Aquila Systems
Aquila Systems Ltd offers business and IT solutions to small businesses in New Zealand. We are nimble, dynamic and innovative, and will work with you closely to achieve an efficient and effective result.
We are an Auckland based company so ongoing site-orientated work is offered within this locality. However a great deal of business and IT development and support can be achieved seamlessly via the internet which means we can assist you regardless of where you are located in New Zealand.
Are you a small business that needs some beneficial business guidance? … or a better IT result?
We specialise in helping with core aspects of a small business …
And these days the two are usually intricately intertwined.
We ourselves are a small business so we know first-hand about the generic realities that most small businesses are exposed to. For example, we know …
Therefore, being a small business generally we have had to deal with these factors too, and find realistic solutions to them. But because we specialise in helping other small businesses we also have been exposed to issues that are not necessarily so commonplace, and that has extended our experience and range of solutions considerably.
So we know the general context and terrain of small business. For example, solutions we have developed for our own or clients' situations will in principle generally be relevant to any small business, whether this involves problems directly related to the business itself, or its IT system.
But it’s highly likely we can recognise not only your issues, but also have a very good understanding of the precise impact those issues are having on your business operation, cash-flow and personal morale, and how dealing with the impact in some cases is often necessary as part of the whole solution.
Aquila Systems have been in business since 1992, starting with importing domestic retail software and simple database developments for businesses. Since then we have expanded into small business consultancy and more general as well as more specialised IT solutions.
Hoop Arkwright, the Managing Director and driving force of Aquila Systems, initially co-owned and ran a large landscaping business in Auckland involving a mix of commercial and private work. After quite a few years of doing this he then started training and practising in Microsoft technologies and at a later point then established Aquila Systems with a partner as a vehicle through which to offer IT services.
For many years Hoop juggled working in both businesses and while this was quite a challenge at times he relished the variety it provided. And a by-product of this was he learnt entrepreneurial, management, marketing and operational skills in two very different kinds of business. He then left both of these businesses and worked as an employee in various small to medium-sized corporate IT environments, involving a mix of government and private work. After 10 years of that he eventually returned to be the IT Manager of Aquila Systems, where he has been till the current day.
At Aquila Systems we value taking responsibility and being up-front; also being flexible, thorough and reliable. For example - if we can’t help you, or feel you would really be better served by another business, we will simply tell you as such. We’re not interested in anything but a good match for both us and our customers.
Aquila Systems are a great ally for our business – available, honest, thorough, effective and affordable – this is exactly what we wanted for our IT development and support.Phil Tapp, KBL Joinery
A typical New Zealand small business ranges in size from 1 to approximately 50 people. For the smaller small business (1 to 10 personnel) we can offer business consulting, giving guidance on many aspects of business including:
We can work with you to create great marketing content for your brochure, website or Facebook page. We know that successful marketing content must deal with six key factors that stand between any prospective customer and their decision to purchase your service or product.
We can also create business documents such as newsletters, proposals, contracts, template letters, specific customer responses etc.
For small business Aquila Systems offers IT development and general IT support in New Zealand, and dedicated IT site support in Auckland. We specialise in business applications requiring customised database storage of data.
Certainly. If it’s business guidance you’re looking for we can quickly assess your situation and needs, and offer support and/or solutions. If it’s IT related, many IT issues only involve a single user, even in much larger businesses than yours, so helping you is just the same to us.
We are a 40 person business with 10 in the office – can you help us with our IT needs?Depending on what they are, most probably. Currently we are transitioning from mainly a development focus to also supporting networks, but this is still a work in progress – therefore we are not offering full network support just yet. However we can help with everything else except your network – e.g. user client/workstation support, application support, automation, integration, developing bespoke (custom) business application software etc.
Our office has 7 users in it on a MS Small Business Server network. It’s now obsolete and we want to move our network to the cloud. Can you help us with that?Yes. Utilising MS Office 365 would probably be your best bet, and if you went that route we could help with every stage of that process, for example … with all the planning; with the initial auditing of your hardware and upgrading of it; with moving your email from Exchange Server to Exchange Online; with any data migration from old application formats to new formats; training; sorting out all the inevitable fish hooks and wrinkles involved with moving to a new system, etc.
Our production process is assisted by a variety of spreadsheets, word documents and physical paper work. Can you build us a software application or integrated system that automates and streamlines this process as much as possible for us?Absolutely - we specialise in this. The project would happen in two main stages. We’d talk to those of you who know the business process, or dedicated representatives, and determine what the new software would need to do. Then we’d work with you interactively to design it. Once the design was completed we’d know how much it would cost to build. If you wanted to continue we’d start building it in an “agile” way. That means you’d be involved with the project in an ongoing way throughout, and thus misunderstandings or errors would be caught early on and thus minimised, and also that any subsequent changes in the requirements would have more chance of being incorporated. Once built we’d train you to use it, and get you to test it did what it was designed to do. Then we’d be there if you had any issues once it was in general ongoing use in the business.
Business guidance is an art as much as it is a science. Every business is different and what is one man’s food is another man’s poison. Therefore the same advice does not always apply equally well to every business. Nevertheless we strive to consistently offer helpful and effective small business consulting. But due to the varied nature of business situations our input may not always show immediate results. So if ever this is looking like the case, we ask that you wait a while before coming to a conclusion that our consulting input hasn’t helped you in any way. That said we do not want unhappy customers, and if anytime between six and nine months after receiving business consultation from us you still feel unsatisfied with our service, just let us know, and why, and unless we feel you are being unreasonable or unrealistic regarding this, we’ll give you at least a partial, if not full, refund of your costs for that particular consultation service/advice.
Computer systems are something else yet again. They can be extremely varied, are often complex, and all have their own idiosyncrasies and quirks. But getting positive results with them is definitely a more scientific process. Regardless - we will always check that our work has achieved the result we said it should have, and will keep applying ourselves to the issue/goal until that is the case.
Swanson
Auckland 0614
09 832 7977
021 348 804