Strengthening Business within the SAP Ecosystem - Insights from FAIR Consulting

0:00Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry our podcast features not only the season professionals charting their start to exit Journey but also the key contributors who help ensure the success we delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles join us be part of growing community and engaging the conversation hosted by Ian Markram of growth so welcome morab from Fair Consulting great to have you on the show today it's been a bit of a journey with us we've been I've been with you for nearly two years come back to two years as a coach it's been an awesome time to see your business transform and in that journey and I'm I'm really Keen to share that Journey with the listeners and the viewers today thank you so thanks to have you let's just talk a bit about the brand I know you're very passionate about fair and the name and when I first met you I really asked you know what really makes fair fair and you gave me a 30 minute download basically of how passionate you were and why why you actually started out as a consultant and a consultancy firm just love to cost back to that to that time when you started out it's a while back now how many years have you been running for 11 years and a half

1:34Getting to 12 soon that's good well I think it goes all the way back to probably a bit my upbringing I would say so I had a dad that was pretty strict on integrity and doing the right thing so we were immigrant family from Iran moving to Sweden when I was 5 years old and you know through the through the I guess struggles of of being an IM immigrant family and trying to make a living I also learned a lot about working hard but there was one thing that stuck with me around my dad always said a handshake and a look in the eye is stronger than any contract and that kind of stuck with me so over the years I've obviously been in different Consulting companies I had really great experience when I was in Sweden so I started my career in Sweden in consulting company and then me and my at that point girlfriend now wife decided to have a year in Australia and it just was so great so we stayed longer but after spending a bit of time in different Consulting companies in Australia I felt that there was something missing for me at least personally in Sweden my experience was that consulting company were very focused on value creation and and advisory but also doing it in a way

3:07That you always do the right thing for customer and Sweden being maybe a bit more of a socialistic c country with the upbringing that I had sometimes I felt that in Australia there was a little bit of imbalance sometimes between you know doing the right thing for your company versus doing the right thing for your customer and as an employe you kind of withdrawn in between so my vision was and I did start to talk to quite a lot of people at that point of the time there was a lot of experts as well in from Europe and talked to a lot of people and they felt the same and I thought that there may be an opportunity in the market to create a consulting company that's very focused on its employees and put the employee first and if they do the right thing then the customers will be happy and if you treat them right and then trying to find a a name that represents that I guess is is where Fair comes from so it's not an acronym it is to always be fair and be fair to yourself to your employees to your customers to Partners and and to the community so that's how it all came about and I think over the 11 and a half years there's a lot of things have changed in the business but I think what we care can always be proud of this we kind of try to always stick to the core principles and the values yeah that comes across in your messaging internally that I see and also on the website and everything else and I think

4:40It's really a good value to have and hopefully that never changes and as your journey goes on so the day that changes is the day when I need to hang up my hat and and yeah and move on yeah for sure okay that's fantastic thanks for that what were the initial steps how did you actually transition from working for another consultancy firm in into your own sort of environment did you become a contractor first or did you say hey we're going to set up a consultancy firm it's slightly different for everyone I love to know that little step that you did that leap well I had the vision to to set up something bigger but you obviously always start with humble beginnings because cash flow is is really important you can't just go and hire a lot of consultants and in my view I also there's a lot of companies that set up and start with investment and things like that but I always felt that if you try to do that then you're immediately going to be told how to run the business so trying to bootstrap the company through your own I guess cash flow is is the only way that you can maintain what you want to do with the company so I started as a contractor and basically I guess over the last two three years that I had been working in different clients I had built a bit of a reputation of what I can do and when I left there was a few customers that basically reached out and wanted me to to consult for them and and that's how the first customer came about but then the first customer where we

6:15Actually had someone else coming into was was through a little bit of a SE ad actually just okay because I I didn't know anything about selling I was like how do I how do I look at work and I was looking at work for seek to see if I can get a contract anywhere and I was like well can I call you up and we you know help so well that's Brin because it's always that tricky to get that first customer what do it feel like to win that first customer get that first paycheck or invoice paid do you remember that feeling of Joy or excitement or not the paycheck really because I'm not that money driven but the idea of winning is is something that I really like I'm very competitive like I've played Sports and I've always wanted to be the best in everything I do great so it's just more the I guess feeling of accomplishment than you know the the money or the invoice that is getting paid for sure it's good you know coming from a foreign country to to Australia is quite difficult you don't have that Network and so it's you have to do the extra hard yards I suppose so well done on that and and yes you know how to sell now because I've see you in action and that's fantastic as well so you are learning you're evolving all the time and I'm going to talk about that later on at the end the next step up for fair as maturity of the organization grows and we'll get there later so you've got your first client that was great thanks for that and

