Australian Pest Industry Case Studies

Australia’s benchmark developer and distributor of integrated business management software solutions for Australian pest managers, Temisoft, appear set to create an information management revolution which will be
good news for pest managers, and the environment.

In all likelihood, ‘they’ would probably agree that thirteen years is a Long time in pest management. And, ‘they’ would probably be right … as ‘they’ are about many if not most things.

But thirteen years and counting is how Long it has taken one of Sydney’s more progressive pest managers to investigate, analyse, select, deploy and start to develop an internet based business and data management system.

Shane Clarke, who owns and manages Pestforce out at Round Corner in Sydney’s north west, took over the family business from his father, Max, in the early 1990s.

Temisoft started off eleven years ago by an Armenian emigrant computer programmer and his wife. Kevork and Denise Temisgian still run the show. But they now have five more geeks to help them develop and drive their thriving service orientated business. From day one, Temisoft (the Temi from Temisgian and soft from software) set itself apart from other software developers, through Kevork’s insistence on working in partnership with his clients.

“From my background in call centre management and helpdesk software, I knew how to write software. But what good is software that fails to meet a business need? Our clients have a relationship with us based on confidence.
They tell us about their business, and their goals and aspirations. And we set out to help them make their dreams come true,” Kevork said.

Many people confuse the terms, “regimentation” and “discipline”‘ and tend to use one when they mean the other.
Simon Dixon, owner and technical director of Melbourne based Exopest, understands the difference and knows
which philosophy he values most highly: strive for excellence.

Exopest was formed in July 1985 when four pest managers, Simon Dixon, Laurie Again, Bob Rennie and Greg Donnison, left Antipest (formerly Rentokil) to strike out on their own. From a humble, capital starved beginning focussing on fumigation in Bertie Street, Port Melbourne, Exopest, now owned totally by Simon Dixon, has grown to now employ a staff of 18 handling commercial and domestic business right across the greater Melbourne area.

When Jenny and Robert McPherson took up a franchise in the Elite Maintenance Services group in 1984, they envisaged operating a carpet drycleaning company, pure and simple.

Wrong! Today, they and their extended family run two Elite franchises: the original business at Burleigh Heads on the Queensland Gold Coast, and another based in the southern Brisbane suburb of Loganholme.

For many if not most small pest management businesses, shelling out thousands of dollars on computers and computer software can often be hard to justify. On the other hand, an inability or unwillingness to invest in state-of-the-art reporting, inspection and scheduling tools can mean being left behind in the “professionalism stakes” and falling behind the competition in terms of time efficiency.