Yes, can you believe the headline? MYP is 25! In the context of global history, 25 years is but a ‘blip’. In the business world, it is probably middle-aged. Nevertheless, turning 25 is a good excuse to tidy up the edges and present our best face to the world.
So, to celebrate, we would like to introduce you to the new and improved MYP user experience – to be launched later this year!
As MYP sets sail for the next 25, we have expanded our horizons to include community and health as our core commitments. We have numerous ‘game-changing’ updates coming in the next few months and look forward to continuing this story with you or welcoming you to it.
For those who enjoy knowing the story behind the story, reaching 25 is an excellent time to share some of the key moments in the MYP journey. If this is of interest, grab your preferred refreshment and read on:
MYP started in 1999 as a management consulting business called Access Management Consultants (AMC) by Steven and Jenny Eager from their home office. With a passionate purpose to help business owners and their teams succeed, it wasn’t long before it grew to be one of the largest businesses of its kind. With a team of consultants working in areas such as business, people management, recruitment and technology, AMC was eventually helping hundreds of small to medium businesses across Australia and New Zealand.
It was with our work in the technology area that a new idea started to germinate. In 2006, the internet was growing rapidly, and the idea of providing services and information across the Internet was seen as the way of the future. In our consulting world, we felt that a financial benchmarking solution would be valuable to our clients and anyone else in business. So, with almost no software development experience in our team, we commenced the development of an exciting new financial benchmarking tool that we would offer on a monthly subscription basis. Of course, this new idea needed a name, and after an intense brainstorming session, one of our management consultants came up with the name ‘myYardstick’. We all loved it.
Of course, you don’t dive into the world of software creation without making many mistakes and ‘burning’ a lot of time and money. It is an excellent example of how knowing a little protected us from being daunted by the real journey ahead.
We quickly learned from the release of myYardstick that most businesses may have been very interested in the financial benchmarking information but did not understand how it could be really valuable to them. So, with a pivot that a ballerina would have been proud of, we re-pitched our initial solution (and future cloud-based advisory tools) to others who could help interpret the information – namely accounting firms, business advisers, banks and franchisors. With this shift (and a lot of evangelising by us), we started growing our software adventure rapidly. As you would expect, this change in focus also required a name change and myYardstick Professional was born.
Until 2012, myYardstick Professional became a key platform for many advice businesses use with their clients. However, the most fateful of all events was just around the corner. In 2013, the National Disability Employment Scheme (NDIS) commenced its initial rollout with pilot sites in various locations. This resulted in many significant changes, including moving spending decisions to those with a disability. In this early phase, disability service providers had to calculate the cost of delivering their services to participants and quote/charge a fee for service (with a mark-up) accordingly. At the time, organisations providing these services had no way of making that calculation. Fortuitously, one of the advisers using our platform asked if we could develop a solution using our myYardstick benchmarking module to help solve this problem.
While it would be nice to say ‘the rest is history’, moving from that moment to where we are today was anything by a straight line. For those who have started or operated their own business, it is a venture littered with blood, sweat and tears. However, the demand for our work in this new world of service to those with a disability grew so rapidly that we once again pivoted to build a platform for the NDIS. Once more, we faced a dilemma concerning our name as myYardstick Professional would no longer make sense. In the tradition of some of the world’s most well-known businesses, we took the highly creative route of turning our name into an acronym, MYP.
Since this initial NDIS work in 2013, MYP has built one of (if not the) most comprehensive platforms for the community sector (now also including aged care). To get this point is a reflection on the efforts of many people, including the MYP team, and significant contributions from people and organisations in the disability and community world. Specifically, as MYP directed its time and resources to build the MYP platform, early MYP adopters were so enthusiastic about the direction that they contributed their time and financial resources to invest in developing different parts of the system. We believe that this contribution has been rewarded in multiple ways, but most importantly, with a continuation of the ethos to help people, which was the founding purpose of MYP 25 years ago.
As MYP sets sail for the next 25, we have expanded our horizons to include community and health as our core commitments. We have numerous ‘game-changing’ updates coming in the next few months and look forward to continuing this story with you or welcoming you to it.
