Media Release 31 January 2005
Zions’ partnership with Martex Software Solutions provides rapidly expanding small business customers with access to electronic book keeping and payroll solution.
(Sydney, January 31). Australia’s leading supplier of specialist business books and stationery for small businesses, Zions, today announced a partnership with Australian business software company Martex Software Solutions to exclusively distribute Martex’s bookkeeping and payroll software product, BusinessBreeze.
Operating in Australia since 1907, Zions’ has a solid reputation for supporting small Australian businesses having supplied thousands of Australian small business owners with all their business books and stationery. Adding an electronic bookkeeping solution to the mix is a critical part of Zions’ 2005 market extension strategy where it seeks to add products that reflect the company’s ethos of ‘Business Recording Made Easy’ for small businesses.
“We’re extremely excited about this partnership as progressive companies need to add products to the mix that extend the core range and provide opportunities for their channel to be more successful”, says John Given, chief executive officer, Zions. “BusinessBreeze is by far the perfect addition to our family.”
Charles Alexiou, managing director for Martex is quick to agree. “We developed BusinessBreeze with a ‘typical Zions’ customer foremost in mind. This person may have started out using a manual bookkeeping and payroll system but was now considering migrating to an electronic system. They may not be particularly computer savvy or au fait with accounting jargon, practices and the intricacies of Government compliance.”
“BusinessBreeze takes the pain out of these tasks - it’s super easy to use, takes care of compliance issues and produces the results with a few clicks of the mouse. It’s the perfect next step for a ‘Zions’ customer whose business is growing and it’s an easy sell for Zions’ channel.”
The impetus for adding this new business offering to Zions’ smallbusiness essentials® range was customer and channel driven, based on feedback received from over 400 customers and resellers during focus groups held over the past two years. For customers who had out grown their manual systems the general consensus was that the bookkeeping and payroll software products currently available in the market did not appropriately meet their needs. The reasons given were that these packages required users to have at least a basic understanding of book keeping terminology and processes, they were reported to be overly complicated and time consuming to use not to mention costly to purchase and run.
Intensive market appraisal of a suitable software product led Zions to Martex and Given wholeheartedly believes BusinessBreeze will provide Zions’ channel with a great opportunity to develop and grow a lucrative additional revenue stream out of what is effectively a self service, high value product at a highly competitive price point.
Channel partners will also welcome the news that Zions has its eyes on a number of initiatives for the year ahead and is looking to add other complementary products to its range that will meet customer needs and help deliver greater results to its channel partners’ bottom lines.
As Given explains “Zions is wholly committed to developing additional market extensions to strengthen the current range and we’re looking forward to working with Martex to provide our customers and channel with additional state of the market small business products”.
Contact
Sandra Plummer
Sales and Marketing
Zions Pty Ltd
(02) 9597 1766
Jos Budge
PR for Zions and Martex
Eklektik Consulting
(02) 9006 1699
About Zions
Australian owned and operated, Zions first started business in 1907 and has built a solid reputation for supplying small businesses throughout Australia with all their specialist business books and stationery requirements. Over 300 products covering time and wage recording, on-road recording, taxation recording and hospitality recording are sold nationally through office stationers, wholesalers, newsagents and direct selling organisations. The head office is located in Rockdale Sydney with specialist distributors based in each State and overseas.
About Martex Software Solutions
Martex Software Solutions Pty Ltd is the Australian developer and manufacturer of Australia’s first ‘click and run’ book keeping and payroll software for MS Windows and MacOS operating systems. In late November 2002 it produced and released to market BusinessBreeze – a bookkeeping and payroll software package aimed at the small business operator in Australasia.
