

13:30But all around the world you know London, Glasgow, Chicago, Houston, New York. Sure. and so I sort of got into banking and I'd been in that until probably about 2016. So let's say we did banking for about I did it for you know 12 13 years. And to be fair it was just getting it's getting a bit hard. The hours I mean the hours were extremely long.

13:55And by that stage I'd moved back to Sydney and I was running a global team. So I was probably working till 3:00 a.m. every every day. So every every sort of morning I guess. Yeah. So, it was pretty brutal the hours. The work was good, the people were good, like super motivated, but it was at that stage that I thought, look, I think I've just had enough of the hours. And I left. And then I picked up a contract working at Transport for New South Wales as their test director on an SA SAP program. Now, I couldn't even spell SAP, let alone know what it was back then. Yep.

14:32And that's where I sort of got into it and in fact that's where I met Mark. So we met on the same program and the program was in a bit of trouble. You know a lot of fighting on the program and I was on let's say the lefth hand side and Mark is on the right hand side of the project and we basically bought a lot of the program together. Yep.

14:52At the testing phase, right? And we sort of ended up the project ended up being successful and going live. But that's essentially where we met on the program working for the opposite, you know, the opposite sides of the program. And that's where MB was sort of formed really from that project where we just sat down and said, well, I think we could actually do this together.

15:12As a business. But that's where SAP really came in. So we hadn't done anything with it before, but we knew testing back to front. So that's what we knew, right? So we we were testing professionals, we knew that and then to bring I guess to add in the the domain expertise of SAP and the the product expertise and try to bring our banking backgrounds to that.

15:34So that's sort of where MB was formed really out of transport for New South So running a global team of 300 people that's a lot of people for banking. I I know a few people that work in quite heavil heavily in the banking community myself and I know obviously it's banking so hell of important to get the testing right you know. Yeah absolutely

15:55If the money ends up the wrong account or you know what I mean something happens you get back. So we had a defect. so when I was at when I was at Park I remember I was in Singapore and I got a phone call and there was a big FX system was one of the ones that we worked on automated trading system and we got a phone call to say that the a wrong rate had been used instead of the GBP USD rate they used a USD yen rate and so that's that's like a 100 times worse you know if you look at the rate and essentially what had happened the bank had lost $600 million on the trade.

16:34The the numbers, I mean, this is back in I guess 2005 or something like that, So, 600 million well, sorry, it's still a lot of money, but it was a hell of a lot of money back then. and so we had to effectively shut down the system because it was all automated trading that went off to try and cover the position and everything like that. And at the time, we're in Singapore and I was sort of the one who knew the system the best. So the traders called me and Lucy said, "What do we do?"

17:02And yeah, you sort of wake up pretty quick when when someone throws that at you. So we did that and then we found the problem. We're to unwind the position because because of how the how the trades were done, but still, you know, you get these yeah, it's just got to be right and it's got to be exact. Now, it doesn't it's not always exact like that showed. There are bugs, but they're just hard to find.

17:24And so that's what we that's what the view, right? testing. It's trying to, you know, try to mitigate the risk and take away those, you know, those really dumb errors that creep in that people You know, there's always going to be super complicated defects and things like that that happen that you can't due to timings or whatever, but you know, the main thing is, you know, try and get it as good as possible in the time you've got.

17:51For sure. For sure. So it's a hell of an interesting you know people skimp on testing and change management on these low large programs at enterprise level. I mean I've been there myself as you guys know and it's it's you know it shows up 6 months to maybe a year later even you know once it's gone live because there a a certain unique series of steps will make something happen and you you only find out at the end and sometimes you don't really find out to be honest. You only find out if you, you know, it could have actually happened 10 times and then on the 11th time someone might have picked up that that error and then you unwind it and you go back and you're, oh my god, it's been happening since go live maybe once a month, you know, or something to that effect. It's quite interesting how that happens because there's always those different use cases that are unique with the combination of things. So that's that's pretty interesting. Brett, let's flick over to to Mark now. Mark, let's cover your sort of state from uni onwards to MBTS partners.

18:55Yep. So, look, at university, I I started off studying accountancy and decided pretty quickly that wasn't the right path for me. So, then I switched over. I was doing economics and law with a commerce degree. And I always felt like for me at university it was just a stepping stone. I really wanted to get into the the big boy workforce and and start making my way in life. So, it was I spent four years at at uni doing the double major and switching degrees and the last year I I actually worked part-time for an insurance company and I was I was trying to get into finance and yeah,

19:27Back in the day as Brett mentioned it was a massive recession, probably the last great recession we've had in Australia if not the world. So it was a it was a bit of a battle and the way I got that job was a bit round about they used to have the Comwalth Employment Service which was an office with little job cards where if you're unemployed you would walk in there if motivated and and look at the job card to try to find a job and one of my other mates had graduated a year earlier and I I took I put I went down and picked him up in my car which was falling apart and we went down to the the CES and and we're looking for a job for him and he wasn't really interested. He was looking for a management role and I and no one was going to, you know, give a 20 21 year old a management role straight off the bat. So he he actually decided there and then in the CE office CS office that he he'd go back to university do a master's degrees whilst I found a job card at an insurance company. So I I went to got the the job interview. I got the job at the insurance company at Milson's Point and I started off as a marketing assistant and I think within 6 weeks I I was so good at the marketing assistance role they put me into become a junior debt

20:37And that was an experience when you start ringing insurance agents asking for their their the commission back. There was a a clawback system if their insurance policy fell over within the first two years. so I I kind of like m was mixing with used car dealers and all kinds of great you know trysters of the world but again well these things make you so obviously I never that and and it hards you up you know I was a boy from the BBS and hadn't really worked in an office environment so you learn pretty quickly that

21:07And from that that kind of role I'd always wanted to get into finance cuz the generation I grew up with you know a lot of people were motivated by being the next Gordon Gecko to being on that Wall street type making their millions and billions and dreaming of the of the big dream. So I was no different and my way into that that finance world was through it, through testing.

