Meet SA’s 25 Fast Movers 2018

OLYMPIC hockey player Aleksander Korcz is cooking up a storm with his Edwardstown food business, The Prep House, now ranked among the state’s top 25 Fast Movers. See the full list.

The Prep House’s Alek Korcz. Picture: Dylan Coker.

WITH a 68 per cent growth in average revenue, The Prep House founder Aleksander Korcz knows that he is playing a strong game.

The business, set up eight years ago, has grown steadily, with the Polish champion hockey player and trained chef working with local hospitality identities, including Saskia Beer and Sean Connolly.

The Prep House creates food service items for their restaurants and the broader hospitality sector, with 50 of its products going to its largest customer, Great Southern Railways.

Mr Korcz said he started with one product at Great Southern after “walking into their office with a sample” five years ago.

“They came to see our factory (at Edwardstown) and that was it. Now we deliver 50 products to them four times a week,” he said.

The business run out of Edwardstown and employs six staff, including five chefs.

Mr Korcz moved to Adelaide in 2001 after visiting Australia during the Sydney Olympics.

When he is not cooking, he still pursues field hockey and is SA’s only representative in the 40s Australian team at the 2018 Masters World Cup in Spain in July.

Alek Korcz at his Edwardstown kitchen. Picture: Dylan Coker

This year’s Fast Movers program, presented by BDO SA and Brand South Australia, attracted more entrants than ever with a strong regional representation.

SA fastest growing top three companies were revealed on Friday.

“Consistent with the past years - innovation and increasing market share is the way forward, when participants were asked about growth,” BDO SA managing partner Rudy Pieck said.

“Looking ahead to the next 12 months, all respondents believed that their staffing numbers would increase or stay the same and 77 per cent of respondents expect revenue to increase by at least 20 per cent in the year ahead.”

Brand SA chief executive Karen Raffen said the top 25 companies reflected the quality, diversity and depth of talent in SA.

“The Top 25 Fast Movers for 2018 should all be commended for their significant growth, which delivers economic benefit to South Australia, allowing us to continue to thrive on a national level,” she said.

Paringa company Yates Electrical was also featured among the fast growers, ranked 24th for its near 47 per cent revenue increase.

Agribusiness and lobster company Ferguson Australia came in eighth with its revenue growth of 112 per cent.

Most of the Fast Movers in 2018 are anticipating revenue and profit growth.

Rising star builds for a bright future

THE state’s top business in terms of revenue growth, Enviroclad Australia has been around for just three years and hopes to double its revenue over the next few years.

Antonio Vallelonga and Ryan Vallelonga. (AAP Image/Dean Martin).

Part of the Riverland-based Valls Group, Enviroclad was set up as a new arm to diversify the family business of making fruit boxes using expanded polystyrene, a lightweight cellular plastic material, into the building industry. Average revenue growth over three years now sits at nearly 300 per cent.

“We had no customer when we started. Learning a new industry has been the best part of our fast-paced journey so far,” co-founder Antonio Vallelonga said. “I see us growing strongly into the future.”

Enviroclad makes a range of steel-skinned EPS panels used as insulation products used by the building industry.

Innovation’s the key ingredient - Kishen Vijayadass

WHEN you ask the owner of a South Australian small to medium-sized business how they go about achieving significant growth, their answer invariably includes the word innovation.

It’s what we excel at here in SA – among many other things. When you’re in a relatively small market with limited obvious growth potential, you innovate to succeed.

By their very definition, our Fast Movers are at the top of their game – growing their profits, their staff numbers, their product lines, their customer base and in turn helping to grow our state.

Each year the Fast Movers survey provides us with an opportunity to find out what makes these outstanding SA SMEs tick – their strategies, successes and challenges offer insight into what it takes to not just succeed, but thrive.

In this year’s Fast Movers survey, business owners consistently identified core factors that have resulted in their growth: planning and – here’s that magic word – innovation.

As responses go, these seem obvious, but it’s amazing how often business owners get these fundamentals wrong. During a growth phase, it’s so easy to shift focus to the end game (profit) to the detriment of a structured, sustainable business model.

“Accidental” growth, that which takes place without pre-determined, strategic planning, is unstructured, suffers from poor leadership and is ultimately unsustainable. Our Fast Movers understand that failing to plan is tantamount to planning to fail.

Nearly all (95 per cent) of Fast Movers said their growth was planned, and the vast majority of respondents (76 per cent) have a written business plan. If you’re looking to identify a common denominator of success, it’s hard to go past percentages like these.

Taking the time to assess your aspirations, to identify and convert them into organised action plans, is essential to realising your businesses growth potential.

A common thread in each of the stories told by those surveyed was that, in their journey of growing and developing a small business into a booming enterprise, they have learnt exactly what their customers want and adapted to suit.

Just over half attribute their past growth to either winning market share from competitors or introducing new products and services, and see these as key to continued growth.

Whether expanding or changing the products and services they offer, adapting their marketing strategies or re-structuring internal systems and processes to suit – Fast Movers are willing and able to meet market demand.

Importantly, they have also maintained an optimistic mindset and self-belief that defies all challenges. When surveyed, the majority of Fast Movers were anticipating continued revenue and profit growth over the coming year.

And 77 per cent were expecting revenue to increase by at least 20 per cent, which is significant coming from businesses already experiencing high rates of growth.

Asked to identify their main obstacles, our Fast Movers identified sourcing, managing and retaining quality staff with the right skills as one of their biggest challenges.

