A MultiTek approach to integration
Focusing on the ‘home front’ has paid off for MultiTek Solutions. John O’Brien caught up with Gavin Hulme and Shane Haugh to find out what makes their tech tick.
In 2006, budding entrepreneurs Gavin Hulme and Trent Young had been talking.
They “realised that there was no dedicated AV integrator in the Geelong region that was interested in tendering for bigger jobs, where there were drawings and details.”
So, they formed MultiTek Solutions to plug that gap. Gavin explains: “Our main aim was to concentrate on those jobs where there were those details.”
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Starting operations from the back of Gavin’s shed, MultiTek has grown slowly and steadily ever since. Both directors being cautious, they constructed a careful plan early on. They knew what they wanted to do and what they wanted to avoid.
“There was a specific clause in our business planning that there were ‘no pubs or clubs’. And no hire. We really wanted to focus on the corporate, education, and performing arts markets,” says Gavin.
But Gavin also found, as many do, that “once you get started, you get bogged down into the actual ‘doing’ of a business and it’s hard to do that planning because you are worrying about the actual job that’s in your face.”
Local and/or general?
Soon becoming the only major integrator in a flourishing regional centre, MultiTek found an advantage against big city-based firms when it came to bidding on nearby jobs. They’ve covered a wide area, going to wherever the work was, but Gavin found they ended up “concentrating on local stuff, which is logistically easier.”
And that was enough to enable them to grow without undue stress: “There was enough work, and we just concentrated on that. We’ve never really done a lot of advertising. It’s always been word of mouth.”
Taking on more and bigger jobs in this space means responding to tenders and following someone else’s rules. Gavin says: “Sometimes with some of those larger jobs, you do just have to follow the spec, because you are working for someone else. You are not working for the end user.”
He continues: “So, design and construct is always so much better. You can have that conversation with the client, and you focus on the same outcome. Whereas, when you are working for an electrician or builder, and you don’t even know who’s going to use the system, it’s a bit soul-less.”
Gavin says that with design and construct jobs, there is more opportunity to build a relationship with the client, who is generally the end user of the completed project.
Longevity
It is by building that rapport with a client that “they know that we know what we are talking about” explains managing director Shane Haugh.
“They know that we are there for them, post sales, for service. They want somebody who they can talk to, who is open and honest, and they don’t just want a sales pitch.”
Both Gavin and Shane are passionate about what they do. Shane says: “We get excited about it, and I think that flows through to the client, and they recognise that ‘these are the sort of people I want to be involved with’.” And Gavin cites “professional pride” as a driving factor as well.
“When you start from the ground up and get the guys involved that we have then everyone shares that same value.”
Keeping that pride foremost is something that they discuss a lot.
“Even from the early days we were keen to develop our staff. So, they all went through apprenticeship, we’ve never just employed someone as a lackey” explains Gavin, “and then we keep on training them as much as we can.”
That approach seems to be working well and they have great staff retention too. So much that Shane finds that: “Our long service liability is starting to be an issue!”
MultiTek has managed to keep all core employees through the COVID upheaval. Shane reports that, early on, “we got the staff together – that’s the beauty of being the size we are – and said: ‘let’s just sit down and talk it through.’ We all took some unpaid leave when needed to, and we all took some sacrifices there.”
But they kept trading, relying on solid business principles of ‘no loan / no debt’ and a nest egg to get through bumpy times.
Shane remarks: “We did that through the GFC, we are doing that now through the chip shortage.”
It’s obviously working for them, with ten staff on the books and a recruiting campaign under way. Says Shane: “this is good, because we are very, very busy.”
Succession planning
In 2016, Trent decided to move on and Gavin took sole control of the business. Shane was already a key employee and took on more responsibility to help keep the company viable.
Over time, Shane says there came where “Gav said ‘Look, I can see that you’ve still got the fire to keep going and I like the way you run things’.”
He wasn’t quite ready to retire but the veggie garden and the great outdoors were calling. The pair approached it as an opportunity to start discussing what the future looked like. Shane has a pertinent perspective: “An AV company is not like a café or a milk bar – you can’t put it on the market and sell in one day!”
