What makes a business successful?  It’s a good question and one that can be difficult to answer. For us, however, it’s always been about focus.

Focus on looking after customers, focus on really understanding their challenges and focus on going the extra mile.  At Upstream, it’s also about focusing on looking after our SME customer base – not trying to juggle both huge players and sole traders.  Like texting and walking, it’s difficult to do both well at the same time.

When you look at other successful businesses, even those much larger than ours, it’s clear focus is an important factor as to why they’ve got where they are.  Take Richard Branson’s Virgin empire for instance.  At first glance, it might not seem an obvious example when talking about the importance of focus given the vast array of businesses that carry the Virgin name.  But when you consider why everything from airlines to health clubs has been so successful it’s because the Virgin brand is totally committed and focused on one thing – delivering excellent customer service.

Now, managed print services might not be as glamorous as health clubs and airlines but it’s what we do and what we know.  So we’ll leave that other stuff to those that know better and instead focus on what matters to us – making life easier and reducing costs for Australian businesses.