21:29So I after about a year at the insurance company, I couldn't take it any further. I'd moved into customer service and that was definitely the the last straw having to to hear people ring up about their insurance products and how they they were underinsured, overinsured, wanted their money back, all those again great great grounding in in life and I got given a role at Comwalth Investments CBA investments they were called and they were putting in a computer system to manage all their their money. it was a internal fund manager and they had relatively just mainly bonds and cash I think some equity like sorry some bond-like equities that were paying dividends and so that's where I cut my teeth on on testing and I can remember after the first week I rang up the recruitment agent because I was a casual back then

22:13And I said look can you get me out of this I really hate it and she goes yep yep absolutely and then I waited for a week and I didn't hear it back and then I waited I gave her a call she didn't return my call and after after a month being I just knew I I was I was I was stuck in the job and I I just made the best of it and that was my first project at about 21 years old. and I I you know it's been a tough life ever since that I look back at that and it was it was in disarray. It did go live but you know they replaced it as soon as they went live with another system a couple years later. And that you know again we've been in business in this world this industry for 30 years and there's a lot of I don't know some things haven't changed I guess it's

22:58It's amazing it's amazing that hasn't sh like I was speaking to one of my other clients so I did a few I started doing my SAP ERP rollouts back in 96 97 like really long time ago and this the process is still the same. It hasn't changed much. You know what I mean? It's

23:21There's look people there's a there's a lot of different type of people in our industry. I mean there's academics, there's people that love to in testing there's they call practice leads, people more administrative type individuals and they look for resourcing and manage the teams and all that kind of stuff. And then you've got your hardcore delivery people. And I personally I think I always wanted to test myself against the best. So

23:44I was in delivery. That was the hardest job. And then like Brett, I I traveled the world and I I worked worked in a lot of countries. mainly oil in banking. So worked for Deutsch Bank, Credit Swiss, UBS. I worked at the Singapore Stock Exchange. I was in Tokyo, New York, Luxembourg, Zurich twice, London. I mean, it all sounds wonderful, but when you're over there, you you literally you give your your life and your soul for a few coins of silver to and work work at long hours.

24:12For sure. For sure. And that kind of What lays the foundation foundations for the future in your life here is the success that we're now seeing in our For sure. 100%. I was about to say that you know you're only successful now because you've been through so many different scenarios, so many pentations, so many characters who you arguing against to try and you know say hang on we haven't done the testing properly and take the pressure as well cuz the pressure as you guys we're going to talk a bit about that later on. you guys are in the the the the pressure component where the big SIS are trying to get the project live because they fix price a certain component of it and you guys are trying to keep the client you know as in the the real client you know keep them online with a great product at the end making sure it's working and you're liable for that as well. So, we're going to talk a bit about that and that'll be after we talked about how you guys got together with the company. But it's such a unique situation that you guys are in and you can only do it if you've got these years of experience that well.

25:14So, hence that you know it's part of the part of the reason why successful business is because you've guys had done it for so long and you've done it on a global stage. So, yeah, well done. Now, let's just quickly go back to to you guys. you you got on a project at New South Wales Transport, a big SAP implementation, one of the biggest at the time in the country. and you've obviously were working on different sides of of the implementation.

25:40What did you guys do? You know, did you just have a coffee? How did you actually come up with MBT or I know I know the story, but it's quite interest realize you the same, you know, same two fish in the same pond or what did you So, how did you start? Yeah, I want to just jump in here a little bit, Brett. So, from my perspective, yeah, we were both brought in to save help save the

26:04I think Brett will tell you in a minute, but he was either the third or fourth test director. I was similar. I was on the RMS side. So, the program was all about insourcing or or moving from RMS and all the satellite transport portfolio into a head office transport for New South Wales shared service. So it was like a hub and a spoke system where they were moving it all the you know one SAP instance into a bigger SAP instance. So I was on the outside and Brett was on the inside and I think I had an a month on start on him and we were basically told by our own program directors, you guys need to be talking. The program's not really at any level talking and so we need you guys to to sit together. And so my one of my many stories about Brett when we first met was we agreed that we'd sit on you know we'd share a desk and but what I didn't realize with Brett's idea of sharing a desk was he would continue to have a big long desk and I would I would sit at the very end on the thin bit and I'd have a laptop and so Brett would have 95% of the desk and I would just have that that

27:02Did Brett have like three screens and you had one little laptop you would have he absolutely had three screens TV Ian I had this huge TV behind me that I' I put the stats up. So yeah, I every day the stats. You put the stats up in progress of the test tests being done. but Mark did have 5% of the desk and so I thought that was quite generous of me.

