Smashing the Barrier to Digital Transformation
John Halvorsen-Jones is the founder of Applicable, a company on a mission to help transform businesses through powerful solutions leveraging low-code and AI-driven software development. They’ve already created innovative software for a wide cross-section of New Zealand companies and crown entities including brands such as Sport NZ, XPO group and LJ Hooker. And while Applicable has always pursued excellence in the development of technology, it’s John’s own entrepreneurial journey that has shaped a culture of really getting alongside businesses to help them achieve market leadership.
Like many a tech success story the Applicable journey traces back to childhood when a 12-year-old John started coding for the first time on his Commodore Vic-20 driven by a fascination with creating rather than playing computer games. “I was more interested in making them than playing them. It’s the building, the Lego rather than the playing with it, that was the fun part to me,” he explains. Despite encountering early negativity around such a geeky career, John’s passion for computers proved unshakable. At University he covertly extended his allocated computer time to refine coding skills that would instill a lasting fascination with tech.
Nevertheless, his professional journey detoured down paths that included computer hardware and infrastructure, before he came back to his true calling of software development. This passion was reignited as he led a transformative journey in the education sector, revitalising a diploma of web development in close consultation with industry partners.
As quite an independent thinker, the transition to entrepreneurship came as a natural progression for John. He founded Applicable Ltd in 2008, initially in response to the growing need for search engine optimisation. The shift from just offering SEO to development was driven by necessity. John recalls, “What I found was that most websites at the time were so bad, you couldn’t really optimise them without rebuilding them. So we ended up becoming a website development company as well.”
However, the road was not without its challenges. Managing a small business while supporting a family brought significant stress. A pivotal moment came in 2012 when John decided to steer Applicable towards custom software development, moving the business towards higher-end work and ultimately better profitability. This strategic shift allowed the company to take on increasingly complex projects, including user experience-driven software solutions for government agencies and large enterprises.
One of Applicable’s notable projects involved developing a case management platform for a law firm managing ACC disputes, which required handling sensitive data and implementing the most stringent security measures possible. John reflects on the project’s impact, “It was really good for the team to have their work tested by some of NZ’s leading security experts; it’s very insightful to see up close how hackers operate.”
Applicable is now also a leader in custom AI integration, leveraging the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) to infuse AI-driven experiences and tools into both new and existing software platforms. This approach often goes beyond feature enhancement to fundamentally redesign how users interact with software. For instance, John’s team implements LLM-powered chatbots that provide software-specific assistance and content creation, alongside smart search features that deeply understand user queries based on context and intent.
The initial phase of Applicable’s approach focuses on understanding the client’s specific needs and goals. This involves consultations where John and his team actively listen and gather insights to tailor AI solutions that align closely with the client’s business operations and strategic objectives. This customisation can range from developing predictive analytics that anticipates market trends to crafting sentiment analysis tools that assess customer feedback effectively. The goal is to ensure that each AI integration is not only cutting-edge but also directly contributes to enhancing the client’s operational efficiency and user engagement.
Across all their solutions John champions the concept of “elegant simplicity”. This user experience (UX) philosophy is crucial to ensuring that people engage with both traditional software and AI elements without facing a steep learning curve or unnecessary complexity. It’s about making powerful technology accessible.
John also places a strong emphasis on forging and sustaining long-term partnerships with his clients. The nuts and bolts side of that is providing ongoing support and updates, which are vital as technology evolves. However, the deeper aspect is being empathetic partners, actively helping clients stay at the forefront of their industries as the world changes.
This long-term approach would not however be effective if not for a corresponding employee tenure of approximately 4X the industry average. John puts this level of retention down to a highly collaborative, culture combined with the types of project they work on.
“A lot of it comes down to the interaction the developers have with each other. If they are learning and growing and feeding off each other in a collaborative environment, that’s really positive. Our projects are also in a good sweet spot. They’re large and interesting, but they’re not so huge that you’re just a little cog in one corner.”
Despite the upsides to business performance that technology can bring, it can still be a hurdle for New Zealand businesses to take the first step. “New Zealanders tend to be very creative and lots of people have really cool ideas about how to do new and exciting things in their industry. But the problem comes when they discover the realities of software development; the costs and risks of it, especially the budget risks People are often quite understandably put off, which is why I often say that our biggest competitor is people doing nothing.”
To overcome this, Applicable has been focused on lowering the cost of development and a key part of this has been the development of Kaizen, Applicable’s code generator that streamlines the creation of both web and mobile applications. This platform embodies its namesake principle of continuous improvement, allowing developers to quickly build, deploy and iterate applications, without having to write all the predictable code each time. Kaizen is designed to be highly user-friendly, supporting drag-and-drop functionalities and visual modelling, making it easy for even front-end developers to create the server-side parts of an application.
“We delivered our first project with it at the beginning of this year, and it was a real success and actually opened my eyes to the power of the tool. I knew the theoretical power of it, but until you see it actually work and something coming in on time and on budget, and a much lower budget than you would previously have had to put forward, you don’t really know for sure.”
The Kaizen platform is a part of Applicable’s broader strategy to democratise software development. By enabling faster turnaround times it allows Applicable to respond more rapidly to market changes and user needs.
John echoes the sentiment of AI expert, Mike Walsh, who says that in ten years every successful company will also be a technology company.
“All the market-leading companies in the future will have technology deeply integrated into how they manage their business, how they interact with clients, how they deliver products and services; in other words, they’ll be whatever they are, but also a tech company as well.”
His advice to entrepreneurs and business leaders is to embrace this shift, leveraging technology to enhance efficiency, customer experience, and market competitiveness.
Low code platforms, AI tools and deep technology integration are all a long way away from the world of computing in John’s early days in front of a Commodore Vic-20. But that contrast also provides a salient reminder of how quickly technology moves and the degree of change we may yet see in the near future.