7:46That's amazing and what was the first sort of big challenge you know this I always talk to people you know to get to 10 people you can be very profitable if you stting your consultancy firm because it's normally you and you're selling your services and your hiring your buddies and you're really profitable and you're delivering great work and then from 10 to 30 is a bit of a leap as well because you've got to become a bit of a sales force have that sales machine working and then and then from 30 and above it's you know it's next level of complexity but it's risk governance and a ro role there so just go back to what were your biggest St challenges up to the 10 people Mark how you know do you remember back 11 years do you remember what that would be I think it was to change your mindset from being like the person who's going and doing all of the billing and then bringing in people to try to convince the customer that you don't need me to do the billing I can help to kind of quality sh the work or things like that but also I think just to realize that you have to probably start setting up a bit of structure because in the first 10 you like you end up doing everything the invoicing and the payroll and all of that things like you're you're doing all of that yourself and then you start to see that in order to be able to be sustainable you can't do all of that yourself so you need to

9:18Start to think about a plan I think that just to get out of that mindset was was probably hard because you've been working as a consultant so you're actually really keen on going and solving project problems but then you don't solve your own problems yeah exactly don't get your business and how you want to drive your business I say it all the time when I'm talking to small businesses that have starting nowadays they they want to be Consultants because they really enjoy solving problems for customers and they're really focused on that but they don't look after themselves internally and they wear themselves down yeah really good point there all right so how you know to get the size you're at now how have you attracted clients and how do you retain clients because it's a Services environment is difficult because you don't have that monthly recurring Revenue really coming through you know and your business model at the moment it's you know it's about winning and delivering all the time yeah so how how do you actually attract at the moment what are the things that you are doing well that are attracting the right clients because you know sometimes attracting clients can can also attract the wrong clients you don't want to have that don't follow your values as a consultan firm so how are you tracting clients at the moment look I think it's a it's a bit of difficult balance there because you can always choose your clients but you can choose how to engage with clients we I've always had the view that you can have a sales team that sells something and throws it over the

10:50Fence for delivery and then there's this good point pointing fingers between well the customer thought this there they got sold something that can't be delivered or whatever the problem is so throughout the Journey I've always said delivery is your best way to sell y so our delivery track record is is I think a testament to our growth and our referenceable customers so we don't necessarily need to go and Pat ourselves on the back and say look how great we are we try to deliver good works our customers naturally want to do that as opposed to us trying to convince the future customer that they should go with us and I think it's actually important to get customers to talk to each other because in that process when you're you know getting to know each other for us having a trusted relationship is really important and I think it also helps educate the new customer if they talk to our previous customers you know both the good and bad things with with Fair because we're not perfect we're always trying to learn and improve but getting to know from the hores mouth on on their experience with us gives them a better preparation to how how they engage with us as well sure building that Community with with a customer I think is really important you as much as it's possible right because you know after covid it was harder to get face to face time and things like that and it's become a bit more transactional in in some levels but trying to break that

12:24Barrier and and actually in the end look at it's not businesses making business with other businesses is actually people who are feeling a level of mutual respect and connection and trust that that if I take this group of people that are representing this company I'm confident that we can do what we want it's not the logo of the company per se it's the people that represent that company at that stage I think it's hell of important with the the co and everything else I was actually just talking to one of my other clients early on over a coffee and I think there's a there's a a consultancy firm there needed to actually bring people back into the frame of mind of we are people and we you know we we're dealing with other people we've got to be nice and kind and bring that that value system back rather than being transactional and you know demanding the whole time I think people are getting be jaded with that in the look it's a really tough balance like I've I've I'm really in two minds about what the best approach is I think I think there's no best approaches probably every person is different so you can say this is the best approach for all people but what we've tried to look at is like on average what is the general feeling in the company during covid it was really really tough you know we went through quite a lot of challenging times and at that point while a lot of companies were making decisions to slash employees we decided that we all