27:26Well, well that was good. So how did you get to the point of actually starting or thinking about starting? Talk us through that process. So the so the the spark that that lit the flame of MB test partners we both had to do a joint presentation to the a town hall to the whole program and they rented out a you know transport they got a huge office sorry like a meeting room that could hold 150 200 people and

27:49So in preparation we we had our notes and we eventually got called up and we and we we're standing up in front of everyone about to give a wonderful presentation on testing and and I would normally joke about you know if you can't sleep, then let let me talk to you about testing. So, and then I my personality just got the better of me and I I just introduced myself as as the test director in charge of, you know, the RMS side and I said I'm the younger, better looking test director in case you get confused. And then straight away Brett jumped in and he said he was the the older and smarter test director at at transport. But I think at that moment we just knew that we would be mates and that there was something there for us together, you know, and then Brett can tell the rest of the story about over the the next preceding two or three months we were coming up with ideas and talking about

28:35Yeah. forming right Brett would you like to jump in So a lot of it was so I think the good thing about transport is we had some really good leaders around us. So some of the people that were running the program and doing various jobs, I think looking back on it now, they were exceptionally good and they knew what they're doing and they're some of the best people in the whole industry I think certainly at SAP. So we were lucky to have I guess for you know you you you get luck in life and we fell into that project. I think the other thing is because we'd been through a similar background at banking, you know, we we sort of knew we both had a really good work ethic and so we would work hard, right? So there was no question, you know, if it need to be done, we both worked hard and did whatever it took. But then while we're sitting there u marks you know obviously up the other end of the desk and we're talking it was literally like there are all these other people we knew in the industry who had started testing companies and you know there are sales people or you know they weren't hardcore delivery people like we

29:36And we just thought well you know you said well how hard can it be maybe we should have a go at it right we've seen all these other companies do it but we we thought the advantage we had is that we'd literally been I mean back then 20 years of hardcore delivery each. So we' done the jobs, we' done testing, we've done test management, written test strategies, led teams. So we' actually done that. So we felt we had a really big advantage over a lot of our competitors in that in that either either of us could jump in and do any work, but we knew what everyone all our team were going to do. We knew we knew the processes. We knew the governance. So we just felt like we had an advantage and we always wanted to stay within our swim lane if you like right we knew it was testing we then knew it was SAP

30:23And we knew there was a big gap in the market and so we just thought let's just stick to that and that's sort of what started it all really and look you know you go back nine 10 years ago when we started I think we started in 2016 August of 2016 so you know nine nine odd years ago and you know, it's tough. It's tough at first, right? Where do you get your first jobs from? What do you do? you know, and we both work, I guess, on the tools, so to speak. So, we both did delivery, both ran programs,

30:55But what we decided is we'd specialize in sort of that test governance, test management. So, not so much the execution per se, we sort of drive that the governance and strategy across the SAP programs. And as you said, you know, working for the client to ensure those big SIS, you know, look, you the Asenters, Deoites, KPMG, DXC, all those big companies, IBM, that we hold them accountable to the quality of their delivery and they deliver when they say they're going to deliver. So that's being transparent in our reporting and all those things. Right. So that's

31:30What we decided. This is what we want to And we started it out. And look, it didn't, you know, it it's slow to start, right? These things are hard because you don't necessarily have the reputation. Nobody knows who you are. You know, they might overseas. I think I think the thing was because we were both overseas, we had incredible networks outside of Australia and we had a lot bigger jobs than I think a lot of test directors in Australia because we'd worked overseas. But coming back to Australia, maybe our networks weren't quite as strong as other people.

32:01Because we've been out of the country. And so it took a while to sort of build that up. And that was part of this SAP sort of little mafia we found ourselves you know it is quite a a unique and sort of a I a closed group of people right who have got that SAP experience. So so that's sort of where we started. yeah we did a few other program. We did a 0365 program a transport as well. So we did that. So we did you know a few different things but that started out with testing that making sure but we've always stuck to to that testing and so that was that was sort of the the

32:38That was your vision basically we just talk because one of the questions I always ask is you know when you start sometimes that vision moves on and changes either with technology or businesses change or something else that you're servicing but that really that core that you spoke about Brett is still relevant and still your vision today Isn't it? Yeah, we haven't ch I I think I tell you in fact we've hardly changed, right? We've stuck.

33:03So the lesson learned, Brett, wouldn't you say, is that every time we've taken a step outside of that core away from the vision, it hasn't been for for better. It's actually been for the detriment of the company and ourselves. we've learned to take that step back and and stick to our our knitting stick to our core, which is SAP, test, governance, and management. Yeah, because it is

33:24Sorry, go for it, Brad. It always seems easy. you think, "Oh, let's get bigger. Let's get bigger. Let's do something else." Right? But every time we, as Mark said, we step outside our area of expertise. It It's hard. It's really hard. And what we find is we we do know our area well. And if we stick to that, we're

33:44And that's where that's what we decided. And it's exactly what's played out for. So it it's so important when I talk to clients and what I liked about you guys when I spoke to you guys initially. I remember I was overseas and I had the call with you guys and I went know these are the guys I can work with because they are famous for something you know they they're niche they know what they're doing they can deliver so you know and and you can attract your opportunities as well because when you deliver the referrals come in as well naturally and you build a good good rapport and you got a great team. So, and I always say to people, don't try and do everything because if you try and be something to everyone, you won't have enough people to actually know that have the depth to solve a problem to get paid for at the end of the day and you won't really be able to solve that problem properly. So, yeah, I think it's a it's a it's a prime a prime thing that you guys have, you know, stuck to nitting. Your visions are still the same since 2016. I think you're roughly about 50 staff. Is that correct? Yeah, we we go up and down. Look, cuz we we do projects, right? We do projects.

34:51Projects come and go and they last sometimes for one year, some go for three three and a half years. but you know, the the team is generally we'll say somewhere between 18 and 30 depending on the you know but you know it might be 25 26 and then it goes up to 30. but just depends on on the project. But we've never been bigger than that at all. And I think there's a real tipping point once you get bigger than that, right? It starts getting harder to deliver. But the one thing we've managed to do and this is sort of one of the goals early is that Mark and I have moved out of the hands-on delivery

35:27So that we provide that leadership and governance across the projects. So we can make sure we're consistent, make sure the quality delivery is good, make sure that if required, we can step in and look things don't always go perfect. Projects don't always work. People don't always work out for whatever reason. people got stuff going on in life for sure. And so, you know, on a couple of occasions, Mark Ry had to step in.

