In 2009 started with a business partner, the 2 of them now have 32 FTE team members with 12 in Australia and 20 in Malaysia, as part of an elite SAP Consulting business with offices also in UK, Singapore, Germany, USA (Ed Davis)

Mar 29, 2020

In this episode, I’ll have a conversation with Ed Davis, a trusted advisor on SAP security matters and a director at Turnkey Consulting, the Australian branch of a specialist SAP consultant business with sister offices in the UK, Singapore, Germany, USA, and Malaysia. After 10 years in London, Ed moved back to Australia in 2009, left his consulting career and opened Turnkey. 

He started with himself and a great business partner, and then gradually built their team to the current 32 full-time employees, with 20 of them being based in Malaysia focusing on back-office tasks for Australian clients. The company’s revenues have grown more than tenfold in the last 11 years, and has been funded organically from profits. They have a good commitment to culture, especially for the two offices split between Melbourne and Sydney, and the group of 6 country offices meets up regularly. 

During their recruitment, they have a strict no dickhead policy that ensures that they get the best team members. Ed believes that the hardest thing in growing a small business is switching off because there is always something to be done. The advice he would give himself from day one of starting his business is, “Don’t go it alone. Having a partner to bounce ideas off of and back each other up makes a world of difference.” Listen in, enjoy, learn, and go implement in your business. 

This Cast Covers:

• What Turnkey Consulting is all about and how they make money.
• Headquartered in the UK, running their managed services through Malaysia, and present in 6 countries.
• Growing the company ten-fold within the last 11 years and working with the government and some of Australia’s largest retailers.
• The success in being able to sleep well at night, providing job security for self and others, and getting great feedback from clients.
• Applying a success based salary model and other financial measures to grow the business organically.
• Opportunities in the cybersecurity industry.
• The challenges their company and companies worldwide are facing during the current Coronavirus pandemic.
• Maturing their governance processes and holding themselves accountable for achieving their targets.
• What he has enjoyed the least about managing the company’s fast growth.
• Shifting his mindset towards working on the business and not in the business.
• Looking out for new business opportunities, having a great culture, building a close-knit team, and their no dick head policy.
• How they have managed to always nurture their global team.  
• Investing in his personal development by taking an executive coaching course and other courses.
• The difficulty of switching off for small business owners.
• Growing a small business by using CRMs to track leads, contacts, and sales.
• The value of having a business partner versus being a sole proprietor.

Additional Resources:

• Managing the Professional Services Firm By David Maister
• Let’s Talk Coaching Podcast with Heiner Karst

Music from https://filmmusic.io "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/