Rod Drury, CEO Xero on Google, mobile and Apple
- Summary:
- Rod Drury, CEO Xero provides us with a candid insider look at how they are running their fast growing business with Google Apps and how changes in mobile are impacting their development.
Most CEO's want to blah on about how great their company is. It's part of the job description. In the above video though, I asked Rod Drury, CEO Xero to step outside that comfortable world and talk about industry trend topics he is seeing and applying in his business.
If you haven't got time to watch the whole 8 minutes plus, then pick and choose as follows:
0:00-5:10 - Xero has switched from Microsoft Office to Google Apps and is making extensive use of collaborative online documentation and Google Hangouts. This is a big deal since Xero is a through and through Microsoft shop for all its development etc. Drury explains why this is the case and why, this switch is important for a company that works on the basis of communications rather than being document driven.
5:11-8:24 - The mobile landscape and how this is impacting the company and its development direction. Quote of the moment: "It is hard." We hear that a lot.
Verdict
It's rare to hear a CEO talking about his/her own business and the challenges they face in such a candid way. For me, it is a sign of maturity and confidence in a company that is growing super fast. In the last few days it announced having passed the 100,000 paying customer mark in Australia. That's a huge milestone in a country where the incumbent has been entrenched for decades.
More to come as we publish a second video, this time with newly minted Xero US CEO Peter Karpas.
