Category: Company News

Shireburn Software this month celebrates the 30th anniversary of Franco Galea, a director and mainstay of the company’s success over the years.

Franco joined Shireburn as a developer in 1992 and has held various roles including leading the company’s development, heading the operations team before then moving into a business development and sales function.

Over these years Franco has dedicated himself tirelessly to providing value and support to Shireburn’s customers John de Giorgio, the founder of Shireburn in 1983 and now Chairman explains that “Franco has the most sought-after leadership style: he is a guiding force for all the team, passing on his knowledge and helping them to feel empowered and ready to take on leadership roles themselves. Franco has had a huge impact on the culture but his impact internally on the upcoming generation of leaders has been particularly significant.”

CEO Yasmin de Giorgio explained how “throughout his time at Shireburn, Franco has demonstrated unparalleled dedication and commitment, working tirelessly to help us achieve our goals. Having him mentoring the team with the redevelopment of our Shireburn Business Suite (Accounting, Inventory etc) is huge and we are blessed to have such extensive knowledge of the product and how we can best deliver value to our clients, at hand.”

The team at Shireburn would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank Franco on this impressive milestone and look forward to seeing him continue to excel and to many more successful years at Shireburn.

The recent identification of the Log4Shell/Log4j vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) has exposed many computer systems to significant security risks, including potential system hacking.

As part of our ISO 27001 certified processes, on identification of this vulnerability our team immediately commenced investigation of any potential risks to this vulnerability exposing us or our clients.

Immediately, Shireburn received requests from our clients to clarify our position on this vulnerability, and the following are probably the most frequently asked questions from our clients.

1. Does your organisation have any systems or infrastructure that are known to be affected by the recently announced Log4j vulnerability?
2. Has your organisation taken any action to asses the potential impact of the vulnerability on critical vendors, suppliers, or subcontractors?

These questions open up two areas for consideration:
1. Are any of Shireburn’s own software products vulnerable to the Log4j vulnerability?
2. Are any of the software products that Shireburn relies on to operate its business, such as billing systems, payment systems, CRMs, and so on, vulnerable?

Shireburn’s software products

Shireburn’s own software products, such as our Indigo, Payroll, HR and Time & Attendance solution, as well as the Shireburn Business Suite products like the Shireburn Financial Manager (SFM), the Shireburn Inventory Management System (SIMS) and the Shireburn Freight System (SFS), are not exposed to this vulnerability.

3rd Party solutions

Shireburn utilises a number of third-party developed software products to operate our business. These are identified in our published sub-processor’s list which forms part of our data protection policy.

We have undertaken an assessment of potential vulnerabilities of these third-party suppliers and are satisfied that we, and thus our clients, are not exposed to this vulnerability.

At Shireburn we take security seriously, as shown by our certification to ISO 27001, and we regularly assess our internal systems for all risks, including the latest Log4Shell vulnerability.

The Sophos suite of solutions that we use immediately updated automatically to protect against this vulnerability, as it does with the numerous daily vulnerabilities that are detected worldwide by Sophos. These actions, along with system monitoring, keep our systems protected from all threats old and new.

Shireburn Software is pleased to announce that Yasmin de Giorgio will take on the role of CEO from 1st August 2021. Shireburn’s founder, John de Giorgio, will take on a non-executive leadership role as Chairman of the Board. Franco Galea will maintain his executive role and will continue to serve as a director on the Shireburn Board.

Yasmin has earned her recognition as a serial entrepreneur after founding three successful businesses within five years. She has spent the last ten years building start-up businesses in innovative fields and is passionate about personal development and mentorship.

“Shireburn has been successful for nearly 38 years only because we have learnt how to reinvent ourselves and our solutions to remain of value. This is another moment where we are starting a new cycle and I am proud to be handing over a solid legacy to the new CEO and the management team, many of whom have been with Shireburn through two or three of our significant times of change.

Of course, to be handing over through a generational change makes this transition extra special for me, and in many ways Yasmin’s strengths could not be more suited to the needs of the company at the present moment. She learnt about the realities of business the hard way, through her own entrepreneurial ventures, so she is accustomed to the responsibilities that fall onto the shoulders of CEOs. Her combination of people management skills with business acumen and strategic vision, and the technical competencies of the team are exactly the leadership qualities that Shireburn need for the next phase of our story.”

While John de Giorgio will be spending a lot more time on his other interests, he will also be strengthening the role of the Shireburn Board as Chairman. This will allow him to mentor the team, contribute on company strategy and ensure that the responsibilities Shireburn carries towards its clients are upheld.

Franco Galea will continue his executive role, particularly in respect of the requirements definition related to the transition of the current products to the Indigo Platform, as well as that of a Director of Shireburn, and will also contribute to the mentorship and guidance of the leadership team.

