BUSINESSFIRST for Business Leaders
October/November 2015
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GJ Gardner
Building a better business
RICHARD MALOUF
All in the family
FROM LONDON TO SYDNEY
THE IMPORTANCE OF CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
Howard Collins’ public transport mantra
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Empowering women in business
JAGUAR HUMS ALONG BUSINESS FIRST MAGAZINE Vol 2 Issue 5
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SPECIAL FEATURE
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How to sell your business tax free
LEADERSHIP
FRANCHISE CULTURE MANAGEMENT PROPERTY TECHNOLOGY and more
BF | EDITOR’S DESK
The workplace puzzle
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Business First contributor Jack Delosa writes: “encourage business leaders to define the vision, mission and values of their business. Then, employ and nurture team members that are naturally, and passionately, aligned with those qualities.” Jack is referring specifically to women in the workplace, however the sentiment is universal and it is reflected throughout many of the executive profiles in this issue. Take Yum! Restaurants International MD Tony Lowing for instance. The staff he has managed from Australia to Latin America and the Carribbean have all had two crucial things in common: a nurtured passion for the business and a feeling of inclusiveness. Tony says, “We always talk about the fact that we are a people business. We employ large numbers of people... and we put a huge amount into training them. Through this we can engage with people and create an environment where they enjoy coming to work... We make sure that it’s as fun and enjoyable as possible and we give people the opportunity to grow and progress within the environment.” As do GJ Gardner, NZ’s largest home builder franchise. MD Darren Wallis takes the approach that if the franchisees are growing, so too is the business as a whole. For Darren, it is about giving franchisees the right systems to help them achieve their goals. “It is rewarding to see a small builder follows the systems and become successful. We have had builders who have been following our systems and within a few years they are the biggest builder in their town.” I won’t harp on any longer about this, suffice to say that the way you nurture staff and give them the tools to grow within the organisation is imperative because their success informs your own. Also in this issue we speak with Steve Shelley of Emerson Power about technological transformation and the NBN, train man Howard Collins who has brought London Rail and Sydney Rail into the 21st century, Sharon Melamed explains disruption in the recruitment industry, Greg Steele gives us insight into architecture, Richard Malouf talks about family business and John Zendler gives us the lowdown on modular construction. These are all great leaders, with insightful stories to tell. However the one that resonated most with me this issue was Leanne Warner.
PUBLISHER Alan Hyman EDITOR Jonathan Jackson SUB-EDITOR Judy Hyman MEDIA & COMMUNICATION Khan Izaac Jake O’Donnell EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Victoria Wilson DESIGN Gino Hawkins Head Office: Level 1, 33-35 Atchison St St Leonards NSW 2065 Advertising enquiries: Phone: 02 8416 5294 Email: bfadvertising@amgroup.net.au Subscription enquiries: Phone: 02 8416 5294 Email: bfsubscriptions@amgroup.net.au Contributors: Nick Bell, Patrick Bright, Mark Chapman, Stefan Crisp, Janine Cox, Jack Delosa, Stan Gordon, Brian Hor, Matt Lewis, Roger Mendelsohn, Cholena Orr, Stuart Payne, Sharon Zeev-Poole, Sadhana Smiles, Vincent de Stefano, Rob Zazuetta. Associated Media Group Pty Ltd ABN 68 123 058 926 Copyright ©2015 Associated Media Group
Publishing, ad CILTA AWARDS by Associated
Leanne is the the CEO of Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation. It is a rewarding, but difficult role as she must understand the needs and priorities of the hospital and then match those with funding.
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“It is always challenging to fundraise and the number of non-profits emerging is on the incline. There are smaller foundations who set themselves up every day of the week, but our brand is well known and we have legitimate needs which people recognise.”
DISCLAIMER Readers are advised that Business First Magazine and Associated Media Group (AMG) cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of statements made in the advertising. Opinions expressed throughout the publication are the contributors own and do not necessarily reflect views or policy of Business First Magazine or AMG. While every reasonable effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, AMG takes no responsibility for those relying on the information. AMG and Business First Magazine disclaim all responsibility for any loss or damage suffered by readers of third parties in connection with the information contained in this publication.
However with more and more non-profits emerging, the fight for dollars becomes increasingly hard. It is therefore imperative to support a cause and if you are not doing anything on 22 October head to the Argyle on the Rocks in Sydney for the Amber Affair and pledge some support.