13:59Reduce our salaries by 25% for a period of 3 months to just get through the cash flow concerns Etc and everybody actually did that so the idea was it's better that we all suffer a little than one or two or three of us suffer a lot getting you know out on the street during covid time where it's impossible to find other work right but it's it's such a hard balance because then you have all of these people that maybe been bable all the time who are essentially feeling that they are well they're they're supporting the people that are not bable so it's very hard to find that balance but I think if if you're strategy is rooted in looking after what the consensus of the team is and that might change over over a period of time then you'll always be able to adapt to that because you can say this this is us this is the business and this is all we do with the exception of our values because that is the business but everything else needs to kind of flow and you know after Co it's been very hard to get people back into the office because that's just a new Norm yeah but then you have to kind of look at okay what's what's the new Norm sure two to three days a week and how do you still then manage to do that in a way that you can satisfy the customers request the employees desires and the company's needs yeah I think it's really

15:31Important what you what you did over the co a lot of the big four big system INR has just laid off people yeah and I think that's why you know small you know or midsize companies where where you guys are positioned are actually attracting better Talent is because people know that they we will look after people and you know I think that's a good trait if you keep on pushing that more and more so well done on that next thing is around the Innovation you guys have a great CTO I love him to bits personally I think he's awesome yeah Matt I'm goingon to get him on a I'll get him one of these calls at some stage he would love it how do you really keep the Innovation theme going in your organization because obviously technolog is changing that you support the services around that obviously are changing to match that yeah and obviously it's expensive to put effort and money into Innovation but how are you doing that at the moment because you are doing it really well I think it's really around so when we hire we hire for a values first and foremost the second thing that we value for is attitude and passion and the third is skills right skills can always be taught if you surround yourself with people that have the right attitude and passion they keep wanting to have the Curiosity to learn more and Matt and the team because it's not just Matt like Matt is getting a lot of his information from from the team as well who are on the ground and things like that so similar to me representing

17:03The company Matt is representing our technology strategy but it's it's driven also from what Matt knows himself and get up to speed with but also what we're extracting from our Innovations inside of the projects or the gaps that we see in the market where it drives the Innovation so you know it's hard to sit there and picture in Innovation just by thinking like we're not philosoph in know in a way we come up with Innovations where we see there problems to solve and then we try to see okay how can you innovate in a way that you solve that problem sure and then the discovery workshops you guys are doing at the moment around certain Technologies the btp etc etc that's working well I see the results and that's really good yeah but it's educating people you know that's the thing with with change you got to educate the customers because they're behind they're Pace or two as you can as you understand behind the consultancy firm so how are you educating besides the workshops how are you educating your potential customers and current customers you any ideas on that so I think majority of customers are very different so you can't go like one size fits all we we try to have a and in fact this is a framework that Matias and the team has build up in in our architecture team which looks at the the maturity of the customer based on where they are you need to try to get them to the next step y so if they're you know barely crawling and they they have disparate systems and

18:38All of these things you don't start talking about AI right you you actually start to get them to think about or how do you connect your environments how do you create some automations and things like that and take them on the journey and I think a lot of times you know people get a little bit caught up with the next new Kool-Aid that is out in the media and you know let's jump on that that's fair enough you can drive value from it but if it's just a buzzword and and someone wants to get a recognition on their CV it's not really something that we believe is is worth focusing on because going back to the roots of Consulting if you can't generate value to the customer then you're in insignificant for sure for sure so you've mentioned a lot of on the team and the culture and you really on top of that and I I think it's amazing trying to be I'm say definitely never going to be on top of no one I think you know as I've been having these discussions last few days with with clients that have been coaching it's a bit of a journey and things you know up and down it's never perfect and it's never will be perfect I suppose so just to make sure those people listening out there don't think the world is perfect it's not yeah so I think we've covered enough on the team and the culture side you know I just around the actual services that you guys you guys are offering there was a bit of a change in Direction with strategy because of where the customers were going so you know you look back two years ago you were really the leaders in sap CX still are still exactly

20:15Sorry I should say are definitely are but you knew that the the revenue of services at some stage was going to sort of change and and in order to keep the business going you had to go through a process of change that ship into you know into a slight different direction as well you just go through that Journey CU it's been it's been hard yeah you know it's not easy and and I see the light is there you are through that Gap and you're at the end of the tunnel but I'm sure you would have had a bit of dark in between end of one tunnel the start of the next maybe yes so if I think back a little bit you know during Co once the fear of of the world under like vanished and and people started looking at the new Norm a lot of companies wanted to do things online right self-service became a big thing which helped our business so we were actually growing a lot at one point straight after covid but then after that basically a lot of customers started to look at other things because supply chain issues became a bigger problem than than self-service issu so what I'm trying to say with that is again as a consulting company you got to look at how do you solve people's problems right as opposed to going well we're a CX company let's just continue CX until the nth if there's no if you've solved for that problem or the general consensus of of the market is solded for that problem