35:50That's that's part of what we do. We sort of give a guarantee to all our clients that if something goes wrong, we will be there for sure and we'll fix it for important. So, Mark, you know, when I initially engaged, you guys, you were hands-on and then you decided to take take a step back and and look at the bigger picture and make sure that you get the governance across these big programs of work. You guys were doing the strategy work at that stage. Let us just just talk Mark through what you say is a normal implementation or ideal implementation for you guys. What does that look like from real side?

36:20It the the it's interesting because look we we have a let's say a core or a a general way that that we've learned the MB test way we're calling it now. It's evolved over the last nine 10 years working together and working with some great people. So what tends to happen is we we'll look back and understand which platform SAP that we're going to be you know running the testing on. So S4 Hannah versus a success factor platform as Brett mentioned we do APA sorry what's it called the workday product as well and we've done some other products. So again, we adjust our current IP to to suit the the client and to suit the every program because they are individually different even though it's consistently like an SAP program. So what are the core things would be? Absolutely. We start off with a plan on a page. What's the high level vision from a testing perspective for the program?

37:14I've seen Brett literally win a client in in an hour or two on a board writing writing up a plan on the page for a hundred million program. and it's you know it was I was impressed. I think the whole 20 people in the room were impressed. They he basically solved their go live strategy and their delivery strategy and then testing strategy in a two-hour session. And obviously we want the the work and the job off the back of that. That's what we do. And so we do that every every program whether it be on a whiteboard in front of 20 people or in a dark room by ourselves or or with our test directors now who who run these programs for us. So we've effectively moved into more of a training and uplifting our team where we empower them and I think the word wording that we're using is provide guide rails into this is the way we do it and then you have a level of flexibility to to you know adjust and make changes depending on the program the people and and all those different facets of a

38:12For sure. But your staff are all senior I've got to say. Yeah. Look, we we're probably we we add on purpose. We we look for people that that have got life experience that that are not you know, new to the game. We're looking for people that have have had to work in hard programs like myself and Brett. I guess we we we've realized that that that's been very valuable, those 20 or 30 years of experience. So, absolutely, our senior leadership team, many of our test managers are all, you know, between 40 to 60 plus years old. they they've been there, done that. They've seen it. They know how to how to sort out and fix

38:47Yeah. And I think it's so that model you go to market with which has been hugely successful in the guardrails. You can do that because you don't have juniors on board. You know what I mean? Like you're not graduate getting guys from graduation and come along and do the thing. So you can deliver to me about that and and and I think it's been successful for you guys. Really? Well, it has been. Yeah,

39:10Absolutely. But I think we're also, so Brett has we haven't mentioned it yet in this, but we we do actually want to give back to the industry. We we actively look at ways and means. So whether it be talking on a testing conference, attending a testing tools conference or or just meeting people at these conferences without having to be the the presenters. But we also have on purpose hired three junior people and we train them up and we get them primarily involved in u testing tools administration. We've got some people that are learning on test automation tools that we now have another a lot of clients our business has evolved and they've asked for you know beyond the test management test governance you know can you also supply some test automation so we want to automate our test cases so we we have a a small team of about four people at the moment growing and where we do a lot of automation and so we've been very big on in giving people their breaks so I think we both look back at our lives and we and we go we just needed someone to to give us a chance and encourage encourage us. So we I think currently we have got either three maybe four people now also in the junior ranks that we and one of them is actually going to transition this year no sorry next year into being a a defect manager and next step will be a test manager. So there is a career path now that we're building within our company for junior staff and even for the senior staff that we move them around doing different types of test management.

40:32Great. Great. Now I'm going to go shoot on to Brett there. Give you a moment there to relax there. Mark Brett talked about automation tools. We spoken that you know I can remember having a couple of workshops and that with you guys. you know what's the automation tools out there like at the moment and you know are they getting better with okay so automation is an interesting topic. So remember testing testing has got a lot of theoretical people in it. There's a lot of theoretical discussion online around testing about how it should be done how it shouldn't be done. I think there's nothing beats real hard practical experience that something's got to be delivered by a certain date. Okay. And I think that's what a lot of people forget. Everyone should be theorists but actually running programs is completely different. So automation I think I think is just rarely been successful in organizations and test automation has been around I mean would it be 20 years at least 20 years we've been well I've been doing test automation you know well back then.

41:31Yeah. But it's rarely the ROI on automation is rarely successful because people think it's a silver bullet and they just say let's just get someone to automate it and we'll automate it straight away but they don't really understand what's involved how to write write a maintainable framework that can be used ongoing because there's a lot of maintenance and tests break as things change as data changes as time goes on. So, so we use we use a couple of tools. So, I've written I've written them by myself writing backend API test automation harnesses, but with SAP we primarily use Tricentus TUSCa. we also use Workday they're sort of the the two main sorry worksoft sorry Worksoft Worksoft and Tricentus Tuska they're the two main products that we use. Look, Tennis have a a partnership with SAP and so it is quite good and it is guey intensive. We'll just say that rather than be sort of backend automation. Now backend automation is generally more efficient and quicker but the advantage of the front-end automation is what the users actually do and SAP there are a lot of defects found that ways. So we we do that for the automation. The other thing we look at obviously is around test case management. So the the products we use for that and that's you know back in the old day tester or mercury would have been the company test director I mean that's back in the 90s and early 2000s