Jonathan Jackson
Jonathan Jackson Editor, Business First Magazine
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NEWS | BF
Flexible working hours key for staff retention Over a third of Australian employers believe that offering staff flexible work arrangements is the best way stop them searching out alternative employment. According to figures released by Employsure, employers found that work-life balance ranks highest for staff retention, overshadowing pay rises and training. Edward Mallett, Managing Director of Employsure, says, “Our research clearly shows that staff often need to organise working hours around family commitments
and they appreciate the opportunity to do so. This is seen as more compelling for staff retention than remuneration, training, and often costly enticements such as staff events.” The survey polled 461 small to medium businesses and the findings put staff retention in the spotlight at a time when, according to recent statistics from consultancy firm Accenture, one in five employed Australians are looking for a new role at any given time. Keeping staff happy should be a focus for SMEs, Mr Mallett says, as replacing people is
costly and time-consuming. “Costs can add up with recruitment advertising, and there’s so much time invested to hire and train new employees. If it’s a sudden departure, other staff need to step in for their colleague, compromising their own workload. “Considering our new research, employers should approach requests for flexible working arrangements with an open mind. Addressing this real-world issue will help managers retain staff and make their workplace more desirable to new recruits.” BF
something. You can get the experience needed to apply for jobs by making, building and publishing yourself!” Jo Cranford emphasised the need for more female tech workers in senior positions “More women are needed in senior leadership for diversity to happen the whole way
down [the management chain]. Many companies are desperate to address the issue of tech’s diversity problem, and are aware of the benefits of a diverse team, yet there is still an ongoing problem. It was highlighted by the panel that it is important to remember that men are also part of the solution; it’s not the 1% of women who are going to have all the answers so it is important we work together as an industry to drive this change. Johana Foster advised that this culture change begins not in the office, but in learning environments; stating it’s important to have lecturers and teachers that don’t discount your thoughts and opinions because you’re female. Giselle expanded the need to bring code classes into the curriculum at Primary School level for all students, and it should be taught as something everyone should know, concluding “code is not maths, code is not science, code is a language and a language that is universal. Framing coding as a language can help the barriers for girls who think they’re not good at maths or science.” BF
Code like a girl ‘Code Like A Girl’, a digitally led initiative to help inspire and support women in code, hosted their official launch event in Melbourne recently. During the event, an industry panel of female tech leaders discussed key topics including solutions to tech’s ongoing gender divide, how we can help women currently in or pursuing careers in the tech industry, and what they want the future to look like. Networking is critically important for women across all industries, but especially tech where they are in the minority. Culturally, women have a tendency to talk themselves down. When discussing this imbalance of confidence, Giselle Rosman enthused females in tech need to realise “you’re good at what you do and you deserve to be here.” Rosman advised female students and women looking to get into the industry highlighting the importance to “put yourself out there, network and showcase your work.” She emphasised that when starting out, “you don’t have to be employed or paid to build www.businessfirstmagazine.com.au
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BF | FEATURE
Q&A Steven and Chutisa Bowman
Benevolent leadership is beyond mindful leadership. It is the future of business. When business executives only focus on the short term of what they can actually create for themselves instead of a sustainable reality for the world, they deny themselves a sustainable future. Businesses must measure their success not only by their financial performance but also on how they are being a contribution to society and the world, as well as by the impact on the environment and on the society in which they operate. The Benevolent way of business goes beyond philanthropic thinking . It goes beyond social enterprise, corporate social responsibility and conscious capitalism. Benevolent capitalism creates an entirely new system for businesses, based on the four priorities of: generating a sustainable future, doing no damage, maximising possibilities not just maximising revenue, and personal empowerment through benevolent leadership. Yet most leaders and managers do everything they can to keep their timeworn conventional business models in place. However, if leaders choose to align the capitalism maxim with the maxim of a sustainable future for people and planet, there are still abundant possibilities and revenues to be actualised— revenues made in ways that generate a sustainable future rather than damage the planet and endanger our future. This is benevolent capitalism.
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What does leadership mean to you?
Hamish Hogben
Understanding future trends in industry and management are vital for ensuring a business remains wellrun, competitive and productive. In today’s global climate, this is truer for Australian companies than ever before – particularly for those operating in once-vital manufacturing industries that are now largely in decline. It has become more important for corporate leaders to take heed of lessons and experiences from similar companies and executives in other mature markets, which can provide a leadership blueprint for how we approach these new challenges. The keys to helping challenged sectors continue making contributions to the national economy are effective leadership built around detailed understanding of important meta-drivers (both at home and abroad), proactive decision-making based on intricate knowledge of macroeconomic factors, encouraging growth in the people around you, and adapting as necessary to succeed. All of these are founded on local action being informed by global perspective.
Mark Pope Culture is delivered from the bottom up. When people take on a new job, they look for money and opportunity. When they leave a new job, it is because of culture, management or lack of opportunity. Managers need to be more aware of this in their planning. They need to engage. And by doing so, they will retain their top employees, they will encourage new employees to speak about improvements and thus stay and they will minimise any damage to their bottom line. Research conducted by world-renowned psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman around positive psychology focuses on the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves and to enhance their experiences of love, work and play. Thus we find that to lead a more fulfilling life in the workforce requires management to create a culture of autonomy and responsibility.
