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Case Study: Rangiora Bakery

The ICEHOUSE — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:22:34 +0000

Name: Ron van Til • Business: Rangiora Bakery • Business Size: 160 employees Industry / Business type: Food Wholesale & Café • Business Location: Rangiora

Position: Owner & MD • ICEHOUSE programme: Owner Manager Programme • Year completed: 2007

CHALLENGE

When Ron van Til made the decision to go on The ICEHOUSE Owner Manager Programme his business was in a stable state. Rangiora Bakery had been in business for 150 years and under the ownership of Ron for the last 25 of those years.

Coming from a background in sales, Ron chose to purchase the business from his father and had been running it smoothly ever since.

During Ron’s time as owner, the business has started to plateau. Ron had visions of expansion but didn’t know how to do it or get to the next level.

Ron would get bored with the business and found himself trying his hand at other things such as property whilst the business continued to tick over in the background.

Ron says he had a good team around him and was initially sceptical about doing the programme.

“I wasn’t sure about the large investment of time or money that was required to do it, but I was advised by my peers who had completed the programme that it’d be worth my while – they strongly recommended it,” he says.

“I thought to myself, I should be open to suggestion and even if I didn’t learn anything from the programme, at least I could use it as moderation for the business.”

“I guess you could say I went into it a bit cocky. I didn’t think I was going to learn anything new, and I went in with the attitude that I was only doing it for due diligence.”

SOLUTION

Ron started the Owner Manager Programme in a very comfortable position, he understood it may give him ‘something’, but also accepted it may end up not giving him anything.

“After the first session I thought I was doing things fairly right, but following that – things changed and the realisation that I was doing the wrong role in the organisation came about. I discovered I was the bottle neck,” says Ron.

“The programme allowed me to be in a situation where I was having people critique what I was doing and another unique realisation I wasn’t aware of came from this – I was actually bored in the business.”

“This realisation helped me understand I needed to reduce my minor decision making and delegate more.”

“I spent a lot of time changing my mind set and establishing what I should be doing in the business,” says Ron.

Ron says everyone gets something different from the programme.

“For me the practical teachings weren’t so important but they still helped to refresh some things in my mind. The key for me was learning about organisational structure and strategic thinking. These learnings helped me to think in a new light and taught me how to get from a certain size to a corporate level,” he says.

“The facilitators on the programme were fantastic in the group learning environment, which actually develops its own culture throughout the time you are together.”

Ron says the structure of the programme can be daunting at first, but when you commit to it, it ends up working well.

“Initially it was never a ‘good’ time to start – I always had too much on. The reality is, we all work on priorities. Once you’ve locked yourself away, you suddenly have to work on those priorities you’ve been putting off – the ones which are actually the most important for the business.”

“Psychologically the time frame is perfect. Three days away from your day-to-day operations a month works well – it’s like taking a long weekend, but with a business focus,” he says.

RESULTS

Ron says the programme helped him to implement ways to manage his team more effectively.

“After the programme we went through a year where there were some issues that arose, but thankfully because the team was now in a different place we all could manage these issues easily.”

“I used to treat my employees like Bonsai plants; always keeping them under control. Now I don’t prune them any longer and I allow them to grow in their roles. We have open discussions which allows them to get more out of the business.”

Ron says his employees really enjoy the improved organisational structure and culture in the business and this is backed up by the low turnover rate.

Ron decided to put his ‘right hand man’ on the ICEHOUSE Leadership Development Programme which he says helped him to understand where Ron was coming from.

“It had a strong positive effect on the business. Our renewed focus and improved ways of looking at things had a water down effect – it meant all of our employees benefited from us completing the programmes,” says Ron.

Since completing the programme, Rangiora Bakery has shown on average 15% growth year on year. They have doubled the size of building including opening a flagship café ‘Artisan Café’ which sprawls over two floors and recently won the ‘Upper South Island’ title in the NZ Café of the Year Awards. The business now employs 160 staff and 25% of the business is based around exporting to Australia.

“Way back all our work was domestic, but we identified Australia as having the biggest opportunities for us, now we are sending 40ft containers of our product there,” says Ron.

Ron’s stress levels are now the lowest they’ve ever been.

“I’m less stressed due to the fact I’ve released a lot of responsibilities to my staff. I’m focused on what I should be doing,” he says.

“I’ve always had a great team, but now I feel confident that I can take time away from the business and it will run well without me. I can go on holiday and not have any anxiety about what’s going on back home.”

“I chose this programme because others advised me to – now I want to recommend it to others. I only recommend things I believe in, I feel strongly and I believe in this programme,” says Ron.

