Troubleshooters looks to SMB

Computer Troubleshooters will increasingly shift away from servicing home users as the services outfit looks to follow market trends and attract more small business work.

Founder, Wilson McOrist, said a recent US conference for franchisees revealed the future direction being recommended by the business.

"There's no long-term future in just fixing problems when a home computer has a virus or needs a firewall," he said. "The conference made people stop and think beyond the home user to small businesses with up to 20 people."

The content of the conference, generated through six months of research into the US market, will be presented later this year in Edinburgh and Melbourne.

"The guys in the US see the market moving into a new area. To date we've been in defence mode, but now we're moving into enhancement," McOrist said. "Instead of just responding when a home user has a problem, our responsibility will be to watch business systems with remote monitoring and fix problems before they result in downtime."

Already Computer Troubleshooters was starting to shift the 50-50 split between business and home user jobs.

"With 80 guys on the ground, we're increasingly attractive for businesses to hire," he said. "We just got some work from a US company which liked the fact we have people to carry out work as far afield as Darwin and Hobart."

McOrist said Computer Troubleshooters had 50 Australian franchises, with about 80 computer technicians. While his ultimate goal was to reach 200 franchises, he estimated growing the local business by 20 per cent in the next 12 months.

"We have a long-term plan to have a franchise in every reasonably sized town in the country," he said. "So if that's around 200 franchises, we're a quarter of the way there."