Young Entrepreneur - Scott Jones - IT Leaders

Oct, 2008

Scott Jones - IT Leaders

Business established: 2002
Number of staff: 13
Growth: 55%
Age: 31
Turnover: $1.5 million

INFORMATION technology (IT) problems bug every business, large or small but as the name suggests IT Leaders are leading the way in technology products and services to business. The Ashmore-based company is particularly focused on delivering, managing and fine-tuning IT infrastructure that result in very significant productivity and profit increases for businesses.

Founder 31-year-old Scott Jones says he initially started the business due to the lack of quality IT support to the SME market.

“There are a lot of under-skilled ‘cowboys’ in the IT industry, and I knew my ethical approach and skills could help small business,” he says.

The market downturn has not affected his business as it is insulated by providing an essential business supply, but keeping their growth in check has been challenging.

“We have a sustained growth rate in excess of 50 per cent each year, so that requires a lot of cash to feed it. I prefer to use organic cash rather than debt funding so I’m probably making things harder that way, but it’s a good defensive strategy,” says Jones.

Jones says he looks up to his mentor, an old army reserve friend whom he describes as ‘sharpest person you are ever likely to meet when it comes to crunching numbers’.

“He can smell a good deal from a kilometre away, and has an unflinching methodical dedication to optimising profit,” says Jones. “We differ significantly in some areas of business, but my natural tendency is to be too generous to people to my own detriment, so I highly value having his hard-line viewpoint.”

Jones is optimistic about the future.

“I saw the writing on the wall for IT providers that were only doing break-fix type work, which is where we started out,” says Jones. “The IT Support industry is undergoing worldwide changes and I have always wanted to be on the leading edge of improvements (hence the name).”

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Young Entrepreneur - Scott Jones - IT Leaders

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