LITTLE more than a decade ago, a couple of young men from the suburbs started their IT business, sharing a desk in a makeshift workspace, complete with their loyal hound, Bailey the dog.
With a growth trend many businesses can only dream of in today’s economic climate, Sean Cunneen and Tony Panetta have cultivated their XciteLogic business into a multi-million dollar outfit. Turnover has grown by 600 per cent since 2008 and their staff-base increased from 22 personnel to 105 around the country in the same period.
This was boosted by its recent acquisition of NSW-based company Key Options Technology.
XciteLogic provides network and computing solutions with its primary focus on the educational, medical and corporate sectors. About 60 Australian schools, including Mazenod College, Corpus Christi, and St Brigid’s College in Western Australia have benefited from custom-designed educational software programs, IT support and ongoing service and training from the company.
XciteLogic’s consulting service, which redesigns classrooms to create better working spaces for students and assist teachers with the integration of technology into their lesson plans and curriculum, has complemented the IT side of the operation.
Part of their educational offering has included a smartphone app designed for children with special needs.
The app can allow a Downs Syndrome child, for instance, to share their recently finished painting with a parent at work, or help a child with a speech impairment to better communicate with their teacher.
On the medical front, the company has developed a unique program called ‘Office in a Box’– a tailor-made software model that allows a specialist surgical practice to exist with next to no physical IT equipment.
The model is based on cloud-based technology, which enables surgeons on the go and related personnel to access phone calls, either on their mobile phones, in the office, or at a surgery phone in a different hospital – and if travelling in a remote community, via computer.
Such technology has brought new meaning to the operating theatre where specialists can, in the midst of surgery preparation, refer to pathology results via their iPad, or on their desktop if attending to a patient.
It’s this paperless environment that’s becoming the desired business model for many medical practices, meaning doctors simply take their laptops into the operating theatre with access to all patient information, eliminating the need for files and associated ‘paper’ documentation.
XciteLogic is looking to expand its expertise into the Asia Pacific market, recently working with Apple to increase its business interests in Singapore.
The company has identified a corporate preference towards mobile devices that link to corporate networks and consequently created a specialist app arm in 2010 to focus entirely on Australian businesses seeking mobile diversity.