43:01But that's now evolved and tricus are probably the leading product there they have a QEST product that we use for that and we have people that manage that and when you're dealing with an SAP program when you're executing 4,000 tests finding 10,000 defects you can't use Excel or anything like that and and it's very hard to use Jira Jira is a development tool not a test management tool and we might have 400 users who want to test right as part of UAT. So trying to manage 400 users logging into Jira 4,000 test 1,000 defects. These are

43:33These are big problems to solve. and that's what we we manage. So we generally use we'll say a a proper professional product is what we interesting you know when you're talking there I was just going back through my old experiences. you know, you be at a client, you might be on a phase three or something of the project and you go, okay, and you just arrive there after phase, you know, three or kicking off and

43:56And you go, well, where's the test from from that scenario because this is not working. And you go, you know, we're trying to work out why I wasn't getting the data into the analytics environment and going like, why is this not working? And then you, well, where the tests are the test signed off and you know, can we just run some of those tests to make sure that we can see the data coming through the extractors into data lake? And no, we couldn't find the tests. No one can find the test. It's quite amazing. So it's crazy that that natural you know ecosystem of keeping those tests live because that environment is live. I think have people solve that at the moment. I mean like cuz these ERP environments are never static. They're always getting upgraded.

44:34They're always getting you know the acquisition company buys or dvests you know there's always testing happening. Are there people do they have a continuous testing program in place of some sort or or am I am I just naive would you think that they haven't done look it's a bit of each to be honest. So so generally what you'll find that the programs themselves are pretty good and they're professional and they they know they need to have

44:58Well for audit reasons but also in order for to to have decent quality on the project they need to have structure and rigor and they need to have tests and they need to be updated and improved. Yeah. What often happens is as you said after a product goes live you know there there's not that the budget is there you know the project's now in BA so they don't often update those tests you know there are changes made so those project assets do decay over time now it really it's really something that we try and say well we have assets for the program and how we deliver but then it's what do we do after go live and what does that look like and how do we I guess shrink it down or scale it down to something that's manageable going forward. So you can't give BAU 4,000 tests. That's they're not going to maintain it. But you might say, "Here are the 100 tests. Here's like your aggression suite that you need to manage going forward."

45:51So it's always how do we push it But the big programs are generally good because they need to have that governance structure in there. And that's what we work on. But we also do try and yeah hand over to those BAU or or run components of of programs to try and hand over something manageable. And the tools are cheap, right? Tools are expensive and so programs can generally fund it. BAU generally don't want to. And so that's why we need to come up with, you know, sort of other solutions, sort of other innovations to try and help those BAU organizations

46:23Sure. I think it's a big opportunity. So let's go back to Mark. Mark, you gave us a bit of a overview of transport. I know that was a successful project. y how about, you know, don't have to mention names, but you know, these projects always go off the rails. it big programs of work with a lot of people involved, a lot of personalities, a lot of politics in these machines and and environments are changing that you're at. have you ever been called in and you know in a in a disaster and and asked to save a project and you know how often has that happened the last you know 10 years

46:59I'd say yeah sorry I'm I'm laughing because it's almost every program it's it's great to we celebrate when we actually get a start a start on the program when the program actually is first initiated so that's actually quite enjoyable to actually be there at the start and then help progress it so it doesn't fall into disarray Okay. there's lots of reasons why that the programs can fall fall away. People written have written books on this kind of thing. But look, we definitely myself and I think Brett in our careers, we as I said with transport, we were like the third and fourth test directors to come in and

47:32We we planted our flag in the ground and said, you know, this is it. And with the backing of the management team at transport, we we were successful. And I can remember the moment the the CIO for RMS came in and he he went away for two weeks and he came back and it had gone from red to to orange. We were you know going the program going to green and he's looking around the room. He said what's happened? I'll go back on holidays for two weeks. But so what what happens is you get better organized. You identify the problems. I think that's one of the things that my technique was always go in there and do these days they rebadge it. I say I do a 360 degree, you know, interview and basically I would talk to everyone from top to bottom. I I talk to the tester or the the most junior person on the program up to the program director and manager and I get a list of problems and I I take I would write down these the problems and I categorize them and I I'd have a spreadsheet and you know on some of the more difficult programs I probably have close to 200 problems and then I would have it across maybe a dozen different categories. So it could be test environments or test data or you know lack of requirements or the documentation the architectural documentation. So basically I would I would break down the the program into all these different areas of problems and then I' I'd work out or what are the most urgent ones that I can fix now?

48:52What are the quick wins? And I just literally start from, you know, the 200 and every week I' I'd be able to knock knock off 10 to 20 of these problems. And then literally after about a month, people just things just start at work. And some of the problem, you know, you wake up in the morning, some of these problems you just tick off cuz they've just dissolved. And so suddenly from having close to, you know, 180 200 problems, you're down to about 60 or 70 in the fifth week. And and everyone's feeling happier. in the program, you know, it's that's quite a it's a skill that I built up over time, but it's something I enjoy. I think I do that in life anyway, fixing problems. I think Brett does the same. We're we're very similar in a lot of

49:31For sure. yeah. Good. What? Yeah. So, I think a lot of programs are salvage salvageable. it's just a matter of I think having the right people in the right roles. So, I'm sorry. What I'd say is that one of the core aspects of when I'm a test manager coming on, it's about setting up the the organization structure and and putting in the people and then empowering those people to do their jobs. So if I was running testing and I had a team of let's say four to six test managers, I would let them know, you know, what their job is, what's expected from them. Here's a list of the the 10 things I expect you to do. And then you obviously come back to me when you got a problem or you need to escalate something. Come back to me each week and we'll just do a check where we're at. I'm definitely not a micromanager. I don't feel Brett is either when we work through we we tend to empower people and they love that. I think that you get a much better outcome. you get a lot through a lot more work.