To give Shane a good incentive to put everything into moving the business forward, they agreed on a long-term succession plan which benefits both parties while ensuring the business remains strong and at the focus of all decisions. Meanwhile, Shane “can see that what we’ve got really works. I might make a few small changes, but the core approaches of building relationships, doing it the ‘right way’, product agnosticism and developing people will stay.”
Tellingly, he adds: “It’s an honour to be able to take that on from Gav.”
Gavin is also content with this direction: “Even when we first spotted Shane, we recognised he had the ‘need to do it’. We could see that. And I think he’s going to take MultiTek further than I ever would have. I’m pretty conservative and happy at some level but he’s got that drive to make things happen.”
Getting to this next stage means implementing more procedures and systems. To achieve this, they have added staff to free Shane up to concentrate on management of the business as a whole entity.
“Over the last few years, we been getting some business coaching and learning a lot of that stuff,” explains Gavin, “I think over the years that I ran the business, I was working ‘in the business’ and not ‘on the business’.
Getting ahead of the game
With the broad company structure and direction sorted out, MultiTek is expanding some areas of its operation, one of which is the growing its preventative maintenance program to cover all customers.
Uptake has been good enough that, according to Shane, “in the last couple of years, we have shifted one of our staff members to look after that as a dedicated company division.”
Prior to that, servicing was a little more reactive. Although that transition has “been a bit of a bumpy road – we implemented it just before COVID”, Shane has “recognised that remote monitoring and proactive support is becoming the expectation and we need to respond to that demand.”
It is an interesting tipping point, and these guys see it. They now have clients who “need full managed services versus a break-fix model in their servicing. We are not yet in a position where we can offer full managed services for big companies. Yet!” expands Shane. “But we do offer a range of customisable packages to suit our client’s needs.”
These include scheduled preventative maintenance health checks, phone support, emergency call outs, remote management and other custom requirements.
Both they, and their bigger customers realise that, if you invest long-term in maintenance programs, it becomes more efficient. MultiTek is aiming to be “used as a service end point as well.”
Ongoing growth opportunities
Staying abreast of trends is hard while running and expanding a business. Shane’s approach is “making use of supplier and manufacturer training.” It’s tough when the job board is full, and the to-do list stretches over pages, but he feels it is essential to make time for those visits.
“You need to sit down with those reps. And yes, sometimes, it can be poor timing but they’re the ones that know the product they sell, and they’re the ones that you can utilise to get all information you need, where it’s going, demo kit etc.”
MultiTek has settled on a couple of key brands in some areas but prefers to remain product agnostic overall. For Shane: “If it is not the right product (for the job), we don’t go ahead and use that. We’ve got hundreds of suppliers (to choose from).”
They’ve also got hundreds of clients, spread across a range of sectors. Shane continues: “Performing arts was always a big one for us to start with. We all came from that background, and we still do it and we do enjoy it. And I understand that, for the last couple of years, the entertainment industry was hit pretty hard. We are very lucky that we’d diversified a bit.”
Cleverly, they weren’t reliant on any one particular industry or segment. VC, UC and related IT infrastructure have steadily become part of their core package, and this has accelerated over the past two disruptive years. Shane has seen a shift in customer base where “education and corporate is now the bulk of our work.”
When pressed on how this trajectory might affect other integrators, Shane jested “go into IT instead!”
Levity aside, Gavin recognises “We are IT now. Sometimes customers don’t have a network and we have to create it for them.”
Similarly, MultiTek has created its own business network and approach.
“There’s a million different ways to run a business but, for us, it worked to grow slowly and methodically; to keep building up gradually rather than trying to reach for the stars and end up in a position where you’ve got to borrow money and then play catchup afterwards.”
Shane can obviously see the strengths of what had been built in the past and seems a natural fit to continue expanding on that. Gavin sees his legacy going into competent hands that will follow a cautious and sensible path forward.
As the world moves on, it is all looking good for MultiTek well into the future.
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