Is any of that targeted for M&A activity? No. M&A is one of those things that can take a while to build up and there has been nothing come in the door that has been interesting. We are always looking but M&A is not something which is critical for us. What is more critical is growing our distribution path. Having a good product doesn't get it to market. You have to have good people who take that people to the local market. That is Americans selling to Americans, Canadians selling to Canadians and Malaysians selling to Malaysians. That is a process we have used in our markets to grow at present and it is working very well.
In terms of other markets you see as opportunity, is it South East Asia, China, India, EMEA? Where do you highlight outside of North America as growth opportunities? That's an interesting question. People often go for the aberrations of emerging markets. That is not the strategy we go for. The reason is that China is a complicated market to get money out of and difficult with compliance. Where we tend to focus is ex-English Commonwealth countries. Everywhere there is an ex-pink part on the map – when you went to school there where pink countries everywhere. What happens is they have a business structure that is left over from the English which is pretty much normal compliance of what we understand. India, Sri Lanka, Canada, the US – they've been called an ex-colony – Malaysia, Singapore and some parts of Africa. With those sorts of places we have a relatively natural fit and we tend to target Commonwealth inspired kinds of countries.
Do you think it helps being Australian in those markets with the way we approach things? Yes, I think it does. If you are European, for example, there a lot of cultural barriers to selling in the US. If you are American selling into Europe there are a lot of cultural barriers. Australians' personality, attitude and directness tend to be well respected. Although it can sometimes ignore Asian face. But basically they understand what we are because we are transparent people. And we just get on with the job, that is a big difference.
You've been in charge a decade, the operation is quite successful and you are expanding overseas, what is the next challenge for you? I want to make Mr SAP get out of the way and I will take over from Mr Larry at Oracle. Maybe that is a bit too hairy. I think the part that gives me a lot of get up and go is that I love selling software in Australia. But I am delighted when our company or partners sell software overseas. It is beating them on the world stage. When you do that you are competing against the largest in the world. In that situation it is true Australians going out and doing what they should be doing. That is what makes me proud. That is the sort of thing you don't want to stop doing.
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