Ashley Darwen, founder of ADITS on developing a business culture to drive success.

Ashley Darwen is the founder of @ADITS, an #ITservicecompany run out of #Bowen in #Queensland. He started the business as a 20 year old, and now has 36 employees.

Born and bred in Bowen he started his business / working career when still in year 11 at the suggestion of a #teacher who thought he could be putting his efforts into something productive (because obviously, schoolwork wasn't going 100% to plan!). 

He was offered a school-based traineeship and hasn't looked back.

In our discussion he talks about;

• starting at a local high school one day a week, which then turned into two days a week and three days school then four
• getting bored  at 20 and then starting his own business
• going home to his parents and saying yeah this is what I want to do and getting the support he wanted
• not being so sure he would as supportive if his child came home and said the same thing now!!
• the luck of having a supportive teacher that identified he had an aptitude
• being a managed service provider
• the services ADITS offers and the customers they work with , from a #startup or one or two employees to a large school or enterprise with 500
• acting as a conduit between 300 vendors, it providers out there and the business
• the importance of company culture in growing a one person business to 36 employees from Bowen in Queensland
• understanding that for a service based business the greatest asset is your team, your people
• his approach to hiring and the value of doing the last bit of the interview over lunch in an informal setting
• the challenges with getting people (employees) to #remoteareas, a town of 10,000 people
• The challenges of coming from a Metro area to a country town
• having offices in #Townsville and Brisbane because you're not always get to find the skill set that you need or the people you need
• how #COVID has brought everyone's attention to the fact that we actually can work from home now, where you can live in a, in a rural or regional location and still work for a metro company
• #businessculture - creating it vs evolving it
• the need to genuinely care about your customers and staff 
• how it takes a whole team to make this thing work
• making the team part of something
• trusting your team
• the importance of customers aligning their #businessstrategy and their #ITstrategy
• first thing that we do is take an audit of their business as such to see what they've got from a technology point of view to, you know, to see what they've got.
• the importance of sitting down with the business and understanding what they do, how they do it and then what their plan is in the next 12 to 24 months 
• the need to make sure is that from a technology perspective they have what is needed to scale in the next 12 to 24 months
• businesses going online
• businesses having a new appreciation for #technology and how, how they can benefit from using IT 
• the gaps  in regional areas (1) #digitalinfrastructure and (2)  #digitalliteracy
• the roadblocks and challenges in regional Australia to do with #connectivity and #internetspeed
• why in terms of education for businesses the IT industry needs to get better at working with businesses to bridge that gap and to be that conduit and to help them through the journey
• some of the risks and challenges emerging now for businesses  - via data breaches, cybercrime
• #Cybercrime as our biggest threat to technology at the moment
• preventative IT solutions
• #databreaches in Australia, 85% of them come from end users
• exciting uses of technologies and businesses in the medical space or aged care space
• the flexible work environment where people can work two days a week at home instead of commuting so they've got more time with their families.
• Keys to success;
  1. having a good team around you that share the same vision and are on the same page to make sure you know from an operational point of view that the business works well
  2. an advisory committee and mentors

www.kerrcapital.com.au

www.adits.com.au

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Reach out to Michael Kerr via the website if you need personal assistance or advice for your small business.

michael.kerr@kerrcapital.com.au

www.ownertoownerpodcast.com.au