By Phil Duff
In 1978, the 5.25-inch floppy disk is an industry-standard, and Apple launches its first operating system. That same year, Phil Duff, a young English immigrant to South Africa, bootstraps a scrappy computer start-up in a guest bedroom in Northcliff. It seems improbable to say that the Executive Chairman of SYSPRO, a multinational Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software provider, didn’t know a thing about computers. Yet 43 years later, floppy disks and Apple DOS are obsolete, but Phil’s company is now one of the world’s leading independent vendors of ERP software with offices in the United States, Canada, Africa, the United Kingdom, Asia, and Australasia.
From humble beginnings, Phil helped build an accounting reporting system that was the genesis of what SYSPRO is today – and it’s partly thanks to an inadvertent “yes”.
Leaping into the unknown on a one-way ticket
On a particularly dreary English day in 1977, Phil’s brother, Chris, phones him out of the blue from South Africa. Unexpectedly, Chris asks Phil if he would like to come to Johannesburg to start a computer company with him. Phil knows absolutely nothing about computers, and he partly blames the dismal English weather for his inadvertent “yes”. Little does he know that this decision to leap into the unknown will shape the rest of his life.
A couple of months later, a letter from Chris arrives in Phil’s postbox – it’s a contract to join the fledgling South African computer company. Phil uses this letter to obtain a one-way ticket to Johannesburg, and he has just £25 in his pocket when Chris picks him up from the airport. Phil soon learns that the contract was a fabrication and his salary of R400 a month doesn’t exist; it was the only way for Chris to get his brother on a plane.
Dogged determination and an important pivot
Undeterred by his lack of computing knowledge – and salary – Phil works with his brother long into the night for the next year. Together, they build a fledgling company; its offices comprise Chris’s guest bedroom at the back of his Northcliff house and a luggage manufacturing warehouse in Selby. With dogged determination, Phil learns how to write in an arcane programming language, creating the building blocks of what would eventually become an accounting reporting system.
Starting a company from scratch in a strange country would be daunting for anyone, but 24-year-old Phil Duff takes it in his stride – and he quickly learns that being able to read the market is key to an agile business strategy. By 1980, he realises that the path to success is to create programmes with repeatable software to sell to companies. And so, the Duff brothers decide to pivot from doing bespoke work for a handful of individual clients to creating software packages that deliver a service other companies want, and need. Crucially, these repeatable packages can be re-sold so that the business model becomes scalable.
From bare bones to something to sell
To get a jump on the ever-evolving technology market, Phil and Chris put in countless hours converting the accounting software’s programming language so that it can run on a new operating system. The pivot nearly bankrupts the brothers, but after three years of hard work, they have the bare bones of something they can sell – and re-sell. Thanks to their agility, they’d converted the essence of the accounting system and expanded it into a package they could sell that was available on a mini-computer unit called Impact. In 1988, one of their clients approaches Phil; he was going to live in America, and he wanted to start selling Impact. And so, SYSPRO was born.
Today, SYSPRO is a leading global ERP software provider specialising in the manufacturing and distribution industries, helping companies and industries address their specific needs while growing their businesses. As the company goes from strength to strength, Phil is moving into a new role as Executive Chairman, setting clear expectations relating to SYSPRO’s culture, values, and behaviors. He is responsible for upholding good corporate governance, providing support and strategic leadership to the global executive team, and ensuring the effective management and growth of the business.
From a bootstrapping start on the tip of Africa to a global powerhouse, Phil Duff has built a multinational technology corporation on a foundation of grit, foresight, and a fair amount of faith. Little did he know that from saying “yes” to a simple invitation, a glittering 40 plus-year career would emerge – and that a miserable day would set his future in motion.
*Phil Duff is the Executive Chairman of SYSPRO