John de Giorgio said “I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude to Franco for the priceless role he has played in our story and for his tireless energy that he will still be contributing to Shireburn’s future. Franco will also be working alongside Yasmin during this transition.”

A letter from the CEO

Although taking on the role of CEO comes with many duties, the one I will carry forward most consciously is the sense of integrity towards our clients, that both my father and Franco have role modeled and championed over the years.

Shireburn was built on this principle and until this day many of the strategic decisions we take are informed by these relationships of trust with our clients. It is a value I am extremely proud to inherit from both of them, and one I will carry forward sincerely.

Over the years watching them both grow Shireburn from a one-man band into the market leader it is today, the software business seemed alien to me. However, since then, I have experienced the importance of software in business from the side of the user. How instrumental software can be to managing a business, and also how frustrating it is when things don’t quite work the way they should.

These experiences made me realize what my father and Franco have known all these years; that software is not only about coding, software is all about the end-user and making their lives better.

To achieve that requires an incredible symphony of people from coders, product engineers, designers, testers, team leaders, the customer support team and all the enabling functions of HR, accounts and so on. Those who know me as an entrepreneur, where I founded and run the Sanya Eco Spa, will know that I am driven by the satisfaction I get from impacting people’s lives. A huge part of that is mentoring and supporting individuals to grow personally so that they can be part of a better whole.

“The success of an individual lies in the team, and the success of the team lies with the individual”.
It is a particularly exciting time to be entrusted with the leadership of the company since we have embarked on developing a new accounting and inventory system.

We currently have thousands of companies using products within our current Shireburn Business Suite and Indigo range and providing them with continuity was a key factor in our decision. In light of that principle as well as investing further in transitioning more of our solutions to the Indigo cloud-based platform we are continuing to invest in our resources not just to maintain existing products but to keep improving them. Our new systems will be developed with integration capabilities to our previous accounting and inventory solutions and other third-party products to ensure that all our customers can keep working with their chosen combination of products while they transition to the new platform.

We have been market leaders in the accounting and inventory software solutions field for decades and we are in the privileged position of being able to blend the experience of past success with exciting new ideas for the future.

On a more personal note, I am looking forward to leveraging my experience in the sector of personal development and wellbeing to the Shireburn Human Resources strategy, and one of the key factors in the decision to take on this challenge was the abundance of talented individuals who embody a lot of the values that I hold dear; humility, integrity, and a desire to be of service to a bigger vision.

As with many people, I am a multi-faceted individual, with many passions and interests and my unwavering commitment to the business that I founded, Sanya Eco Spa will remain a pillar of my life. I am grateful to my team at Sanya for doing such an amazing job at running the show since I have been an active part of the Shireburn leadership team for some time, without significant impact to our operations at Sanya.

I look forward to this new phase in my life where I have the unique opportunity to impact people’s lives on an ‘outer’ level through software and on an ‘inner’ level through our wellness programs at Sanya. It also helps to know that I have a secret weapon to draw upon in ensuring my own work life balance, with Sanya’s sensory deprivation tank.

I look forward to updating Shireburn’s clients with more information about the leadership teams we are assembling and some personal development and CSR programs that are very exciting and innovative.

Yasmin de Giorgio

Shireburn Software is proud to announce that we have achieved certification to the ISO 27001 and 9001 standards. Adherence to these international standards will help us ensure that our products and services continue to live up to the high standards synonymous with the Shireburn name.

 As part of the certification process, Shireburn had to clearly define procedures which target incident management, business continuity, security and other crucial elements in our Information Security Management System (ISMS) and our Quality Management System (QMS).

Customers using Shireburn’s products and services are assured that interactions with the company will be undertaken to the very rigorous high-standards that these standards set including those related to confidentiality and integrity of their data.

The independent audits of Shireburn were undertaken simultaneously across both ISO standards as well as across all the scope of the operations of both Shireburn Software Ltd and Shireburn Co Ltd.

 “I am very proud of this important achievement of our team. While adherence to the ISO 9001 standard is fairly widespread, this is less the case with the onerous and very high-standards set by ISO 27001 related to Information Security which has become a central requirement of businesses.  Adherence to both standards provides a level of quality assurance, in a broad sense, to our customers, prospects and also our suppliers which sets our offering apart from others” said CEO, John de Giorgio.

The ISO 27001:2013 standard also assures our clients that the information we store is managed correctly, using the C-I-A triad. This means that at Shireburn we can ensure your data’s:

• Confidentiality (only authorized users can access the data);

• Integrity (the data stored is accurate and complete); and

• Availability (authorized users can access the data whenever they need).

On the other hand, the ISO 9001:2015 standard specified requirements for the company’s QMS. As part of this certification process, Shireburn has formulated a structured and controlled supplier management review to ensure that our products and services meet our customers’ expectations as well as any statutory and regulatory requirements.