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Stardata

A huge part of the engagement with Pete has been the learning all of the management and leadership components of running a successful business.  Without any formal training I feel I’d be quite confident in taking a leadership role in an established business and understand the fundamentals of what needs to be done to deliver the outcomes. 

A big part of working with Pete is he will dig into areas of discomfort that I know always needed to be discussed however was much easier to ignore. Just having that accountability to someone that was pushing for my goals meant there was no hiding for me which has really developed my ability to run a company.

Knowing the process and transformation that myself and the business has gone through, I speak to friends about their small businesses and can see now how easily it is to get stuck where I was and have a lack of direction of getting to the next step. I was always thinking the new hire or new customer or reading a business book was the way forward.  I wish I’d understood many years ago that going through this mentor style transformation was the way forward.  It has freed up my time significantly, I have less to do in the day-to-day operations, something I could not have imagined years ago.

Our business valuation has increased significantly and even so, as it operates without me a large amount of the time, I have no plans of selling it unless the right valuation is presented. I’m investigating starting new business with my partner as side projects.

How the relationship started

As Managing Director of Stardata, a family business (2 generations, shareholders with siblings in business), we have had an extremely close-knit team of employees since we established the business in its current form in 2004. Our broad challenge was to grow beyond being a small family business with very strong knowledge of the telecommunications industry into a professionally managed and operated business that has family members in it.  

Around 2003 we recognised a need to get external input to help us achieve this goal and Peter was referred in to us by another company owner who was also being coached by Peter.

I have now worked alongside Peter Tyndall over the last 10 years and the scope has changed beyond the successful achievement of our initial goals through to through various other step changes as our business has grown and matured.

The early challenges

Our strengths in running the business were quite clearly in our strong technical and operational skills specific to the industry. These strengths meant we had a good reputation necessary to survive those early days.

Where we struggled was in the administration and management of our business.   We lacked strategic direction, leadership capabilities and structure which inhibited growth, impacted on our client service capabilities and had ultimately tied us to the roles working within the business. 

Without question bringing Peter in to assist us has been a key part of our organisations initial survival and then opened our eyes to a bigger picture.  We had been floundering in business for many years as I’ve seen so many friends and colleagues do. We quite likely could have continued the way we were going however there was no wind in the sails after so many years, no real motivation to keep doing the same thing, we could feel our organisation was tired.    

Progression and Succession with an “Eye on the Prize”

This brought about the most recent engagement in which I brought in the experience of Peter from 2020 as a response to a potential sale or merger of the organisation. When we sat back and looked at it, it became obvious to us, the family ownership group that the business was firstly undervalued and very reliant on key family members for its survival. 
As such the project of works was discussed with Peter to make the organisation saleable over a 5-year period which included implementing a complete organisation structure from the shareholders to the board to a management team right through to the different members within business units.
This brought about the most recent engagement in which I brought in the experience of Peter from 2020 as a response to a potential sale or merger of the organisation. When we sat back and looked at it, it became obvious to us, the family ownership group that the business was firstly undervalued and very reliant on key family members for its survival. 
As such the project of works was discussed with Peter to make the organisation saleable over a 5-year period which included implementing a complete organisation structure from the shareholders to the board to a management team right through to the different members within business units.

This was business open heart surgery for us and we had no experience in how to go about this.

The Progression and Succession was broken into 3 different stages: 

The first stage: Strategy and Planning

We had to develop and define a clear strategy and long-term goals that would meet the requirements of the owners. This was: 
  • Enterprise trade sale valuation of minimum 5 times EBIT; and
  • An organisation structure that required only minimal contribution/reliance from the owners.   

This is how we did this:

  • We defined who we really were and where our value lies. 
  • We outlined goals for the business owners and worked with Pete whilst he stress tested and ensured we had realistic outcomes that were achievable and had been clearly articulated to enable us to map the path to success.  
  • All employees were engaged in the strategic plan development which outlined the company’s vision, values, mission, and mantra,
  • The plan detailed both high level and hard targets for current and following years goals.
  • The actions required by the organisation over the coming years for us to achieve all of this was documented, clear and succinct.

