Built to last: 45+ years of progress in IT

1999 was a big year in the world of IT. Y2K fear had set in, with organisations across Australia panicking computer systems would crash as the year ticked over to 2000.

“There were concerns that planes would fall out of the sky, power substations or power stations would come offline,” Norm Jefferies, Managing Director at Truis, says.

To test for potential Y2K failures, organisations purchased systems identical to the ones they were already using, loaded their applications, and wound the clock forward to simulate the changeover. 

New hardware wasn’t suitable in this scenario, as like-for-like environments were critical for accurate testing. This need saw the second-hand computer business scale quickly, Norm says. 

“We experienced unprecedented accelerated growth in our second-hand business in the lead-up to that,” he says.

With two decades of experience under our belt selling second-hand computers, we were ready to help organisations work through their panic and their calm nerves.

In the beginning

Founded in 1979 by ex-IBM employee Michael Gallagher, Computer Merchants (what we were called back then) was built on the idea of purchasing, restoring, and selling second-hand IT equipment to businesses.

By the late ‘80s, this had become a lucrative model. Organisations at the time would typically invest in new base hardware and then turn to second-hand equipment to upgrade or expand their environments, particularly when it came to storage.

There was a strong demand for affordable upgrades and an increasing supply of hardware in the market. IBM’s dominance at the time helped shape this demand, with many organisations standardising on its systems. 

With the pace of technological change still relatively slow, companies also regularly rented machines for specific projects, returning them once they were no longer needed.

“Our founder Michael was very entrepreneurial, he was a hard worker and had a lot of relationships in the marketplace,” Norm says.

“He started essentially in his basement but before long he was hiring people and moved into office space.”

Computer Merchants' reputation was built on a simple principle: keeping its promises. Customers knew if something went wrong, it would be prioritised and made right, no matter the cost. That trust played a key role in fueling the company’s growth.

So much so that in 1991, we took on the biggest sale in Australia of a second-hand computer that year, handling the sale of an IBM mainframe that cost $26 million in 1988 to a buyer in the U.K.

This was about a year or so before Norm came on board, fresh out of university.

After getting his IT degree, Norm was looking through job ads in the paper and saw a number of positions for IT salespeople.

“I realised I was probably more of a communicator than I was a programmer,” Norm says.

He got three job offers right off the bat, one of them at Computer Merchants. 

“I asked the people I met at each place how long they’d been there and a lot of staff said one to two years,” he says.

“At Computer Merchants, everyone I asked had been here five years or more and that meant a lot to me. I could see there was going to be more potential and a better career.”

Michael was a big draw card for Norm, who wanted to work with the “kind and thoughtful guy”, but not 12 months in, Michael announced he was leaving the company.

“I was gutted,” says Norm.

“But, the next person to take over was David McDade, who went on to become one of my best friends and a great business partner.

“David held the same principle as Michael, to keep your promises, and that was a guiding principle for me.” 

Shifting with industry needs  

Trading in second-hand hardware was our primary source of profit right up until 2000, when the price of new computers started to drop.

“Computers became commoditised, so the savings a business got from second-hand hardware wasn’t really as relevant to them anymore,” says Norm.

“We had pivoted into selling new hardware and as that grew, we became very good at it. There were some years there where we were the largest IBM partner.”

From the mid-2000s, our clients began asking for more than just hardware. They wanted support with installations, setups, and guidance. It became clear a solutions-based partnership was the natural next step. 

“It marked a shift for us. We weren’t just selling hardware anymore, we were becoming a trusted partner for our customers,” Norm says.

“We led project-based on-site installs, built hardware as we expanded into different vendors, and provided customers training.

“It was less transactional and more about a solution.”

The move then into managed services was driven by customer demand more than company strategy, Norm says.

This request led to our first managed services agreement in 2010, which quickly resulted in a referral to another sizable customer.

While the shift happened quickly, Norm says the team needed to pause and invest in the right tools and governance to ensure both his team and customers were set up for success. 

We haven’t looked back since, with managed services now a core offering.

What’s in a name?

With all of these shifts, Norm considered whether the brand needed a change-up. A consultant was brought in in 2019 to interview staff, suppliers, and customers to hear what was working, and what wasn’t.

Before the process started, Norm asked what the likelihood was for changing the ‘Computer Merchants’ name and was told “‘The company is 40-years-old, I won’t be recommending you change your name’,” Norm says.

But, after meeting with key stakeholders, the message was clear: ‘Computer Merchants’ was pigeonholing the company and not indicative of the solutions and managed services taking up a core part of the business.

The end result, Truis, is derived from the word ‘altruism’, which means the principle and moral practice of concern for the happiness of other human beings. The name’s more reflective of the mindset of our team, says Norm.

Driven by values

Scott Garvin, Sales Manager, has been with us for more than two decades and agrees the name change is more reflective of our company culture.

“The culture has evolved from a small, intimate family environment into a much larger organisation—but one that still genuinely cares,” he says.

“Most people wouldn’t know that the average tenure of our sales team is 9 years. That’s an incredible achievement in any business, especially in sales, and speaks volumes about our culture and environment.”

Norm’s family background is filled with those who donated their time and money into their communities, and it’s something that's gained traction here at Truis too.

Our Giving Back program empowers the team to nominate and vote on charities to partner with throughout the year. That can mean donating paid volunteer time, financial support, or team-led initiatives like fundraising events.

Giving devices a second life is still very much an active part of our role in the community, albeit these days instead of reselling, the team works alongside partners such as GIVIT and LiteHaus International to send devices to the places and people who need it most.

These social initiatives are what drew our services manager Katie Blue to the company to begin with.

“The main attraction I found when deciding whether to join Truis was their community outreach and charitable endeavours, both locally and overseas,” she says. 

“These are all aimed to help the less fortunate, and provide practical assistance to those in need, which is something I regard very highly.”

That people-first culture has laid the groundwork for a more experimental, innovation-led outlook to explore what was possible next.

Leading with curiosity 

Curiosity, fostering a ‘let’s-give-it-a-go’ attitude, and driving efficiency gains are key considerations for our company moving forward.

It’s this mindset that drove the creation of our Store of Tomorrow, a retail store concept built in our office warehouse to test AI and emerging technologies in real-world scenarios, helping retailers improve operations and customer experience.

The idea came from Retail Team Lead Lachlan Jefferies who “started going to retail events to get a better understanding of the challenges they were facing,” Norm says.

Lachlan visited retail stores and interviewed retailers in person to better understand the issues facing the industry. Using these insights, he developed a floor design that accurately reflected a real retail space, going as granular as matching the right type of lighting and floor layout.

But, it paid off. “The Store of Tomorrow means we can stage a site and then send that setup off to 1000s of different sites for our clients,” Norm says.

Lachlan says watching the space come to life was “incredibly rewarding”.

“It started as a rough idea, now it’s a functioning innovation lab,” he says.

“That trust to try, fail, and iterate is rare. It’s helped me grow from a marketer into a business leader and given me the confidence to keep innovating.”

What’s next

“Our people,” says Norm. Focusing on the development of the team and helping them discover their passions is something he says he’s working on now.

That culture is what’s kept Norm coming into the office, day after day, for more than 34 years.

“I’ve racked up well over 30 years here but I still genuinely like turning up to the office today as much as I did when I started. I have two great business partners Matt Dargie and Mark Loparow. Like me, they appreciate the value of legacy,” he says. 

If you’d like to find out more about starting or evolving your career pursuits with Truis, please reach out, we’d love to hear from you.