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INFOGRAPHIC| BF
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BF | PROFILE
Traditional service in an ever-changing industry The world of pharmacy has changed enormously since Richard Malouf first started working; however it is a traditional philosophy of old-fashioned support and service that has helped make his company so successful through more than 50 years of business.
M
alouf Pharmacies is the largest chain of privately-owned pharmacies in Australia, employing some 450 staff across the pharmacy business and another 150 through their cosmetic and fragrance stores. In an era of huge national chains and ‘discount superstores’ this is no mean feat. Richard Malouf started his journey with “one tiny little half shop” in Albert Street Brisbane in 1962, growing it into a $140 million business today. “That first store is probably my greatest achievement, in that I started it from scratch rather than taking it over from anyone else – and then it grew from there,” he says. However, Richard’s interest in the industry goes back even further than that first store, with a fond memory for a local pharmacy in Maxville, Queensland back when he was barely 10 years old. “I think I almost made my mind up back in those days when I would visit the store and felt like a great place to be,” he explains laughing. “My father had a very big fashion store, possibly the biggest in Australia. So I actually went into the fashion industry a little bit while I was studying pharmacy, working directly with my father where he taught me how to buy and how retail worked. It gave me an idea of trading, and it’s those skills that I still have in
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my business today.” Pharmacy was a very different retail offering to what we see today. As Richard notes, when he opened that first store in 1962, people bought toothpaste, toilet paper and more at the pharmacy, whereas the large supermarket chains now have a stranglehold on those goods. Equally, one of the roles of the pharmacist was to create the medications in the shop. “Every second prescription you got was a mixture that was made by adding various ingredients into an ointment, powder or sometimes into pills. You were a compounding pharmacist in the real sense of the title. Then the big drug companies came in to the game and were able to make the really common mixtures in bulk at better prices and supply it all as packaged goods until that became the standard process.” For a family business to survive such change shows a willingness to innovate and an ability to understand what the market wants. Indeed, even when Richard first started in the industry, he was pioneering the service offering to the market. “Having that fashion industry understanding made me look at things a bit differently,” he says. “Most pharmacies in those days were pretty basic in offering and look. I decided that we needed to make it quite glamourous,
so as I opened new stores I introduced new things. I think I might have been the first one to ever carpet a pharmacy – they were always vinyl floored places back then.” Richard also used those early days to venture into perfume and followed his father’s fashion store ideas to make the experience more exciting and enjoyable for the consumer. “They used to have live models in those days who would walk around the stores as they did in America. Everybody wanted to shop where the models shopped so it created a real presence about the place.” Another major step forward came when Richard’s younger brother Ian joined the business. Richard says it was something of a “natural progression” with Ian also studying pharmacy and getting a taste for the business whilst working through holidays. “Ian’s about 15 years younger than me and once he decided to study pharmacy he got a feel for the business and was obviously able to offer a lot as we expanded.” This natural progression extended to the manner in which the two brothers took the business forward. Over the years Ian focused on the actual pharmacy side, whilst Richard concentrated on the business side. Through the years it has extended, with nieces and nephews joining and bringing new skills and www.businessfirstmagazine.com.au
PROFILE | BF
Richard Malouf
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BF | WORKFORCE
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WORKFORCE| BF
WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE:
Confronting the Pay Gap L Jack Delosa
Gen Y Entrepreneur & Investor
et’s talk about the pay gap. In November 2014, the average take home salary for Australian men was 18.8% higher than women. That means that in Australia – a civilised, democratic and egalitarian society – women in the workforce are currently earning nearly 19% less than their male counterparts. And this disparity is steadily increasing year on year. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the greatest contributor to the pay gap is the lack of women in senior management positions. Women have been prevalent in the Australian workforce for over half a century and currently determine 45% of the workforce. Yet only 26% of key management positions are held by women. More astonishingly, one third of all Australian businesses do not have any women in key management roles. None. But this is a global trend. A quick glance at the Fortune 500 will reveal that a meagre 23 of the world’s top companies (4.6%) are currently headed by female CEOs. These statistics are alarming on a number of levels. Firstly, in my view, they do not represent the true potential women have to be strong and charismatic leaders, such as the formidable Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany and Forbes’ ‘Most Powerful Woman on Earth’. They do not demonstrate the inherent ability of women to be inspirational and courageous agents of change, like media giant, Oprah Winfrey andte girls’ education advocate,
