Last month, MSL and GA publicly announced an
enhancement to their relationship, with MSL becoming
the Strategic Technology Partner of GA. Under the
agreement the commercial rights to Golf Link will
effectively return to GA by early next year. In conjunction,
the two organisations vowed to further invest in software,
technical and consulting services in order to create more
accurate insight into membership trends and to be able to
respond to participation fluctuations.
Kinross expressed his enthusiasm for the further
relationship with the governing body as a new technology
partner, and said it would have a positive impact on
both corporations.
“Financially the deal is good for all of us and we can now
focus on all the great things we can do together to improve
the online services for golf clubs and golfers without any
competitive tension around where the handicapping page
is located,” he said.
“A mantra of ours is to be working with industry and not
in competition with it, that’s why we focused a lot over the
last three-four years on investing in the relationships with
the PGA, Golf Australia and the GMA.
“Australia has arguably the leading centralised
handicapping system and portal in the world, which
is widely recognized in the global market. This new
agreement means we are focused on working with
industry to stay ahead of
the game.”
Talking about golf and the future, MSL is looking to further
its position as a market leader in the club space, both
domestically and internationally, using the money raised
through listing to do so.
Kinross said it was necessary for the company to meet
good competition in the marketplace, and for the
industry to be strong so it can support more players and
technology providers.
“This year we have upraised $23 million from the capital
markets. That’s a massive vote of support in our strategy
and vision for the future ¬– from people investing in our
businesses to actually support us and being able to grow
our platform for the benefit of clubs and membership
based organisations,” Kinross said.
“In the future there are going to be some great initiatives
that we’re going to be working on that we can roll back out
to the clubs and back out to the golfers through
MPower Golf.
“And that’s really pleasing.”
MPower Golf is being headed up within MSL by ex PGA
Commercial Director and Golf Link General Manager Nick
Thornton, and is devoted entirely to the golfing industry as
a one-stop shop combining our market leading products
from Golf Link Partners, iSeekGolf, Golf Computer
Systems, Scandinavian based GolfBox and Micropower.
“The consolidation of these technologies and expertise
demonstrates our affinity with the culture of Australian
and world golf which is reflected in our products, services
and solutions.”
MPower Golf aims to be an industry innovator providing
coordinated, integrated technology solutions to the
golf industry.
ABOUT CRAIG KINROSS
Craig is passionate about sport, technology and solving problems, with
MSL Solutions uniquely allowing Craig to bring together all of these
passions.
Craig has significant experience in the software industry holding
various senior operations and finance management roles in successful
international companies over the last 15+ years.
He joined MSL in 2010 as Chief Operating Officer, and lead the
restructure of the business to reduce headcount and costs by over 30%
while still providing a platform to grow top-line revenues over the next
two financial years by over 20%. Craig transitioned into the role of CEO in
July 2012, and has facilitated the renewal of the core enterprise solution
to an open architecture, cloud SaaS platform to empower Community
Organisations and their Members.
Prior to joining MSL, Craig was at Mincom (now Ventyx ABB) for ten
years, most recently as VP Financial Planning & Analysis. Mincom was
a global software and services provider headquartered in Brisbane
providing business solutions to customers in more than 40 countries
around the world.
Before Mincom Craig held corporate finance roles at Invensys Plc and
Credit Suisse Financial Products based in London. Prior to moving to
London he was in the Business Advisory Group at KPMG, based in
Brisbane.
Craig holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of
Queensland and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.