50:24Great great good style. So just talking about that's a lot of the culture that you're building up in your own team as well must be very similar to that. Brett, do you want to mention a bit about because in professional services we know culture because it's people it's a people's business is really important. So what type of culture are you trying to build there Brett in your Yeah, it's it's really interesting. So I think you know look Mark and I I say I think it's just decent people.

50:49Right. So we don't we don't push people to kill them. Right. We've sort of been through that ourselves and we realize the best ways to just treat kindly, treat them nicely, but be upfront about what the expectations are. We've been lucky enough to be able to find good quality people who are also decent people. Right. So once we find decent people you know they all want to work together and everybody wants to work for the shared outcome you know what what are we trying to deliver

51:16And we we create that good environment so a real team environment now because we're not too big you know you can have personal contact with everybody so everybody knows everybody right so if we go up to 50 we double you get to 100 you start losing a lot of that but I think so one of the things we've tried to do is stay small is so that one we can be nimble But one, you know, we've actually got all the relationships and we can keep the good

51:42It is really hard to find good people. it is really hard and keep them. So, a lot of our test directors, you know, have been there five, six years with us right? So, we've got good a good group of people and it's just trying to look have a little bit of fun with success as well. And the good thing is I'd say over the time we've been successful on our programs and that's what people want to be part of. They want to be part of a successful program and that's what motivates a lot of people and we've been able to do that. Now that's that's also because of the projects we're on, the companies we work with, the leadership teams at those companies that that helps us as well. So, you know, we're just a part of part of I guess the success. The other thing is I don't know people say we don't really advertise so we don't go out and market. All our work is through referrals and things like that. It's it's people who know us, people who have heard of us, people who want us to come in and solve a problem for them. and that that's essentially what we what we do. So that's why a lot of people probably haven't heard of our company.

52:41But we're very specific and niche into you know SAP and testing for sure. You actually do other testing as well though as well, haven't you done workday in the past and a few others? Yeah, we did workday big workday program. So, what's interesting is Workday, D365, Oracle, to be fair, they're all pretty similar. The the management, strategy, governance are all the same.

53:02They're all just large SAP, you know, they have integrations that you need to test. So, you need to hook up environments and how data flows and all that type of thing. So, middleware, layer, so they're all pretty similar solutions. I guess we're stuck with SAP because one, SAP's just so dominant in the market. Mhm. there's a lot of upgrade paths, you know, there's all the the patches that come out for SAP and so it's been it's sort of where we've we we fell really initially with SAP, but yeah, we did a we did quite a good workday program at at APA energy.

53:38Essential with the SI there. So, you know, these are these are the same SI we sort of see all over the place. And that was probably a I'm going to guess an 18month program. And we we we actually did some of the functional testing there as well, but we probably had 10 people there for about 18 months. On the APO program. Yeah. So, we do do other things, but we always sort of pull back towards

54:01I guess what we know and that's generally these SAP programs. Okay. Great. Now, I'm going to I know we all busy. I know you got hard stomps as well. So, I've got a few other questions I want to get through. Thanks for that. that Britain and and Mark, one of the areas that we obviously seeing changing right now is AI. AI is becoming a big thing. So when I I talk to people in these shows, I talk about innovation. What innovation are they bringing to the market and I know that you guys cuz I've been working with you have been working on on AI solution of some sort and they have taken that to market as well, which is fantastic. So Brett, I want to ask you a bit about the innovation that you guys have been working on and you're putting a lot of effort into that. I think since February, quite a bit of effort into that. What's happening there? Can you share anything with the audience?

54:47Yep. So, so we've developed a product. It's called Intelly Test. so essentially what it does, it's a it's an AI solution. Now look, AI like everybody AI doesn't do AI is just part of the solution and it's a tool. Right. So like test automation or anything like that, AI is a tool. And so what we've done is we've worked on a couple of theories multimodel theory and getting different models to I guess quiz each other and check each other's work. But where we're focused on is we look at our core business and a lot of it's you know test cases creating test cases and we've been able to develop this you know the AI solution intlety test

55:31To be able to automatically automatically create SAP manual test cases. So a lot of people have gone down the automation route so everyone goes oh we're going to automate blah blah blah. What we've actually done is we've looked at the big programs and go where's all the time what what's taking time on programs and manually creating thousands of test cases is a huge time you know it takes time on programs. So, we've actually developed this solution to create u you know to create all these manual test cases for us. And it's sort of like it's like talking to a 10-year-old, right? So, you ask the same question four times and on the fourth time you'll actually get an answer that's close to the truth.

56:13Right. And it's just continually how we prop these models. So, we've actually developed our own solution that's on our own own infrastructure. And that was the other thing. we're at a client and we said, "Oh, we've got this solution." And they said, "No, you can't use it. We've banned you know, chat he's banned because we don't trust it." So, what we actually did is we went out, we have our own we have our own Nvidia chipset. We've got our own infrastructure all hosted in Australia, you know, we got databases in Azour. Yeah. The chips. So, all the calculations of chips stay in our in our ecosystem. And that was one of the big things we did, right? To be able to look at solve the security problem first.

56:53We solved that and then we looked at okay now what's the testing problem we need to solve. So we sort of solved them both and and a new client we we've just won we just won a couple of really good deals that are going for all of 2026. And one of them we actually did a live demo during the presentation of Intelllet Test and they said are you sure you want to do a live demo?