21:48Then you know they'll be solving for other problems now for us what what it also meant was like we we shifted our pivot from CX only to more of the core what sap does which is the enterprise resource planning the Erp and the backend Solutions and that was for two reasons that was one because obviously that's core to sap and we we we found ourselves sometimes working on the fringes but then not being able to again go back and deliver the core value to the customer because let's say that you're creating an order in a CRM and or Commerce platform it still ends up in the backend Erp so how do you make sure that Logistics and all of these things are also then so if you can do the end to end value chain then again you're able to drive value to your customer so it was out of necessity to also be able to Pivot to to continue to be relevant in the market yeah that's really important got a big team you've you had to cross Trin people into the new yeah services so so one of things we do every year actually is we we do an inventory we do an inventory of our team and it's like inventory is the like a bit of a harsh word but it's it's looking at people's skill set looking at our technology and and we have categorized our Technologies in strategic important and opportunistic and based on how many

23:22Of of Technologies are set as strategic important opportunistic and with the growth that we're aspiring to then we look at how many people do we need to cross skill how many people do we need to hire and also I came through an internship program I started my career there I'm pretty passionate about also giving opportunities to interns and graduates so we also have then a look at what type of intake can we have when it comes to graduate so looking then at again supply versus demand when it comes to okay these are our strategic technologies that we're going for then you look at upskilling hiring or getting graduates yeah and that demand will I think become a a key success to a key success factor for the future because that I think in sap space there will be a crunch on knowledge with what's happening and a lot of customers now the next few years needing to move into the new Erp Solutions that's great thanks for that it's really good what you did there with the company it's investment it's money out of your back pocket as the owner the founder I know how painful that is and you know to but you have to do that one for the people keep them relevant in the industry but also to keep your business relevant I suppose it's important so well done for doing that yeah I think the the key thing is if you if you don't

24:55Have those quarterly driven goals where someone is like in your ears and says you you need to do this result by this time sure you can think about your businesses in more strategic way of of looking at and take a investment up front for the future growth yeah that's definitely the difference between the big in system integrators and big five or what you want to call them versus a small company that's you know running their own show and doing their own thing I think it's really important yeah I think it's a mindset as well like I think it's definitely an ability for bigger integrators to also have that longterm Vision I think sometimes the shortcuts actually hamper yeah the the big ones as well because then they're called out for being sure shortsighted and then the longevity of a customer relationship gets broken down through that yeah I suppose you know the only way they I see them I'm very cynical only way they see is know just buy the capability and you know that's the that's the way they look at it because they they don't want to develop it themselves because it's too costly it's too much effort and something that they not structurally set up to anyway that's just my five cents of view you know I'm always for the small companies you know the versus the big SI and Global SI so that's my view so just carry on talking a bit about the services that you know you've moved into the new area of service that you are you know servicing your new

26:30Clients what are the sort of some of the CH some of the common challenges that you face when working with clients at the moment what are the is it is it indecision they can't make a decision still is that what's happening at the moment that's a very broad question I think the one thing that I see that I feel is a little bit hard to is a lot of very big Investments and decisions are being made by people that are necessarily not going to be there at the end of that decision which means that the company is getting a debt of that decision and the person who's made made that decision has either resigned and moved on or or moved on for a different reason and the compan is then grappled with what are they going to do and it's very easy then to come in and say well that wasn't my decision and then you don't take accountability H it's very hard to tackle that because you know people come and go and and you know how do you get the accountability of a decision transferred to the new CEO whatever you have to recommit you have to get the recommitment again from the from the client to make sure that and the biggest I guess mistake in a way is that that new person comes in and immediately dismisses what the previous person has