“If I could choose – everyone would be subsidised to attend this programme, it would help a lot of people. It’s not just about generating profit – there is a level of respect which comes with how it’s structured, the facilitating team and being surrounded by other business owners.”

Ron says the best thing about the programme was gaining the understanding of his role – this impacted every aspect of the business.

“If I hadn’t done this programme we would be in the same place, and I would still be holding back the business.”

Download the Case Study in PDF format here.

Find out more about Rangiora Bakey: http://www.rangiorabakery.com/

More ICEHOUSE Case Studies here.

The Mother of Reinvention: Richard Krebs Case Study

The ICEHOUSE — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 03:05:42 +0000

When the fun has gone and your business just brings stress, is it time to walk away? Not necessarily. The ICEHOUSE Owner Manager Programme gave this owner-manager the confidence and skills to turn his company (and life) around.

Engineer Richard Krebs has worked his way up from the bottom in his chosen field. Now he is CEO of New Zealand’s largest privately owned fluid power engineering company, Hydraulic Specialties Ltd (Hyspecs). The company specialises in hydraulic-component sales, design and servicing. Krebs joined Hyspecs in 1982, 10 years after it was founded and has since learnt about every aspect of the company through working in its various divisions.

But it was in 2001, when Krebs attended the inaugural ICEHOUSE Owner Manager Programme (OMP) that his learning really began. At the time,
he had been CEO for five years but was having serious doubts about his future.

“I was on the brink of throwing in the towel,” he admits. “I’d arrive home from work exhausted and my wife would say ‘You’re killing yourself ’.”

Just when he needed it most, Richard Krebs was thrown a lifeline – BNZ invited him to attend OMP1 and the rest, as they say, is history. “Our business is unrecognisable from what it was 10 years ago,” he says. “We’ve gone from 23 employees to 45. We now have two New Zealand branches and recently opened one in Melbourne, which was a great achievement. There have been massive changes and massive growth. Much of that is attributable to The ICEHOUSE.”

The key to that change, he says, has been his own personal increase in confidence.

“The OMP course was literally life- changing,” he says. “The main thing it gave me was confidence. Like most owner managers, I didn’t lack ideas, but I did lack the self-belief to push them through. The course gave us the confidence to apply what we knew and apply what we were taught.”

Having attended a country school and with no university education, Krebs went into The ICEHOUSE OMP with “a large amount of trepidation”, feeling out of his depth and inferior to the “brain box” facilitators and other participants. He soon realised his fears about the course and his ability to run his company were completely unfounded.

“The ICEHOUSE course said ‘You are good enough for this, and here are some additional tools you can use to make you

better still.’ It was enormous fun and we got to know each other so well. We’d share ideas and get direct feedback from the rest of the class. There was the genuine feeling of a team helping each other out. That was a discovery – that I could relate to the others and their problems, even though our businesses weren’t in any way related or competing.”

Armed with his new-found confidence after attending OMP1, Richard made some sweeping and highly positive changes within the company.

“I pulled it apart,” he says, “literally tore it apart department by department. I met with department heads and said ‘Tell me how you do your job’. In some cases they didn’t know, or didn’t have a clear understanding of what they were doing. We then created diagrams to see why they were doing certain things. The answer was often because we’ve always done it that way’, so we were able to remove certain processes.”

With the simple goal of making the company more efficient, Krebs conducted this same exercise across all departments. The understanding was that no one would be reprimanded or lose their job.

Krebs says that as a result, the changes in Auckland were particularly dramatic. “When I completed the OMP, we had 15 staff in Auckland. Eight years later we had 17 staff and had tripled our turnover. It’s had a huge effect on our bottom line.”

Through The ICEHOUSE OMP and other courses, Krebs has learnt the importance of a good business model and sound forward and financial planning. He now also has processes in place to help him spend time away from the business. He’s flattened the structure of the company, has hired a full-time marketing manager, rebranded, streamlined procedures and changed the entire culture to celebrate staff contribution, increase their responsibility and investment in the company’s success.

“It’s now very open, inclusive and caring. We’re a team. We have an employee of the month, drinks every Friday night and two Christmas parties. There’s a bonus scheme in place that’s tied to profit so the staff really benefit. We also have a share scheme and financial and technical training for staff. We’re always looking for better ways to do things and we broadcast staff members’ good ideas. We push our staff, but they stay. Staff retention is no longer a problem. We even have a waiting list of people wanting to work here.”

Business is fun again and this attitude filters down through the company to benefit everyone, says Krebs.

“As a leader I’m much less stressed and nicer to be around. I’m told that I am still reasonably firm, but I take on board the input from others more now. I delegate and trust the team’s ability. And when those you delegate to enjoy their work more, everybody wins. I come to work now and meetings are going on. I know they’re doing what’s good for the company.