57:16No one does. No one does. So So we we did a live demo. We did a live demo sale and we said tell me what you want and they said give me some sales order entry test scenarios and we did it and Intelllety Test created 20 test scenarios for sales order entry SAP because we we have a lot of our IP behind the scenes you know 10,000 sample test cases. So it's got all this knowledge that we've built into the

57:42And so it was able to do that and then we asked for some you know the the clients got business in the US and around the globe. So we actually said okay now create 10 negative test scenarios to do with US sales tax and bang and out they come. So you know okay we then stopped the demo because like okay we've we've it's worked it worked perfect. We said, "Okay, let's not push it too far." But but it was just good

58:08Being having that and and look, it it's the thinking about it. It's also how does it work? How do we think about it? How can we be more efficient? And that's what we're trying to do. So AI is not going to solve every problem. And it's not I don't think it's going to take away certainly what we do. It's not going to take away jobs, but we're trying to how do we use it to be better? How do we use it to be more efficient? and and certainly we think the manual side of testing whatever everybody will say we go to agile we go you know automation all this SAP programs are very large waterfall programs and that's how they work. I can't see that changing in the next 20 years. I I honestly can't so so we just focus on

58:49How do we improve part of that sort of that that program in that cycle and that's what we're focused on within intelllety test. Brilliant. Brilliant. I think it's it's a great idea. you also don't have to go and hire a whole lot of extra people to do work that they don't really want to do. I mean, that sounds like that's a component that no one really wants to do. So, there's obviously the value ad around that stuff that you got to bring to a client. So, I think it's an amazing story and you know, everyone wants to do innovation, but it's very hard to actually have the time to focus on it. So, I just want to commend you guys. Well done on actually building up a product

59:27And and from scratch and and putting the effort in to make it work and now winning work through that process and that's a that's a competitive advantage that you'll take to market you know. Yeah absolutely. Do you ever see it sort of you know you guys are all onshore predominantly your team's onshore is that correct?

59:47Yeah. So do you see yourselves be able to compete with offshore now a bit more now because you've got a bit of an AI solution and obviously that AI solution will probably extend as it as you guys get more time to put more innovation into it will you start to compete with those offshore type of teams so it's really interesting so the whole onshore offshore model so testing to be fair swings it's like a roundabout right so sometimes it goes onshore, sometimes it's offshore. And these are big these are organizational discussions and also you know Australian cultural discussions about our jobs going overseas or or not

1:00:27For sure. Certainly for us though the the management and the governance of these large programs it's very difficult to do offshore because you sort of need to be there to run that part of the program. But you're right the like the execution side the technical side could it could be done offshore but we haven't done that. What we've done is as Mark said we've tried to hire some grads or the younger guys and give them a go. We actually compete against a lot of the offshore the large offshore clients. So you know you look at you know TCS we prognosis and all these emphasis all these large Indian pure plate companies who have a lot of people at their disposal who can do things a lot cheaper than we can.

1:01:06Y so we we don't we don't compete on price. So for us, it's not about price, it's about being efficient and getting a really good job, right? Getting a good job done for the client. And that's sort of where we focus on. And look, we we go up against them on on the bids, right? But but what we're what we're offering and what the problem we solve is not necessarily a you know, we don't do a bulk model of providing 30 testers or 50 testers. We don't that's not the area we're in. So could AI be offshore? Look, I think it can, but I think the understanding of the project, the understanding of the culture is super important for getting the results out of

1:01:49I've actually watched So, what I did is I watched people prompt AIS where English wasn't their first language. And and I got it was really interesting to see just the structure of how people write sentences when it's not your natural language is really different. And the results were coming back very different. So I was just sort of been studying about how people prompt and how these models work. And so look, I think for us, we we try and set the guard rails, you know, what do we want out of our solution? How do we want to prompt, you know, what are we trying to do? We've set up a lot of work to sort of create all these contexts and multi- I'm going to say nesting of context with different products. And I think that's important, right, that we sort of set that and then give access to our staff to go and use the solution. So I don't really see us really being offshore to be honest. we've we've

1:02:45We've spoken about it a lot. Yep. I think a lot of a lot of our clients have when we talk to them about offshoring in the use of AI that they their strong preference has always been stay onshore. we don't want to deal with the there's a security risk and data issues, security access to the data. So it's

1:03:06They're just not interested actually. Yeah. Okay, Mark, let's move while you're talking. Mark, let's talk a bit about what trends, you know, do you see in the IT professional services industry? Do you see any trends besides AI happening a bit more on that? You want to talk a bit about that yourself? Is there anything else you see it's a good a really good question. So the trends are I think there's there's been a trend back to doing doing more test automation. Yeah.

1:03:33And we see that in our clients our existing client base over the last few People talk about it but weren't really interested in investing in in putting money there. And the last couple years they they they're highly interested in talking about it and they got and they're now putting the money there. So and they've asking us to help them. So that's why we we've now have a a strong test automation offering and we have a an offering not only within the program whilst the program's running but we also now once the program finishes and we move on we have a an ongoing application management service with test automation where we run

1:04:06Services environment for ongoing that's and and so they see a lot of value in that. our team we asked them from time to time you know what how's it going what what what's you run these tests are you finding things and sure enough they say absolutely you know yesterday we found two defects in production and so we let the client know and they're they're actually ecstatic I mean normally it's hard to get too excited about testing but in finding defects but well

1:04:34For sure you never know people you know the value that you bring if you're picking up a a problem or two or debug or whatever a bug it shows a client that's you actually worth it having you there So the automation and the tools I think we've our company in particular we sell more Q test tennis Q test product than anywhere else in Australia.