28:03Said because they know something else and then you kind of go again and I guess to a level which is a bit weird that that is what keeping us in the business as well because the new ideas new things that they want to do and new Innovations so we can then help the new but sometimes I actually think that just looking at what is there and and making a bit incrementally better as opposed to throwing everything out out and continuing with a whole new strategy could deliver a higher return in a shorter period of time to the customers but again it's just to find that balance and when do you do that yeah I used to say to one of my big clients many years ago when I was in the services industry that there's no difference between you and the federal government you act the same way and you're going to get the same results so if you don't want to in action then this is what's going to happen you know they used to get frustrated with me when I need to say that to them but there's no difference you know and and that that sort of leads that because every you know three to four years depends which country and listening to this there's change of potential government yeah and then nothing really happens nothing really gets executed and sometimes it's not we are the personally don't care which who's really in power long there's Pro positive decisions happening you know and that's the same thing with with big clients yeah but it can be quite intimidating sometimes if you go to the customer and kind of trying to tell them that they're wrong yeah not that you say that in that way but if you know that this decision could actually be the

29:37Wrong decision for them how to articulate that is is is because you want to win the work obviously and and then you yeah yeah 100% so and what what genuinely sometimes our challenge is when we try to beat for a work we we beat for what it takes to deliver that work as opposed what it takes to win the work which is two different things right and and sometimes the customers are thinking that there's a Magic Bullet and and you know the lowest price is is going to give them the the same outcome sure and that might be the case in some cases right I'm not saying that we're always the best price but I do feel that in the market there's a tendency to to bid for how to win the work because once you're in there then you it's harder to change and think that that goes a bit against our ethos and our values on doing the right thing and I guess it's been very hard to face that brutal truth because you end up losing and and being pretty sore about losing but on the other hand you might go maybe that's not the right type of customer that you want to work with if if they're want to take shortcuts sure I mean you see that often you know when you find out the result of an RFP or a or a big piece of work that it's gone to someone consider you know 30 40% less of what you were actually putting on and you know that's impossible but they bought the work to change once they they'll change the game yeah once they're into you know change Quest from

31:10Day one yeah and and that's that's a relationship that can never really work well with the client yeah the whole idea of well we got them on the hook it's a fixed price project yeah is probably one of the worst thing that's happening to Consulting companies and and the the customers because it just creates a false sense of accountability between the two parties while in the contract then you have all of these exclusions exclusions exclusions that you know in a massive transformation nobody's actually going to the seventh degree of of the requirements and it actually I think erods the the trust so you should you should create a contract but that contract should never be looked at again like the trust should be there so much that you don't need to go and look at the contract every day and I think you know unfortunately sometimes procurement functions and other things are taking away the ability to create a trusted relationship because you want to try to balance getting the best bank for your buck which is why procurement is there sometimes is actually hampering you to build up a trusted relationship yeah what you said early on is used to remind me when I was a consultant before owning my own business is that I would you know when you arrive at first day at the client you go occas and you speak to the account manager I would say the account manager so what are we delivering here let's really get Ana it's like oh my God it's like we can't deliver that it's like this is going to be painful and then straight away you're on the mindset of having this this gral customer that you got to deal with yeah

32:45Because you can't deliver that and then you're trying to cut Corners everything else and and unfortunately if procurement becomes too strong and you're having this yard stick and and and they pushing the price down of the consultancy firm this is what's going to going to happen over and over again so if there's any of my past customers out there listening to this please be mindful that you've got to have a win-win situation yeah you know I think that's really important you it's it's very like cliche but you get what you pay for 100% easy I need to say to people you know you want a Ferrari but you want to pay for a Toyota Corolla you there's a big difference there's nothing wrong with Toyota coras it get you from be gets you from to be it does sorry to the fans up there you've done some really great things at fair for clients can you sort of single out one sort of success story that made you proud you you know maybe it's not you personally but the teams delivered from fair that would you know resonate to people listening to this oh it's a lot there's a lot going on I know how busy are I think it's hard to point to one specific event because you know 11 years there's been quite a lot of projects that you can definitely feel proud of I would say the feeling of you know the customer after the project coming and saying you know what we actually signed up as as the objective to to do this and this and this is being

34:19Fulfilled through the technology that you guys supported to to implement and and therefore also we're happy to be a reference case or a I think that is a really good feel factor for everyone like for for the team members that been part of that for for the customer itself because they actually got what they you know paid for and that's something to be proud of I mean it's hard to go for like one specific project the times where maybe if you look at the opposite that also felt proud of is is walking away from something that wasn't the right thing to do so we've done that I remember two or three times that were quite massive and in one occasion it was actually a bit of a arrogance with with with the it was a partnership and and and that partner which happened to be one of the global SI basically arrogantly said there's no way you're going to be walking away from $25 million in revenue for sure and we had a meeting with with ourc leadership team and we thought this is not the right way and the customer is actually not going to get what they're signing up for so we removed ourselves from being Partners in that project and lo and behold that project went peer- shaped and for sure so that's something also to like it's not not just what the things that you do but it's also things that you decide not to do 100% CU that could have done some real

