Secret of an IT consultancy’s success: replace yourself with code

We interview the Founder and CEO of Amach, an Irish software consultancy that has helped take Aer Lingus on a transformative journey: into the cloud

There are two types of CEO. Some have their head in the clouds, close to their egos. Others are plain-speaking and down-to-earth. Ironically for a company that has helped Aer Lingus switch its operations to the cloud, Andrew Logan, the Founder and CEO of Amach, falls decisively into the latter category.

Speaking with a soft Irish brogue, the type of accent Hollywood loves, he reveals his philosophy — and the ultimate reason he set up his own software consultancy — in one short recollection. This was back in the early 2000s, when he worked as an engineer for a professional services company.

“I coded up a piece of work that automated a lot of manual processes and the customer loved,” said Andrew “Because they had expected the need for a large team to manually solve their problems and were surprised by the fact that it could be, relatively, easily solved by automation. What became clear, was how many companies were still working completely manually, and hadn’t considered what they could achieve with modern or emerging tech.”

This philosophy of creative ideas, automation and emerging tech combined with a focus on delivering quality has powered Amach ever since. “You should always be trying to do yourself out of a job as an engineer,” he said. Which explains Amach’s sales pitch: “Bring us in to augment and upskill your existing teams, make use of the knowledge and experience we bring to ensure; not only successful delivery of key projects, but that your teams, and systems, are set up and self-sufficient into the future.”

Ignition point

Andrew lived up to that philosophy immediately, leaving that company to join Newbay Software, where he took great joy at being surrounded by extremely smart people.

“I worked with ex-Google, ex-Pixar, extremely intelligent people with PhD’s in computing and everything else,” he said. “I would stay in that office all evening just to consume as much information as I could from these people.”

And that’s when another formative event occurred: BlackBerry knocked on the door and purchased the company. Andrews shares vested, it was time to sell up, he purchased a camper van and together with his wife set off for a grand tour of Europe.

The journey begins

While the road trip delivered some valuable life lessons, eventually Andrew was drawn back to working life by a phone call from some friends who wanted him to join an ambitious project.

“An investor wanted to build a new social network [to rival Facebook]. To build a platform that scales like this is a fantastic challenge, and we recommended an initial proof of concept, but they wanted to go big or go home.”

“This is a tech guy’s dream. So, we pushed on and we built it. It went live and had some big names marketing it… In the end it took on a different life beyond what we originally planned. The lesson, great tech can sometimes create interesting opportunities.

Click here to learn more about Amach Solutions…

This isn’t a fluff piece that promises you the world with no effort. It’s a down-to-Earth, practical guide on how to move your contact centre to the cloud, with a particular focus on Amazon Connect (although much of the advice applies to other cloud contact centre solutions).

Wheels up

Time to find a new challenge. Andrew was speaking with numerous consultancies when a friend called with a problem, looking for some advice. They were working with a large US retailer who had several technology challenges.

During the call Andrew quickly realised that this wasn’t just a one-person job. Especially considering he could see the potential solutions already. This is when Andrew formed Amach, contacted a few old colleagues to join him and they went to work.

As Andrew’s team addressed the challenges, consistently delivering high-quality results, they were handed numerous others. This required further growth and with that expanding roster came more opportunity. “The new people that joined said to me: ‘My past employer has this same problem. Do you want to talk to them?’”

It doesn’t take a genius to see the pattern that Andrew has seen and was following. By solving companies’ problems with innovate solutions versus manual effort, Andrew and his rapidly growing team kept generating new work. After all, enterprises tend to have more than one IT problem — and to executives driving ambitious change, a partner you can trust is worth its weight in gold.

“As the challenges came up, we kept solving them and every time we got up to leave, the company would offer us more work and bigger challenges to solve,” said Andrew.

“And as our partners’ challenges kept surfacing, so did our opportunities. Every time we delivered the company would engage us on more”

A smooth take-off into the cloud

Perhaps the most notable example of this was Aer Lingus, Ireland’s flag carrier. Indeed, the airline’s head office is in the grounds of Dublin Airport. One of Andrew’s team had worked at Aer Lingus prior to joining and recognised that Amach could help his former employer.

“We went in and pitched the work we’d done elsewhere, and they liked everything we were saying. They asked us to come in and deliver a three-month vertical which we did,” said Andrew. “The Amach philosophy worked. We were originally contracted to be at Aer Lingus for three months, but we’ve now been there for over seven years working side by side, supporting the delivery of multiple different projects with different teams.”

Although Andrew laughs at the retelling of how their relationship began, Amach is now a trusted partner to Aer Lingus. Their key skill is identifying talent and building teams in tandem with the customer so there is mutual benefit. This coupled with a roll-up-your-sleeves style of working, and a genuine focus on the quality of outcomes, meant that when Aer Lingus decided to moved its infrastructure entirely to the cloud, it turned to Andrew for help, and they worked together in lock step on this journey.

Aer Lingus executives were already investing in a digital transformation, and with Amach’s assistance, had already moved its website and booking engine to the cloud. They also saw the benefit of the timing, as the hard deadline coincided with a Covid lockdown, allowing them to scale down and even switch off traditionally 24/7 systems without dramatic consequences.

The result? A smooth landing, an even smoother lift off. Aer Lingus headed into the cloud.

Flight path

With fingers firmly crossed, we are now safely on the other side of the pandemic. Impressively, even though some of Amach’s biggest clients are airlines, Amach continued to grow during those tough years. Shared-risk projects with its customers highlighted the belief Amach has in its delivery and has bolstered trust.

Andrew has kept true to his principles. He goes out of the way to surround himself with intelligent and honest people that are mission-driven and passionate about delivering great value, and results, with great tech.

So, what is the future for Amach? “We’re currently three years into a five-year growth plan. It’s ambitious, controlled growth to ensure we do more than just hire a lot of engineers,” Andrew explained. “It’s key that Amach team members understand our approach and, more importantly, buy into it.”

This is a company that is poised for even further growth. Which is why, for those who don’t know, the direct translation of Amach — an Irish word — is “exit”. And, ever since that first project, Andrew’s philosophy has been to provide services to Amach’s partners that helps them to achieve their project goals whilst retaining knowledge and control — and, ultimately, allows Amach to exit.

It’s just that as one door closes, several more open.

This paid content was written and produced by TechFinitive in collaboration with the sponsor, Amach.