Meet the co-founders of ITARMI
We are a husband and wife team! We established ITARMI three and a half years ago with the mission to revolutionise the way that IT services are delivered to businesses by connecting them directly to technical talent through an effortlessly fast mobile journey.
Prior to ITARMI, Brett spent 20 years working at some of the world’s leading IT service providers where he was responsible for $100m dollars of sales in 7 years. Working in business development, he gained vast knowledge in channel partners, SaaS platforms, engineering requirements, customer experiences and more.
Jenni is the driving force behind ITARMI. Prior to founding ITARMI, she worked in the automotive sales industry before founding her own consultancy business, One Tap Resourcing, which facilitated businesses with Independent Consultancy roles focusing on Business Development, New Business Start Up, Campaign Coordination, Event Organisation and Management and Marketing.
What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?
Our clients’ needs vary from hardware installations (& de-installations) and network configurations to troubleshooting and deployment projects.
Our ever-growing base of engineers with diverse technical capabilities means that we are able to respond to almost any problem that our customers may have.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
Whilst on a business trip to New York, Brett got chatting to a taxi driver about how much business they had lost due to the growth of Uber. This got him thinking about Uber’s on-demand app and their strategy for meeting customers’ needs more effectively.
He realised that certain aspects of their business model could be applied in the IT industry to fix the gaps he had noticed throughout his career.
The end goal is to empower the modern engineering workforce to always be in control of their work and be fairly rewarded and remunerated for it, so that we are all able to enjoy the drive, passion and spark for what we do every day.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
We really believe that technology should be used to liberate and empower people, which is why we are both determined to ensure that we give IT engineers all over the globe the opportunity to progress their careers and be fairly remunerated and rewarded.
The social purpose that drives ITARMI is at the forefront of everything that we do, which is what we believe sets us apart in the industry.
Keeping an eye on the numbers in any business is important. How do you ensure that you’re always up to date?
To give an honest answer, we would say that our start-up journey has not been the easiest and we have had our fair share of experience in the “dog-eat-dog” world that is sadly business. This has forced us to be more mindful and cautious and to make smarter decisions around the types of work we take and the partners we choose to work with.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
We’ve definitely had first-hand experience of the saying “there are no friends in business”, but in saying that we have also had first-hand experience of clients who have gone above and beyond to help us.
We’ve had rough times juggling payments and operating at low costs just to survive, but I liken it to Wildebeest crossing the Serengeti; there are hazards like crocodiles waiting to eat you on your way, but you must be brave enough to cross anyway. In our case, these crocodiles were bankrupt suppliers, unethical recruiters and Covid-19. You will always face these types of challenges but it’s about not being naive, and being adaptable, strong and tenacious.
With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?
Thanks to our forward-thinking business model, we have been able to attract a large base of highly skilled IT professionals with diverse capabilities across an array of technology stacks and vendors. This means that we are able to provide organisations across the world with exactly the right type of support, no matter what their needs.
With technologies ranging from Apple and Cisco to Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, our certified engineers really can cover all bases, meaning that our customers are truly spoilt for choice when it comes to the services we offer.
Yes, there’s innovation in the way we service our clients. But ultimately, it’s about understanding their needs and always being able to go the extra mile to meet them. Same goes for our engineers, they have a far more personal experience of working through ITARMI than by contracting out on their own, we offer lots of rewards, training and benefits to engineers working through the platform. That user experience for both sides is unique to ITARMI.
What are your thoughts on failure?
Failure is inherent in starting a business. It takes a long time to feel like you’re making a success of it. We’ve experienced so many hurdles in the past three and a half years that it would have been easy to throw in the towel on many occasions. As we said before, you need to be really focused and tenacious to succeed. Failure is just a part of the process.
What plans do you have for your business over the next two years?
We are already in the beginning stages of integrating our technology with global leading ITSM platforms and CRMs which will give us exposure to the Fortune 500. Alongside that we are continuing our expansion plans in the USA.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will affect your industry over the next 10 years?
It is important for organisations to leverage technology successfully in order to expand and meet changing customer demands. Not doing so in the next 10 years means being left behind or even ceasing to exist.
Customers are now looking for companies that can reimagine, reform and perform in ‘the new normal’ of Covid-19, and the key to this is expedited digital transformation. For a lot of businesses, this will be the difference between success and failure.
There are some adaptations that businesses have had to make this year that will stay with them for good. IT service providers need to be prepared for that and meet their needs now, not their needs prior to the pandemic.
ITARMI’s platform-based business model has no doubt been pivotal in allowing us to continue to grow this year. There will definitely be an increase in remote IT services in the future and we will continue to scale and grow to reflect this.
What do you think gives a brand longevity?
For us, what gives a brand longevity is having a purpose.
Our desire has never been to sell out quickly; we want to be here to do great things for the long term.
ITARMI is all about building the IT workforce of the future: talented technical professionals who are all driven by a common goal, much like a pack of wolves. This is what inspired our branding – the wolf – as it represents our culture of strength, courage and teamwork. Our goal is to meet every customer’s needs, and our engineers are the people who make it all possible.
Despite being an innovative tech company, the people are at the heart of what we do and always will be.
