Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is Smartech?

Smart Tech is a name that may be unfamiliar to most consumers, but the company sits at the heart of modern commerce in Australia and across the Asia Pacific region. The company, which provides business-to-business (B2B) payment platforms and e-commerce solutions for postal and logistics authorities, recently relocated its headquarters from Hong Kong to Sydney after a period of social and political turbulence in its previous home city.

Vince Nier, Smart Tech's president and CEO, spoke to 10 Minute IT Jams about the company's evolution and the challenges facing technology businesses in the Asia-Pacific region.

"We provide payment platforms for coastal authorities in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, across the Asia Pacific," he began. "What that means is we connect the postal authorities to their end customer base. These are B2B clients that most of the authorities have, that actually get automated solutions whether it's mailing services, whatever it may be. There are millions of dollars worth of transactions happening between the coastal authorities - for instance, Australia Post and their end clients in Australia - and what those authorities do, they use our software, they use our hardware solutions to make sure that the payment goes through," he explained.

Smart Tech's offering is multi-faceted and goes far beyond software. "We are also a large provider of high format printed solutions in Australia. As a matter of fact, we are one of the largest. We represent manufacturers like HP, Epson, Canon, probably about half a dozen of those global hardware large format graphics solutions. We sell those products to the end customer base and we service those solutions, we actually do the maintenance for them as well," said Nier.

A third major pillar is Smart Tech's e-commerce parcel locker business. "We're Australia's largest e-commerce parcel locker solutions provider - hardware and software solutions - to the likes of Australia Post, where we provide hundreds of digital parcel locker solutions … and we service them, we run the client centre solutions for users of those digital parcel locker solutions," Nier added.

Nier, whose professional history is entwined with both Australia and Hong Kong, recently oversaw the company's dramatic relocation south. He cited the importance of stable, predictable governance for growing technology businesses, explaining that the shift was precipitated by political changes in Hong Kong in 2019.

"As of last year there were about 300 US companies HQ'd in Hong Kong for the Asia Pacific operations," he recounted. "Being there and spending a lot of time in Hong Kong right up till the end of 2019, we all felt - I mean, the business leaders felt - a lot of nervousness in terms of what had happened through the protests … and where all of those messaging was going with China and the potential for the bill getting completion through both houses," he said.

The introduction of the national security law and the subsequent unrest prompted significant soul searching. "There has been that genesis back in 2019 that got us to start thinking about what the future of our business would be - should it be in Hong Kong, should it be outside of Hong Kong in terms of our head office and our investments?" Nier explained. He continued: "Wherever there are head offices and headquarters, shareholders and the rest of the global operational subsidiaries, they rely on the head office for strategy … they rely on the head office to make sure that future growth stems from the market certainties in that country."

Covid-19 only strengthened the impetus to move. Nier conceded, "The pandemic didn't help at all - that kind of forced many businesses that I know of in Hong Kong … and kind of started forcing us to study to look elsewhere."

For Nier himself, who has lived in Sydney for 35 years and worked across the region, the answer was relatively straightforward. "We were very fortunate enough to have, over the last six or seven years, become financially self-sufficient, so it was a matter of discussing with the board in terms of where we would be investing, into which country, which country showed and demonstrated that we had the right political, I guess, alignment in terms of certainty in a very difficult pandemic," he said.

Smart Tech seriously considered Austin, Texas, before ultimately settling on Australia. "We ended up deciding to move to Australia and therefore we started looking at acquisitions and completed the acquisition in December … and we are now also looking at further investments in Australia," Nier confirmed.

Ensuring growth in a period of such dramatic change, not least a pandemic and a head office relocation, was far from easy. "It's been challenging," he admitted. "What a lot of people don't focus on is the risk factors for any business - growth has to be kind of enveloped around risk factors. There's always going to be risk even in a stable economic zone, let alone where we've been in the last couple of years in Asia and here," Nier said.

He attributed recent successes to rigorous due diligence and preparation. In particular, Smart Tech acquired an Australian business with a similar structure, ensuring "alignment" and giving the merged entity a strong platform. "We had to make sure that the two big parts of our future growth - which was relocating our head office from Hong Kong to Australia and making sure that we were acquiring and investing our money in the right business - we had to go through a lot of iterations for that," he explained.

The proof, Nier said, is in the results. "Every month we have met our revenue and earnings target - in January, February, we exceeded all those months. In April we just got year-to-date results for our company in Australia - so we're exceeding what was the plan that was actually created back in December in conjunction with the former owners, so that's been a good measure for us," Nier said.

Looking ahead, Nier is ambitious to build further and is actively negotiating with private equity groups. "We want to now invite a couple of [private equity groups] to work with us, to invest in our future. So our earnings have been very strong in terms of the last seven years of our operations, and year-to-date this year looks stronger. We have a couple of target companies that we are in discussions with right now, and I'm hoping that for our 2022 plans we have doubled our revenue base and we have secured a stronger position for our shareholders and employees in Australia," he said.

As the interview concluded, Nier's confidence was palpable. "My pleasure - thank you very much," he said. "Thanks for inviting me."