Despite the challenges, the overarching theme from our respondents this year is one of optimism and a drive to continue pushing the boundaries of doing business in SA – it’s an exciting time for innovation in our state, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Kishen Vijayadass is business services partner at BDO SA.

Elite foundations stay strong

UNDERDALE company Elite Building and Renovations owner Tom Saunders started his renovations and home extensions business in 2012.

Last week it was ranked second fastest-growing company in SA, with an average revenue growth of 209 per cent.

Tom Saunders and Susan Strachan. (AAP Image/Dean Martin)

The company specialises in renovations and extensions to existing homes and builds on Tom’s 15-year plus experience in the industry.

The ranking came as a surprise to Mr Saunders, who advised company leaders to “know your numbers and know them every day”.

“Business is exciting, entrepreneurship is exciting. But core human values, healthy lifestyle and things outside of work are very important too.”

“Just keep it honest,” he said.

The business currently employs 11 full-time staff and regularly contracts more than 20 subcontractors.

Elite has worked on more than 140 renovations for 200-plus customers across Adelaide.

It has an apprenticeship training program and also donates 1 per cent of turnover to Kickstart for Kids each year.

Uniti wired for more success

UNITI Wireless expects to more than double its 60-plus workforce in the next few months as it prepares to list on the Australian share market.

The high-speed internet services provider, established by Che Metcalfe and Sasha Baranikov, was ranked third with an average revenue growth of 176 per cent.

While the company has faced headwinds with the sudden exit of its chief executive Rick Correll in April after six months on the job, it remains on course for stellar growth.

With backers like Vocus founder James Spenceley and Amcom founder Tony Grist, the business employing more than 60 staff is building a fixed wireless broadband network in Adelaide and Melbourne to feed growing demand for its internet services.

Co-founder and chief executive Che Metcalfe said the group was driven to solve a key problem that is holding back Australia’s productivity and growth, which is universal access to reliable and super-fast broadband.

Che Metcalfe and Sasha Baranikov. (AAP Image/Dean Martin)

“Our rapid growth – in just four years – is proof that we are giving customers just what they want, a reliable and high-performance alternative to the NBN and other internet service provider offerings.”

Uniti Wireless offers a “fibre through the air” solution using fixed wireless technology and fibre backhaul.

Co-founder Sasha Baranikov said the company’s success lay in getting the right investors and right team on board.

“Having the right people behind you to support, especially when you are growing so fast, is critical,” she said.

Mr Metcalfe said it was important to “expect failure” when setting up a business.

“Embrace failure. You are going to fail at first, but learn from that, get up and try again. Importantly, learn to trust your gut instinct as you learn to rely on others for advice as well,” he said.

Big guys’ perfect brew

BIG SHED Brewing’s Craig Basford and Jason Harris already have bigger plans for their fast-growing five-year-old business.

It is in the midst of setting up in Royal Park at a 3500sq m premises where beer, food and entertainment will “share the limelight”.

Craig Basford and Jason Harris from Big Shed Brewing at Royal Park. Photo Calum Robertson.

After quickly learning that “we couldn’t do everything”, the founders roped in a team of seven – soon expanding to 30 – to focus on growing the business. There is excitement, but mixed in with caution.

“Don’t rush into decisions. Sometimes it can feel like things are going mile-a-minute and you need to do the same. It’s important to take a step back, evaluate and then decide,” Mr Basford said.

Path to growth all in the planning

BEING agile, adapting to changing markets and innovating are critical factors to succeed, according to an annual survey of the state’s fastest-growing companies.

Consistent with the past three years, more than a quarter of the companies attributed growth to introducing new products and services. About 56.9 per cent said their growth in revenues was “significantly” planned, and 38.5 per cent said growth was “somewhat planned”. Most respondents expected to grow revenues and profits while employing more staff over the next year.

More than half expected further growth to come from winning market share and introducing new products and services. Advantages of doing business in SA included lower cost of doing business, lifestyle knowledge of the market and a culture of buying local.

Challenges included staffing issues from recruitment, development and managing staff expectations and relationships. Access to bigger interstate markets was also difficult.

“Business owners consistently identified core factors that have resulted in their growth: planning and — here’s that magic word — innovation,” said BDO SA’s business services partner Kishen Vijayadass.

Passion, enthusiasm clear for all to see - Karen Raffen

FAST Movers 2018 has again proven that South Australia FAST Movers 2018 has again proven that SA is home to diverse, high-quality and ever-growing businesses.

Each year Fast Movers helps to create passion, enthusiasm and exposure among our fastest-growing companies and we are excited for the future of the program.

As a presenting partner, along with BDO, Brand South Australia was excited to host the Fast Movers breakfast on Friday, which forms part of our annual calendar of over 80 events, creating networking opportunities.

We were honoured and excited to celebrate the top three businesses; Enviroclad Australia, Elite Building and Renovations and Uniti Wireless. The Top 25 are made up of business from a variety of industries, showcasing our depth of talent.

Enviroclad Australia, who came first with an average revenue growth of over 297.56 per cent, has demonstrated that SA is a fantastic state to start and grow a business.

The Top 25 Fast Movers for 2018 should all be commended for their significant growth, which delivers economic benefit to SA.

Karen Raffen is CEO of Brand SA

TOP 25 LIST

SA Fast Movers 2018. Table: Supplied by BDO SA