Greater company cohesion and a drive to grow the Diverseco group of companies from a mid-$40 million to a $100 million dollar business were key factors behind a major organisational rebrand announced today (1July), CEO Brenton Cunningham told Food & Drink Business.
In a company announcement, companies that comprise the Diverseco brand - AccuWeigh, Robot Technologies-Systems Australia, AccuPak, AccuOnboard, SCACO and Ultrahawke will all come under the one Diverseco name.
Cunningham says the process is one of the “biggest” in his career and “tougher than the acquisitions we have made over the last twenty years”. “We’re merging cultures, one of the companies has been around for one hundred and sixty years and change can be challenging,” he says.
The company spans services, products and ongoing support for weighing and dimensional measurement, robotics automation, end-of-line packaging and product inspection systems.
Each of the business units now have one shared set of operating systems and processes; one shared set of assets and resources; cross-skilling technical teams; one shared mission, one brand and one trading name.
Cunningham started AccuWeigh in 1992 and it accounts for almost half the company, but as acquisitions were made, the strategy was to keep them running as their own brands. That strategy does not hold now, he says.
He told F&DB it was about two years ago that it became obvious something had to change. “Customers wanted us to have a deeper understanding of their business needs, improved access to our broad skill base, subject matter experts and full scope of solutions,” Cunningham says, “One company could be going out to a customer one day, then another company – even from the same building – goes out to service another part of equipment tomorrow for the same customer. Now we can put those resources together – it’s better for the company and the customer. That is the key thing.
“We have different talents and skills and products in different entities and it was difficult to get that unity. We had to break down those barriers.”
In case a company-wide rebrand was not enough, Cunningham, the executive committee and the board of directors implemented a new HR management system and new enterprise bargaining agreement. “It was difficult and clunky to roll out seven or eight different agreements, now we have one and we’re all on the same page. Similarly, we had twelve operating systems that were all stand-alone. We kept the operating system but have moved everyone onto the same one, so now a staff member can see if that part they are looking for is available beyond their own unit.
“Effectively we’re a technology company and the technology in our own backyard was not the greatest. A bit like the mechanic with the worst car,” he says.
Now we can be solid and then look to go out and make further acquisitions, he says. He adds the strategy was not based around acquisitions, but if the company intends to grow from mid-$40 million to $100 million company in a three to five year period, Diverseco needed to be coordinated and competitive.
It also means greater cohesion as the company looks beyond Australia. For almost a year, Cunningham has been establishing Diverseco South-East Asia, based in Singapore. “We’ve evolved from the traditional weighing market and are focused on freight logistics, food packaging and inspection into Asia,” he says.
But for Cunningham, all of this is about the sustainability of the company and the staff who run it. “They will always be our number one priority. Many pay lip service to that, this one doesn’t,” he says.