35:52Damage to the brand and the people internally trying to deliver something that was not really deliverable and Consultants just get burnt out and leave so that's definitely a a challenge around that so thanks for sharing that so the next thing I suppose we want to just really talk a bit about is the growth so you are one of the largest sap Partners in the A&Z region and that's a independently owned definitely I should say that as well that's something to be very proud of where do you want to go next so you know where are you the next three years to five years as an organization well first of all I guess maybe Size Doesn't Really Matter for me it's important to have a good siiz company because you can do much more when you have that but I think to have the right type of people with the right mindset and values is is that so I've always said you know as we grow we want to continue to grow with the right type of people as opposed to just grow with the wrong type of people and we have had that as a mistake I've learned from that so at some point we grew really really quickly but we kind of didn't look at our hiring strategy as much as we should have and we we ended up just hiring more people but they weren't necessarily lined with our values and attitude and passion and you know after a year or two those guys were no longer with us so trying to

37:26Hire the right people as part of your growth strategy is probably the most important thing cuz a Services business is nothing other than the people inside of it yeah 3 to five years is a long period of time but I think what we're trying to do is is well maybe to some extent challenge the bigger ones MH and try to grow in a way with customers that see the I guess differentiation that we and you know hiring key strategic people that can help move the needle because I think you know the a good leader is probably also able to at some point recognize where their limits are MH and and then try to surround themselves with other good people and other good leaders who have the similar mindset that can help Elevate you know the company beyond what my personal capabilities would be and that journey is something that has started a bit more because I think we've taken the company to you know the the the limits that were I feel I can contribute and there's a lot of experience that I've gained during this 11 years but there's also a lot of other people that have so much more experience that could help we'll get to that a little bit later on in the next five minutes or so but I think it's really important because you you are a single

38:58Founder and there's a lot more pressure and I spoke to another client early on today who's going to be on the podcast as well is you what is the optimal size of how many Founders you need to start a business and and the stats are really against you as a single founder let alone starting a business and it's a lot easier for you two to three people as well because then it helps leverage each other because you're never all going to be firing at the same time you know we're just humans at the end of the day there's a journey we personally going on with families and kids and whatever else is happening there and that's also weighs down on the pressure on on a on a single founder so I think it's amazing that you what you've done and achieved as a single founder so congratulations on that I think it's you know yeah thank you but there's a saying right it says if you want to walk fast go alone if you want to walk far go together yeah so you kind of stages of of of a company you got to really realize where you are and you know if you want to go far and and expand beyond my capabilities it's just normal to to start to work together you know when're I look into your business because I know a little bit more about it obviously because I'm helping you coach and with the business so the thing is what I've seen I think is transformed quite a bit is you got a leip team that's really got goals know what they got to do there's a team below that that's doing doing really well you got a team structure around that is fantastic

40:32And I suppose it's the next levels of how to actually get that growth that you you are Keen to achieve and and help other clients out with so I suppose you know what made you think it's time to get someone that could help run the company what what made you go through that thought process you just mentioned about you know the team you got to grow you got to be well I mean first of all I think you might be over representing how how good we are because we still learning a lot like everybody are coming in and having their own ideas and and challenges so you know is there's there's so much more that can be done with team that we have today as well but I think it's it's just recognizing that people have different strengths in different areas and looking at the B of our team at the moment we have our strength in a certain area and I've recognized that you know there may be a bit of Gap in in this other area so it's it's just like going I guess I'm a very big football fan and I say football because it's called football not soccer a Liverpool fan You'll Never Walk Alone but you can't basically say we're gonna play 442 and stick to that you gotta play the formation based on what type of Team you have and that's kind of where I am in my head like you we we know that

