Former PrimeQ founder launches digital consultancy The Big Middle
Adelaide has welcomed yet another digital consultancy – The Big Middle – launched by former PrimeQ co-founders with a focus on Oracle and Salesforce services to the mid-market.
Barely the three years after selling off his previous Oracle-focused consultancy PrimeQ to professional services giant Accenture for a reported $30 million, co-founder Andrew McAdams has launched another Adelaide-based Oracle and Salesforce specialist by the name of The Big Middle, which, as the moniker suggests, will cater to mid-market clients. PrimeQ itself was purchased only the three years after its establishment in 2016.
In The Big Middle’s terms of reference, the ‘mid market’ covers businesses with revenue of between $100 million and $1 billion, which McAdams contends have been abandoned by the likes of Accenture and the digital arms of the Big Four.
“Australia’s mid-market business community has been let down by the major technology providers who have shifted their focus to larger corporations while acquiring many of the smaller resellers,” he said.
The intention of The Big Middle, McAdams added, is to fill the ‘enormous gap’ they’ve left in the market. Serving as chief executive, McAdams is joined by co-founder and COO Greg Taylor, who was also on board during the establishment of PrimeQ. Both stayed on with Accenture for at least a year, and had previously been long-term colleagues at DXC’s Oracle practice Red Rock, with McAdams also spending time with Deloitte in New Zealand.
At the time of PrimeQ’s sale, it was said that the company had grown to become one of Accenture and Deloitte’s biggest competitors for local Oracle contracts, generating almost $30 million in its final financial year, up from just $9 million the year prior.
Still, it was unlikely foreseen just how much of a tech hub Adelaide would prove to become, with Accenture just one of the major players to have descended on the city in the past two or so years since.
While The Big Middle founders say they are now looking to bring in 150 software consultants – a number close to the size of PrimeQ – the new firm is also touting its remote delivery capabilities, with candidates to be employed on both sides of the Tasman. In attempting to attract talent in a wildly competitive market, the company has said that it has avoided listing ‘perks’ such as work-life balance and diversity as workplace benefits, as these should be a given.
Instead, The Big Middle aims to provide employees a sense of purpose and personal interaction with clients. “We have the benefit of designing our workforce around Covid-19, rather than adapting to it,” McAdams concluded. “Too often, employees in big consulting firms feel stuck and like a number. We bring a different approach, knowing that great organisations are those with a strong culture, where everyone is valued and has an opportunity to flourish.”
He continued; “Covid-19 has irrevocably changed the business landscape. Online customer experience is now paramount and weaknesses in supply chains have been exposed, yet too many organisations can’t unlock enough of their data to better understand and address these opportunities and challenges. This is all taking place in an environment of remote work-forces and changing employee expectations that require faster and more efficient models of remote delivery.”