1:04:54Mhm. every client we go to, we we're open-minded and we we there's other products that we do use and have used in the past, but for the large enterprise programs, this product in particular is the market leader and once we bring it in, we show them how to use it and how to configure it and how to administer it correctly for the benefit of not just the program but also the wider enterprise. And so what tends to happen is as a as a I guess trend is that the clients are picking up on the ease of use of this product and the value that it adds not only to an SAP program but to all of other programs. So even when we're we're gone and they're still using that product whereas in the past I've seen a lot of these test management tools that that sit there gather dust and you told the story about where are all the test cases where's all the test results. Q Qest is such a great tool that it's it's super easy for anyone business users to use. So that's a legacy that we leave with clients and and that I think it's gathering its own momentum. It's now become

1:05:50It's not the conversation on what tooling is required is always happens up front and those conversations are getting easier and easier and the client seeing more value in in spending you know 100 to three $400,000 on some of these tools. So I I guess the third trend in the marketplace would be

1:06:11I think there's a move back from a lot of offshoring. I think that they've Brett talked about swings and roundabouts. Definitely I think the market's come back to getting people onshore, getting people in the office. I think there's a lot of value being seen having people meeting, you know, eye to eye around the old kitchen or the water cooler as they say. I I also agree. I like to work from home as much as the next person, but when we go into the office, I think I I I'm less productive on my output, but I'm way like 10 times more productive on engagement with individuals in sharing ideas in understanding the nature of programs or problems. So now the major programs that we're winning, they're asking for people to come in at least three times a week. Yep. So I think that's going to continue. I think most people work from home either on the Mondays and the Fridays, but I'll Yeah. I'll see you in the office on Tuesday

1:07:04Yeah. Yeah. Can't go to the beach and surf on Monday and Fridays because everyone else is on the water. But I think that's a really good point there, Mark. You know, with with these big programs of work and people are just trying to get the make sure they get the right value and making sure I think you can only solve problems in person sometimes. So, you are big problem solvers. There's problems happening all the time. So, you've got to be connected to people and communicating effectively. And you can only sort of brainstorm that activity if you're actually in office.

1:07:33Yeah. What's also happening though, Ian, I think the the other trend I've noticed there's a move away from the one company to solve all the problems into having specialist organizations solve a little you know that their part of the problem. So so we look at us we so we solve the testing problem for these large programs but then we see the same see the same companies on the large programs. So who's solving the security and access problem for these programs? What about the data migration problem? You know, what about the change management problem? So these are all specialist areas that what what we sort of noticed is that the programs rather than getting the one company to do everything,

1:08:14They're getting smaller specialist organizations in to essentially hold each other accountable. And I think that's it. I think it's really hard for the large organizations to see through what they're doing and work out are we delivering a quality product and if I'm running a program for an organization you know you want to make sure the quality is there and everyone's keeping each other accountable. So I think the move to smaller boutique organizations and small you know up to up to 100 200 couple hundred people to solve individual problems is certainly where we're seeing the market go rather than the larger organizations doing

1:08:54Perfect. Perfect. Okay. One final question for you both. It's the same question. I'm going to let I'm going to go to Mark this time. Give you a bit of a breather there, Brit. what advice would you give to someone who's you know aspiring IT professional business owner who wants to become a a business owner and and obviously Mark you've done this you know you've been doing this for since 2016 so what would what what one one piece of advice or two pieces of advice that stick out that you could give them that's is there's no sing yeah one or two pieces of advice I mean I love giving advice for free even when you're not they're not asking people's not asking but there's just it's a journey journey. I think that our the secret to our success is being in partnership together. We we both enjoy our each other's company. We work together as a team. We we're not 100% alike. We're probably 60 70% overlap and and 30 and 30% less caught different. So I think neither of us I think would have been successful in business without each other and and neither of us probably would have enjoyed being in business without having a partner. So number one thing for me has been working with Brett in partnership and we battle the pro the projects and the programs and all these issues not only from a delivery perspective but from a a business management and strategy perspective. So share the journey.

1:10:12Yeah that would be my message. Brilliant. That's it's a great it's a great answer because a lot of co co-founders and they say three founders is even better than one founder and you can imagine why the one founder has no one to lean on and second guessess and and and bounce ideas you know when you verbalize something you actually start to think about it properly as well when you're trying to verbalize a challenge you've got to someone else just alone and you actually solve the problem yourself so that's a great piece of advice thanks a lot for that Mark Brad just one one

1:10:42I I think you got to stand for something so you got to work out what what is the business or what are you going to stand for. So we've often you know you come back to and when we try and go outside of our area we come back no no no what what are we doing what problem are we solving and what do we stand for as a business so we stand for for testing test management governance of SAP programs and that's what we focus on

1:11:06And so I think it's very easy to get distracted because you think if I do this I'm you know I can get lots of people lots of money I can do this but you've just got to stand for something and if the market knows that's what you stand for and you're good at it, eventually the work will come. For sure. Brilliant. Well, thanks very much Brett and Mark. I really appreciate your time today on the show. Is an awesome insight into how successful your business is and I know it's going great guns and you're probably bully fully booked I think until middle of next year or even to

1:11:40Yeah. In 2027 we're fully booked. Yeah. booked. It just shows you I mean that's just shows you what type of business you have is a phenomenal business. So well done on that and yeah I look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks very much for your time today. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks. Don't miss out on our next episode. Hit the follow button and stay updated. Want to be our next podcast guest? Contact us and share your expertise with our audience. Visit www.itmastermindalks.com for more information.