Greentree Game On winners announced

Last month, we wrote about a unique contest put on by software company Greentree: two businesses, one from Australia and one from New Zealand, were competing to win a business management software package valued at $250,000, custom-designed to cure the daily headaches for which they became competition finalists.

Asked to describe the ‘pain points’ and day-to-day issues encountered at work that are hindering the company’s growth, dozens of businesses around Oceania entered the competition with the hope that their case was strong enough to land them a quarter-million dollar makeover.

The winners of this valuable prize have been announced:

In Australia, Kimberley Accommodation took home the grand prize.

"I fell in love with Kimberley's story because it showed a pioneering spirit and a challenge to make the most out of a fairly difficult set of circumstances," said Chris Alp, one of the Greentree Game On judges.

The family-owned business operates three hotels, a cafe and a brewery in the Western Australian mining region, and according to Financial Controller Garry Herbert, compiling profits & losses summaries with the current system is an accounting nightmare. The group is currently building a resort near the Berkeley River and has plans to expand into Broome and Wyndham, but before this could be made possible, Herbert said, a central purchasing system would need to be implemented.

 “All that stuff is only made possible when we know how our finances are going and whether the business has got the cash to support it. Greentree would give us the confidence moving forward," said Herbert in his bid for Greentree's software package.

Upon learning that Kimberley Accommodation had been declared the competition winner, Herbert rejoiced for saved time.

“I was told we’d won Game On as I was heading into a board meeting to present our quarterly financial results,” he said. “That report took me over 40 man-hours to produce. With Greentree I’ll be able to run that consolidated report straight from the system at the push of a button – that’s a week a month given back to me, straight away.”

In New Zealand, Smail & Co. beat out nine other competitors.

"People in Christchurch are going to want to rebuild quickly. The residential market is very demanding, so they're going to want that information there, then and now, and so managing that flow of information to the customers and communicating to them clearly will be crucial," said Annabel Smail, Director and Marketing Manager of NZ's Game On winning business Smail & Co.

The 50-year-old father/daughter-run company produces and imports bathroom furniture and cabinetry to Christchurch, but throughout their good-hearted efforts to help rebuild homes and offices post-earthquake, they've run into a series of headaches caused by their outdated accounting system.

Using a humourous approach to explain their dire IT situation, Smail won the hearts of the judges and the ultimate software package.

“With Greentree, we could get rid of Dad, and the long drop!," Annabel said in her presentation. Now, "there is a light at the end of the tunnel."