Onside set to supercharge rural South Australian businesses
Onside, a New Zealand company that creates digital tools to simplify and strengthen operations, compliance, communications and biosecurity on rural properties is set to establish its Australian headquarters in South Australia, creating up to three jobs before the end of the year, as part of the South Australian Landing Pad Program (SALP).
Image: Onside mobile app
Onside Pty Ltd is the company’s newly formed Australian company that will initially target winegrowers and contractors in the South Australian viticulture industry, followed by orchard customers and then farm customers.
Onside helps farmers, growers and contractors to save time, money, lives and livelihoods by providing a mobile app that simplifies and strengthens operations, compliance, communications and biosecurity on rural properties.
Onside’s recognition of South Australia’s central location, as well as the state’s strengths in the hi-tech sector, will support the company’s growth targets and enable them to leverage the state’s next generation software R&D.
The South Australian Landing Pad program supports companies looking to make their first investment in South Australia, Australia or the Asia Pacific region. Companies that establish help to stimulate the state’s economy, create jobs, grow new industries and support existing ones. Onside will be a very welcome addition to the state’s food, wine and agribusiness sector.
Onside was formed in 2015 when the company founders discovered there was no simple way to know who was on their farms, what they were doing, how to get in touch with them and whether they had all the information they needed.
Guy Davidson, Head of Growth at Onside, says the company sees a massive opportunity in South Australia to help improve operations and protect people within the wine sector.
“South Australia’s wine industry represents a great opportunity for Onside; however, we can also see a multitude of opportunities to help other rural sectors across the state,” Mr Davidson said.
“Onside’s product is a natural fit and can deliver benefits to multiple rural sectors. Paperwork and processes can create a lot of inefficiencies; however, Onside can streamline this and provide farmers and contractors with valuable time to focus on the more important things.”
Onside has grown rapidly over the last two years, with the Onside app now used by nearly 30,000 people, 10,000 properties and 4,000 rural businesses. The app is a comprehensive rural operations management tool that features digital check-ins, visitor management, job management, incident management, mapped risk logging, communication, biosecurity management and analytics.
Onside’s co-founder and CEO, Ryan Higgs, believes Onside’s unique, network go-to-network model is one of its key benefits.
“We have a product for both rural properties and people visiting those rural properties,” Mr Higgs said. “This not only increases usefulness and adoption of Onside, but it also creates a network referral engine where properties invite visitors, visitors invite properties and so on. We generate the majority of our users this way, and it helps us to scale rapidly in sectors and regions.”
Onside helps rural businesses power their operations and protect their people through a check-in solution that streamlines and digitises operations, communications, compliance and biosecurity for rural businesses. Onside hope to create a global rural network to revolutionise biosecurity.
The company will be based in Adelaide, with the team spending a lot of time on the road to meet with their customers face-to-face.
The SALP is a crucial conduit for companies looking to build a presence in South Australia, helping businesses find a foothold in a new place, embed in the local economy, create jobs and forge connections with local vendors, partners, customers and collaborators.