COMPANY PROFILE A man fit for purpose
as local numbers and automated appointment booking. Being perceived as having a local number to take appointments is important to surgeries. We now have a dedicated health sector team and we are working with a number of hospitals so our reputation is growing.”
Michael O’Donnell
The owner and Managing Director of Opus Business Systems, Michael O’Donnell, firmly believes in providing technology with purpose and his simple approach to business has paid off handsomely.
W
hen NASA scientists discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity they
spent a decade and billions of dollars to develop a ‘space pen’ that writes upside down, underwater, on almost any surface, and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius. Russian cosmonauts used a pencil. This is an old joke, or so called urban myth, that is not factually correct but the punch line resonates because there is something to be said about providing a simple solution versus a bloated and complicated one. It’s a story that O’Donnell certainly relates to. “Technology has to work and give gains,” he said. “The latest technological shiny thing is not necessarily the right thing. It has to be relevant.”
A modest and unassuming Scot, O’Donnell has an air of authority and
poise which clearly engenders loyalty from his employees. Staff churn is almost non-existent at Opus which celebrated its 20th anniversary in the spring. The company has enjoyed three years of growth and is targeting a 35 per cent hike in business levels in the next year, specifically in the legal, education and health sectors where a myopic focus on customer service is paying dividends.
The latter all came about following a discussion with Sara Hellon, Head of Channel Marketing at Mitel, as O’Donnell explains “We had some contracts with health clinics which was pretty much standard telephone system business, but Sara suggested we could widen the scope with Mitel’s range of solutions,” he said. “With Mitel’s help it all came together and we are now networking clinics and surgeries and adding value services such
Strong work ethic Born in Greenock, O’Donnell joined the Merchant Navy in his teens and was an engineering officer for six years. “I’d had a reasonable education,” he commented. “I wasn’t particularly academic but in those days the Merchant Navy was the best in the world and it gave me a real belief in my own ability and helped me develop a very strong work ethic.”
O’Donnell was made redundant from the navy at 23, just before the Falklands War. His life took on a new direction when he met his wife Melissa who was born in Kingston, Surrey. “We bought a place nearby in Sutton, but there was not much demand for marine engineers in that neck of the woods, so I went down to the job centre and got a job as a photocopier salesman for IBEX, part of the Altus Group,” O’Donnell explained. After 18 months I was sales manager and thereafter sales director, but in 1991 the managing director and I had significant differences of opinion about the direction of the business and I found myself out of work at the beginning of a recession.”
O’Donnell’s fortunes turned when he secured a sales director role at Lloyd’s Business Machines in Crawley which had begun to explore opportunities in the telephone system market. “I opened up their first telecoms dealership with Panasonic and I could see this was going to be a big opportunity but I had a distorted vision of the world as a sales director.
I thought I should get my own lifeboat and be the last one out. So I went back to IBEX and did a 50/50 deal with them. They invested in me, I used their office space and some of their back office facilities and Opus was born. I also had two strokes of good luck in mid 90s by securing two small business loans which allowed me to buy a base off Lloyds and expand the business. Within five years we moved into our Merton offices which have since expanded to house the 50-plus strong team we have today. Our edge was on the service we provide and it still is.”
With its main suppliers Mitel, Aastra, Panasonic and Gamma, Opus offers mid-market customers the full gamut of telecoms solutions, and via a partnership with IT service company Mirus IT is now addressing cloud computing, MS Lync and mobile enterprise opportunities from offices in Merton, Sevenoaks and the City of London. “We are now in a position to say yes to video, voice, mobile and hosted,” added O’Donnell. “We do not lose clients this way.”
The Opus team, most of who have been part of Opus for between 10 and 20 years, pull together to keep clients happy and the business on track. This has been augmented by well-known industry heavyweights Paul Allen (formerly Admiral) and Chris Riggs (formerly Adept), who have been responsible for securing new bases and opening up new market opportunities.
Now in his fifties O’Donnell has no plans to take things easier, instead he intends to keep his pencil as sharp as ever. He commented: “By this time next year I want the business to have 65 staff and a 35 per cent increase in turnover. But whatever size we grow to we will not lose our focus on customer service and delivering technology with purpose.”
We are now able to say yes to video, voice, mobile & hosted
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