As of January 30, Kazacos found himself at the helm of Australia's largest IT company. The acquisition of Aspect Computing saw the Kaz ranks swell to 2500 staff located throughout Australia, and forecasting AU$409 million in revenue.
"Our biggest goal is to be in the same tier globally as the EDSs and IBM GSAs of the world," Kazacos says confidently. "Technically there is nothing to stop us--the next level is to establish ourselves in the Asia Pacific region."
And how?
According to Kazacos, this kind of expansion will take place with a minimum of fuss, and a maximum focus on the cultural and computational nuances of the region. Not that stable, strategic growth, and a conciliatory approach to both clients and competitors, is anything new to Kaz Computer services.
Going against conventional wisdom, Kazacos has built the company on the principal of quietly and strategically taking on markets where the barriers to entry are high. In the same spirit, he occasionally attends high-profile sales training seminars to discover the techniques everyone else is using.
"It is important to be aware of what the trends are," Kazacos says. "Find out what the used car sales men are doing, and then do the opposite."
Not bad for a Bankstown boy with an interest in all things electrical.
After the death of his father--when Kazacos was just three--his mother had taken over the local fish and chip shop. Similar to many Sydneysiders, he grew up speaking Greek at home, and cut his customer-service teeth helping his mum in the shop on the weekend.
"It was good, really. Even now I use a lot of what I learnt in the shop over the weekends," Kazacos says.
Hailing from Bankstown, in Sydney's western suburbs, and attending the local parish school with former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, Kazacos went on to study a combination of electrical engineering and science at the University of NSW.
"The school guidance councillor said I was predisposed to teaching. I did a bit of tutoring, and I thought about going into academia, but the pay wasn't very good," Kazacos says.
Nonetheless, Kaz Computer Services started out as an offshoot of a coaching college Kazacos founded with some friends from university.
Initially a software development house, way back before hardware was coupled with driver-software, Kazacos began by designing an authoring system for computer-aided instruction for the Apple II. However, outside of the Apple user group, few people were aware of the possibilities of computing, and even fewer training institutions had the money to access computer-based learning.
Finding themselves increasing bogged down in the administrative aspects of the business as it grew, Kazacos and his companions decided to sell the tutoring business. Kazacos took up a position with Overseas Containers, a shipping logistics operation which later merged with P&O.
The year was 1977, and IBM was on the verge of releasing its System 83 range, which later evolved into the AS400 series. Characteristically modest, Kazacos attributes much of his success to riding the wave of IBM's midrange AS400 systems.
"AS400s are almost a religion," says Kazacos, who went so far as to build a language for the Systems 38 when the systems were initially released. "They are totally different to all the other IBM machines, there's a real buzz in the air if you go to Rochester in the US to see where the they were first created."
By the time the AS400s hit the market in the eighties, Kazacos' career had taken him to work with the precursor to Aspect Information Technology Solutions.
"This is one of the good things about not burning bridges in business," Kazacos says. "I brought my first ever Kaz customer, and my last employer, so that my old bosses now work for me."
In 1988, Kazacos took the Kaz Computer Services name out of mothballs and relaunched with an initial investment of $5000. After a brief stint in a friend's garage, Kaz opened up a claustrophobic office in Burwood and began creating superannuation software for AMP.
"We were dabbling with being a classical software house, when we came across a chance to pick up a company which had gone into administration," Kazacos explains. "We knew they managed midrange computer systems for a couple of car retailers, but no one seemed to know what it was."
Kaz Computer Services bought the operation and moved to its current location in Surry Hills. By the early 90's the company discovered the word describing its operations as IT outsourcing, and without changing direction in the slightest, Kaz became one of the world's first IT outsourcers.
However, it was hard to make the title stick, as the company listed on the ASX in the midst of the tech boom.
"People still report on how well Kaz is doing compared to other dot coms, then stare blankly when I talk about what we really do," Kazacos says.
Many of the subtleties of business process outsourcing are lost on family and friends.
"I am still asked what a new PC would be worth, or if I have any idea why a friend's printer isn't working," Kazacos explains. "I tend to mumble something about the local computer store, and say that I don't work on weekends as politely as possible."
There is an American company at www.porivo.com that is looking for Australians to run their distributed computing application. The application tests websites. They pay US dollars for helping them. I have been running their program on my computer here in Calgary, Canada for about a year and they pay me from US$6-9/month.