An organisational restructure, a new business model and expanded national presence has reinvigorated Empired Ltd, following the departure of its two founding directors and subsequent shake-up of its board and management team.
An organisational restructure, a new business model and expanded national presence has reinvigorated diversified IT software and services provider, Empired Ltd, following the departure of its two founding directors and subsequent shake-up of its board and management team.
The company, formed in 1999 by Gavin Burnett and Justin Miller as BigRedNet.com Pty Ltd, enjoyed buoyant times and rapid growth during the early 2000s, fuelled by its acquisition of software service provider Tusk Technologies.
But the departure of the founding directors in 2005, and the resignation of chairman Peter Leonhardt and non-executive chairman Fraser Campbell in early 2006, forced the company to assemble a new management team and board, and execute a complete overhaul of the business and sales models.
Appointed as chief executive officer in July 2005, Russell Baskerville, along with new chairman Mel Ashton, has overseen many of the changes within the business, led by a significant investment in product and infrastructure development, and the opening of offices in Sydney and Melbourne.
Mr Baskerville said the restructure forced the development of a number of new key strategies to drive growth, including diversifying revenue through the development of both the BigRedSky product and IT services businesses, building annuity revenue and focusing on large scale IT projects and acquisitions.
“We saw a gap between the services offered to small business and that offered to larger firms,” Mr Baskerville said
“We’re more targeted towards a company size of between 500 and 2,000 employees, that’s our sweet spot; so we wanted someone to bring in top-tier experience and implement it for mid-tier organisations, and develop a service equivalent to that the major players provide.”
A significant part of the new business model was the development of the BigRedSky talent management product.
The e-recruitment package, which was previously different products tailored for each customer, was redeveloped as a single product that could be used by all customers, with increased functionality, reduced maintenance costs and greater scalability.
Following nine months of development, with the assistance of customer interviews, customer feedback, comprehensive testing and competitive analysis, the new product version was officially released in March 2006.
Mr Baskerville said the board and management made a decision to focus solely on the development of the new product. While revenue from the BigRedSky product division stalled during the nine-month period, revenue from the services business, which increased by 77 per cent in the 2005-06 financial year, was used to fund product development.
“During that time we weren’t selling anything, and that was an executive decision that we made, to focus on the development of the new product and bringing that up to scratch,” he said.
In the five months following its release, the new product version grew product revenues by 160 per cent, and to date has been sold to 70 corporate clients in Australia.
Mr Baskerville said that, while the past 12 months had been a time of significant changes within the company, the benefits of the new business model would come online this year.
Growth in the service business is expected to be fuelled by the delivery of a number of major IT projects, including a multi-million dollar IT-outsourcing contract with resources company Oxiana Ltd.
The company is also expecting to open a product office in London in March to market BigRedSky internationally.
“Last year was a big year, and this year is about execution and drawing out the benefits of what we’ve invested in,” Mr Baskerville told WA Business News.
