Channel success: Soltius celebrates 20 years of attitude

Think attitude as much as technical aptitude – that’s the message from Soltius boss Nick Mulcahy as New Zealand’s only Gold SAP partner celebrates its 20th birthday.

Mulcahy, who is Soltius’ chief executive, says while SAP technical expertise has always been critically important to the business, knowledge alone was never a guarantee of success.

“Our unparalleled knowledge of SAP and its peripherals, coupled with a team of incredibly skilled professionals, means we’ve been able to build a customer track record that is second to none,” Mulcahy says.

“However, our success is not just due to the technical skill of our people – it’s been as much about their attitude and their consistent approach to bringing commitment, integrity and respect to all their work.”

The 100% New Zealand owned IT consulting firm began in 1996 as a subsidiary of United States company Intelligroup.

Ten years and one management buyout later, the company was renamed to Soltius and Mulcahy says the company has consistently grown in both size and scope in the years since, with Soltius working with more than 80 organisations New Zealand wide to provide SAP soltuions, support and consulting.

Mulcahy says market competition for talent, and the highly skilled nature of Soltius’ work, has meant the company always had a keen focus on making Soltius ‘a great place to work’ – despite a keen skepticism on Mulcahy’s part for the current trendiness of workplace environments.

“I don’t mean that in a trendy, let’s be fashionable and talk about staff well-being this week – there’s far too much of that about,” Mulcahy says.

“I mean it as in a bedrock of our company culture.

“It’s about the steady week-in, week-out efforts and actions to ensure that Soltius is a place where we all want to come to work and do great things for our clients.”

It’s proved a winning proposition for the company, which has been a finalist in Kenexa’s Best Workplaces awards every year since 2012, and was a finalist in the JRA Best Places to Work in 2011.

And it hasn’t been at the expense of technical accolades either, with Soltius scooping up a multitude of awards over the years, including SAP Best Practices Award for Most Projects in 2005 and Highest Performing All-in-one Channel Partner, New Zealand the same year and, more recently Best Performing SAP Partner for ANZ in 2015. The company received a trifecta of awards in 2013, claiming SAP ANZ Customer Award of Excellence, New Zealand SAP Channel Partner Award and Best SAP RDS Partner.

Mulcahy says the company’s focus on making Soltius a great place to work pays off because it creates a culture of long term behaviour of doing what is best for the client.

“We’ve always been about helping solve our client’s biggest problems and continue on this mission today as we branch out into new areas.

“Our recent partnership with Amazon Web Services to build our own cloud platform business line, as well as the addition of a specialist SAP testing practice to our portfolio, are examples of this.”