The challenges and how they were overcome:

This first stage was a very in-depth, painstaking piece of work that would have been extremely difficult without the experience of Pete to keep us motivated and on track.  The clear direction to our team was hugely energising for our team who were bought in during a turbulent period of employee turnover within the industry specifically.

What became clear was that the direction that the business was heading in was a large motivating factor for our team and built loyalty as the team felt part of the success. 

The financial cleansing required digging into numbers and line items to find the source of truth of what the real numbers should be.   We spent several days a month with Pete crunching through phase one over the course of about 4-5 months whilst also getting our ducks in a row (KPIs).
Another massive part of this first phase which was more significant than I had initially expected was the importance of good data.   Numbers we took for granted and relied on for decision making were challenged and when it became clear there were holes in the information, we had to get it right to be able to act with confidence.
Each month had to be completed correctly to ensure the performance of the business had relevant and accurate information that everyone, including myself could be held responsible for. We had to balance between the stick and carrot during this period as the financial disciple become intrenched in the daily, weekly and monthly routine.

The second stage: Evolving

  • We developed a proper board structure and outlined a process for communication, meetings and reporting.
  • We broke down our functional structure and redefined all positions within the organisation.
  • We developed performance metrics and measured results for each key function to ensure success.

The challenges and how they were overcome:

The ability to stay on track whilst working through what is ultimately not my/our core skills and to do this whilst running a business day to day is difficult. I found quite often it was much easier to work on a sale with a new customer or delve into service delivery tasks. Knowing that I had accountability to deliver on our agreed milestones ensured focus and Pete worked with me to keep progressing to meet those milestones.

Going from a minimal management system our leadership team were tasked with outlining new performance agreements to our teams and starting weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual performance management and leadership of their teams.  It was quite difficult at first, with managers and individual team members learning the new roles and managing the expectations that were set but as the dust settled the system was achieving the performance metrics set.

As was becoming more and more evident the ability to rely on accurate data was a massive success factor for this phase as staff and managers couldn’t hide behind misleading numbers or information. 

Throughout phase 2 we brought Pete into performance meetings to coach our managers and possibly more integral was the coaching and management amongst the family where he was the ultimate professional.   He always ensured the outcomes of what we’d set out to achieve, were met.

The current stage-Measurement, Review and Renew

The current phase of our organisation’s transformation is constant testing, measuring, adjusting, and managing our performance and shorter goals.  This stage will remain as part of my core role and the organisation is well and truly on its way towards the longer term goals, we established several years ago.  

This is how we did this:

  • Our business units operate within their lines of report meaning our teams know what they need to do and who is responsible for what. 
  • We have consistent effective board meetings reviewing performance, and there is a focus of ensuring that strategies, energies, and performance objectives are aligned with our long-term goals.   
  • Our teams have initiatives that build on last quarter/year that ensures we are always better than the last.   
  • Our incentive plans with employees are aligned with the success of the organisation which has enabled us to become an employer of choice in our industry and has kept long term employees – many of which for 15+ years.   

Pete has been a part of the ongoing monitoring and management of changes, highlighting areas for attention and help steer quarterly or yearly initiatives to be aligned with the broad strategy.

SO after several years into a 5 year project the value we have on our investment with Pete is amazing.   I often think if I could have completed a MBA or other undergrad business course and completed the works ourselves or alternatively hired a qualified general manager instead – each of which has its benefits however ultimately learning the skills ourselves and developing the business that we know and love has been a much more rewarding outcome.

I cannot thank Pete enough for his contribution to where Stardata and I am today, we honestly would be in a different world had we not pursued this engagement – most likely I would be an employee working for someone at this stage.  

I’d happily discuss our successes with anyone interested.

Kris Dearle - Startdata - Managing Director