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Malala Yousafzai. And they do not signify the vital contribution that women have been proven to make in business teams, particularly regarding creativity, vision and effective problem solving. (A recent study revealed that a business team’s success at producing effective solutions was directly proportional to the number of women on the team1). What this shows us is that the true value of what women contribute to business is somehow being overlooked. It seems that (perhaps inadvertently) the conventional method of employing and promoting employees has harboured an innate inequality; one that should have been left behind in the last century. That leads me to my second concern. Small and medium businesses have long been the backbone of the Australian economy. Therefore, in my view, if we want to continue to thrive as a nation we need to ensure that we nurture dynamic and disruptive entrepreneurs, and we need them to build creative and capable teams. Successful teams. Driven. Inspired. Experience has shown me that women are incredibly capable in business. In my view, they tend to be highly intuitive and creative, and studies have shown them to be empathetic and highly attuned to vital social innuendo when working in a team. Therefore, the conversation needs to begin about how and why businesses are not recognising the value of highly capable female applicants and employees. For the sake of our ongoing economic success, the
focus needs to be on supporting women managers and leaders, and reducing the national embarrassment of the gender pay gap. Business Leaders
In my view, the traditional concepts behind employment and promotional opportunity are outdated and irrelevant. Instead of focusing on education, skills and other conventional criteria, I encourage business leaders to define the vision, mission and values of their business. Then, employ and nurture team members that are naturally, and passionately, aligned with those qualities. Women in the Workforce
Young Australian women are more educated than their male peers, and yet tend to earn less. In my view, tertiary education does not lead to a more meaningful or on-purpose career path. In fact, it’s usually quite the opposite as those with a qualification try to mould their career to their degree rather than their sense of purpose or internal drivers. I encourage savvy business women to either consider entrepreneurialism, or ensure that they seek work environments where they are valued in equal measure to what they add. Equal Pay Day marks the calendar date where women have earned equal pay with men for the previous financial year. In 2014, Equal Pay Day was on 5 September. BF 1 Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups, Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris et al (2010)
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BF | PROPERTY
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PROPERTY| BF
KEEPING SELLING AGENTS HONEST Entrusting the sale of your home or investment property to a complete stranger can be fraught with danger. Vendor advocates are emerging to help guide sellers through the sale process writes Patrick Bright.
A
Patrick Bright is the Director of EPS Property Search
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s we move into the traditional spring selling season, many homeowners will be thinking of selling and upgrading to meet a change in their accommodation needs. The process of selling and buying real estate has changed dramatically over the past decade and when you don’t do something on a regular basis it’s always wise to seek independent advice. Choosing the right person to sell your home or investment property is an essential ingredient in obtaining a great price come sale time and that’s where vendor advocates come in! What are vendor advocates? To prevent costly mistakes, more and more sellers are seeking advice from vendor advocates to advise them on the sale of their property. A vendor advocate is usually an ex selling agent or current buyer’s agent. With such industry experience they can help guide and advise on key aspects of the sales and marketing campaign. A vendor advocate will visit the property and provide the seller with an unbiased appraisal, including where the property sits in the market and an indicative sales price range. They will also usually comment on positive and negative aspects of the property and where it might fall down in the eyes of buyers, and then give the seller advice on what improvements can be made to get top dollar. Many buyer’s agents offer vendor advocacy services drawing on their extensive and current understanding of the market. Given that they deal with selling agents in their respective areas on a daily basis they know which sales agents are the most professional, skilled negotiators who respond to potential buyers in a timely manner and really do genuinely work hard for their vendors to get the best price. They are also abreast of current market trends and can provide helpful tips on how to make your property more appealing to buyers.
Keeping selling agents accountable
Many sellers don’t have the time to do the necessary research to determine the most appropriate selling agent for the job, particularly if they are based interstate or overseas. Instead they often make the critical mistake of simply choosing the one that currently manages the property, offers to charge the lowest fee or simply promises to get the highest price. Like any service based experience you’re likely to end up getting exactly what you pay for. While you don’t need to necessarily choose the most expensive selling agent to achieve the best result I have found that those who are at the top of their game can and do command fees which reflect their skills and experience. Essentially sellers want confidence that their selling agent will: - Be readily available to potential buyers; - Respond quickly and efficiently to enquiries; - Put their client’s interests before their own; - Provide honest feedback at all times; - Have a solid and current understanding of the property market in their area; and - Determine the best sales strategy for their property. At the end of the day anyone can arrange to have a photo taken, have advertising copy written up and stand at a door and collect names. What you want as a seller is someone who is not afraid to be honest with you about price and buyer feedback, someone who is great at working with buyers, great at following up and most importantly who is a skilled negotiatior. It’s a personal service and If I could give you one tip right now it would be to always seek out a skilled individual not necessarily somone who works at what is perceived to be a strong brand. BF
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RESOLVING COMPLEXITY Hyder is excited to announce that it has merged to become part of leading global design and consultancy firm Arcadis. Under this umbrella of world class engineers, architects, advisors and designers, will continue to bring excellence to a broad spectrum of natural and built assets within the Australian landscape. For more information on this exciting entry into the Australian market go to arcadis.com
Incorporating
arcadis.com