2010 Telstra Business Awards New South Wales Winners

Valerie Khoo left a life as an accountant in a global firm to follow a passion for writing. She became an author of five published books and a columnist in daily newspapers. In 2005, Valerie founded the Sydney Writers’ Centre in Milsons Point. She modelled it on the ideal learning environment that she wishes she’d had when developing her writing career and trying to get published. The centre offers more than 30 courses, presented by successful authors and journalists, in magazine and travel writing as well as fiction, children’s books, book publishing, business and online writing. Student numbers have risen from 60 to 2400 a year.

Online courses attract students from many countries, including the US, Japan, Afghanistan and United Arab Emirates. The centre has also been contracted by multi-national corporations to develop writing programs for their employees.

“We are passionate about education and persistent in finding ways to help those who live behind a technological firewall.” — Valerie Khoo, Director.

In 2007, at just 23 years of age, Nathan Dale launched a commercial property service company with two employees. Today the Intact Group has a diverse trade services team of 17 full-time staff including three apprentices. It has onsite tradespeople in 11 commercial buildings and has managed national urban and rural projects. The company has overcome any misgivings about the relative youth of its management team by exceeding expectations with its own quality assurance guarantee winning it new contracts. In its first year, the Intact Group carried out a national site safety project for the Commonwealth Bank and has developed the partnership further. It also won maintenance contracts for facility management industry leaders such as CB Richard Ellis and Colliers International. This year, Intact Group’s profits are expected to almost double for the second consecutive year.

"A belief that the employees are the organisation’s greatest asset is demonstrated through transparency on all internal and external matters at the core of Intact Group’s values.” — Nathan Dale, Managing Director.

George Holman was forever chasing payments, losing membership sales and suffering irregular cash flow at his Sydney gymnasium. A trip to the US in 1996 to study their experienced fitness industry provided the answer – direct debits. After a hugely successful trial which increased his fitness club’s membership base from 200 to 4000 in one year, George decided to start a direct debit business called Ezypay to provide an easier payment plan for members. It was the first business outside a bank to provide direct debit services to other Australian businesses and the first to provide SMS follow-ups for failed payments. The Chatswood business gives clients the tools to create an online software system to collect, manage and recover customer payments. Ezypay has 31 staff and this year launched its direct debit gateway (DDG) product, enabling customers to securely initiate a transaction from their bank account or credit card directly from clients’ websites.

“With a collection rate of more than 99 per cent, Ezypay supports businesses in the regulation of cash flow and the reduction of bad debts.” — Celeste Kirby-Brown, Sales and Marketing Director.

As the mobile phone messaging industry evolved in the 1990s, North Sydney software development company Soprano Design was in the vanguard of developing infrastructure that routes and delivers SMS and MMS messages. Soprano developed a string of innovative business applications that meet the mobile messaging needs of an entire enterprise. It partners with leading IT&T vendors IBM, eServGlobal and mobile data leader Acision to co-distribute services to mobile network operators. A measure of their success was a 2009 invitation for Soprano CEO Dr Richard Favero to address the GSMA mobile world congress in Barcelona on the future of messaging. Established in 1994, Soprano grew significantly in recent years, winning contracts for mobile messaging services with Telstra, one Middle Eastern and two northern European operators. Soprano was a partner in industry-leading solutions in Australia including the first wireless application protocol in banking, first credit card transaction via SMS and first person-to-person mobile payment via SMS and interactive voice response.

"Soprano automates complex and time-consuming business processes, improves staff efficiency and reduces business-operating costs by reducing the “human latency” that causes business communication and process problems." — Richard Favero, CEO.

With barely $300 in capital, Robert and Melinda Chewying founded a lawn and garden care service in 1994. This evolved into a model for assisting marginalised workers into mainstream employment. ChewYings Lawn & Horticulture (CLH) gives opportunities to social security recipients in NSW’s Shoalhaven region to work in a non-government funded, commercial environment. Robert’s bipolar condition made even reading and writing a challenge but he was determined to improve through perseverance and education. CLH offers a choice for those locked into the social welfare spiral to succeed and its employees have gained horticulture and chemical users’ certificates. One of its garden care managers joined in 2003 after being unemployed for seven years since high school. CLH now employs between three and five people at any time and offers reliable service and a social benefit that most competitors cannot match.

"Success to me is not only profits or turnover; we designed the business around strategies of moving welfare recipients out of the welfare trap.” — Robert Chewyings, Partner.