“This company wouldn’t be what it is today without The ICEHOUSE. It helped me bring out the skills of the people working here, so it’s changed the company as a whole. But it also had a dramatic impact on my wife and family as well.”

Krebs says he has no hesitation in recommending the Owner Manager Programme to any business owner. He’s also sent four of his senior staff on The ICEHOUSE Leading and Managing for Growth Programme and says it is money well spent.

A New Direction: Tony Salter Case Study

The ICEHOUSE — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:57:04 +0000

Tony Salter, owner of Salamander Enterprises, describes attending The ICEHOUSE OMP as a “pivotal point” in the company’s history.

Invited by BNZ to attend the inaugural Owner Manager Programme, Salter says his first thought was “do they really think I’m that bad?” He knew, however, that BNZ was aware of his desire to shift the company’s focus.

“When BNZ asked me to go on the OMP, I’d only been with them for six months,” he says. “They could see that I wanted to change my business and move away from the gift market. Within 12 months, we’d turned the whole company around, switching from importing high-quality giftware and some furniture to solely furniture. We’d increased turnover and profit had doubled. Five years later, turnover and profit had quadrupled.”

In addition to importing, Salamander Enterprises now manufactures and distributes its own branded furniture, and has grown from seven staff to 20, including one of Salter’s sons. But growth requires funding, and in previous banking relationships, when the company needed money to expand, Salter had felt cut off due to a lack of assets.

“BNZ was a breath of fresh air. During the course, two BNZ bank managers advised us how to deal with the bank. This helped me produce a set of figures I knew BNZ would look at. It was a great insight into their thinking and how they viewed my business, especially when it comes to borrowing.”

Another area of immediate change concerned Salter’s business plan. While he knew his goals for the company, these had not been properly formalised. The OMP prompted him to create a draft business plan, which was revised after each block of the course and used to communicate his ideas to the rest of the company.

Now, despite losing nearly 20% of its retail business in the economic downturn, Salter has a plan in place to see the company through the tough times. Rather than downsize, he took the opportunity to upskill his staff and is ready for the market to recover.

“There are always opportunities. The ICEHOUSE enabled me to cut to the core on a number of those. It was a voyage of discovery – discovering more about yourself and the knowledge you need in a new business world.”

Stepping back is another change Salter has implemented since the Owner Manager Programme. From doing everything himself – accounting, costing, negotiating, freighting, HR and closing sales – he now has the confidence to let others do their job. And after 40 years in the trade, his exit strategy is in place and he’s scaling back to three-day weeks.

Driving for Growth: Rex Davies Case Study

The ICEHOUSE — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:15:28 +0000

What struck Rex Davies on the first day of his Owner Manager Programme was ICEHOUSE founder David Irving’s emphasis on the importance of creating a good work/life balance. And, while he’s still struggling a little with it, Davies now knows what to do to improve that balance.

His company, MIMICO (Matamata Industrial Machinery Imports Limited), imports and distributes dump trucks, flatbed trucks and heavy machinery, but Davies felt like a lightweight when he first began his OMP course.

“When I went to OMP1 I was the minnow,” he says. “I think we turned over about $5 million dollars. I wondered why I’d been put in with all these heavy weights.”

It soon became clear to him that each of the 18 owner-managers on the inaugural ICEHOUSE OMP was facing the same sort of issues, despite the differences in their company’s turnover and the varied industries from which they came.

Over the last decade, MIMICO has quadrupled its turnover and (like most New Zealand companies) Rex Davies and his team have experienced some highs and lows. The company now employs 32 staff, up from the six it had in 2001, and Davies says the business has more structure and better processes in place.

“What I really got out of the Owner Manager Programme was the accounting side. I realised I needed a much better accounting system so I hired an accountant. We also do far more forecasting now, which helps to drive growth, as does the desire to grow and having the right people.”

His OMP experience has increased Davies’ aspirations for growth and helped him achieve one of his aims for expansion – in 2003/4 he took advantage of a supply shortage by his competitors and set up a successful low-overhead operation in Australia.

While cashflow is still an issue in this tough economy, Davies is passionate about what he does and enjoys the fact that his company’s success has flow-on benefits for his employees. His OMP1 course notes are still a valuable tool, and Davies has encouraged two of his managers to attend executive management courses through The ICEHOUSE.

M-com: Mobile banking and payment solutions

The ICEHOUSE — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:30:18 +0000

Adam Clark, CEO of M-Com, the worlds best mobile banking and payment solutions company, talks about the history of the companies growth, their time at The iCEHOUSE and their recent acquisition by Fiserv.