42:06We have good people in this position this position but then if for example if you have really good defense and Midfield line but you don't have Strikers you still may not win yeah you might be drawing all the time right because you have nobody's coming through but you might not be scoring so how do you then find the balance in the team and in leadership team where you can do all of the things yeah and I think that's why you've actually grown and you've done as well as you have is you've got the forite and the personal belief and understanding that you need to run it is a team a complete team so I think it's really good I wish it was all foresight but I think some of it is also luck and and also well I think you know feeling feeling that there's a bit of pain and then you you try to Sol for that pain maybe it's the pain there never luck unfortunately I'm a big believer you've got a you if you don't have a a direction or a vision you'll never get there you know that's my my personal view as well so you've got that you've got that Vision you got that reaction and I think it comes across all the time all the interactions I had so yeah Keep On Believing in your gut and whatever it is your instincts and keep keep them going so just talking about the growth and fair the next level the 10x is I always call it you know not tenic growth but you know the mindset to change from being you know just an incremental mindset to let's stop and put something in place to actually get that you know that growth that we need in an organization and that's what I call the tenic Dan

43:38Sullivan puts it a lot better he's written a couple of books on it and he's made a living out of that quote so if anyone's listening you can go and download his podcast or his audio so you've got someone on board someone that's going to take over your role and I think it's quite exciting to introduce them on this show today he starts officially next week is that right Pete that's right looking forward to it fantastic so that's great so how did you guys meet and how did you get to get Pete on board that's a hell of a hell of a a big question because Pete is you know a bit of a legend in the industry in the ecosystem I've actually know Pete as well briefly cross paths many years ago probably about 12 15 years ago and were closely with them on I think one account if I remember that correctly trans Field Services in those days if that was it yeah it's a long time ago it's changed its name it's been pought out three times that company so how we met how did you me yeah how you meet well it was actually on the app brilliant no so obviously Pete is very known to everyone right he's a legend in sap but also as a as a person I had known about Pete for a while through the periphery never really interacted with him a lot until maybe a year ago I think as as I guess you know

45:12Fair become a growing company in the sap Community we also got noticed more by sap we were invited into the partner advisory Council and other things where Pete and sap leaders were there so I think that that was the first I about probably nine months ago where I started to look at you know is there a way where you can look at me taking a slightly different role having someone else that comes with more experience than me to to take on the ship and and drive you know in in the direction that we're heading I made a bit of a short list yeah and Pete was in that short list pretty high up actually if not the highest up and then over different circumstances that's eventuated we were able to have a conversation I just reached out to him you know as a cold calling I think it was on on LinkedIn wasn't it the first Reach Out I think it was on on LinkedIn great and I didn't have your number so I actually had to ask for someone to give and I texted you and said you know do you want to catch up for a coffee and he was like why you do realize I'm long way I was like yep I do realize that

46:47Just want to have a chat and I think when we met I just felt a genuine Connection in terms of that this like going back to the dating thing is like when your first date and I think from there on it was just a bit of like hey what would you think about this and Pete played really hard together very stand off but if I back my recollection first meeting and probably first time of having a like a one-on-one conversation with you was actually Mark Hitler F Well oh yeah was almost was a date and it was like and my first question one of my questions was fear where does the name come from and then how he explains that as he did earlier on today but just like a impressed me but also really positively shocked me that there's someone out there that wants to bring fear to the Forefront of Consulting the sap customers bang attention for me yeah and that's going back a year and obviously we've moved on a bit since then but but I think the that conversation is what really matters to me is the values here that really draws me to fear I'm really passionate about values and what I've done at sap and putting people first customer first and doing the right thing consistently over a long time you'll be long-term successful and I passionately believe that and then to hear is exactly what fear represent what Mur represents what the whole team represents you you quite quickly get

48:20Into this Bromance I think of hey W how cool those values that's awesome what a connection yeah which was really for me massively important yeah I think it's it's what people want nowadays as well more and more I think it's really important so yeah congratulations on that tie up I oh you know so there's going to be a bit of a change Mar for you and obviously and Pete's coming in to take some of your burden and and and your Ro how are you going to let go I'm sure people have asked question he did ask that he he looked me in the eye and he said are you ready to let go cuz it's been your baby for time I don't see this as letting go as in I see this as co-parenting let's say correct because I'm not adopting away fair and then just not doing anything I'm just realizing what part of the parenting I'm better at and what part of the parenting Pete is better at and then and ensuring that fair is to looked after the way it needs to be to to grow it sure I think a Consulting world is it's all about team because it's all about people and I think as you grow you need you know more capable people in that team to get to the Premier League you know to keep them winning you know getting those goals and defending those goals so Pete coming on board how much Services experience have you had I mean you obviously know the ecosystem very well yeah you you know how to lead people you've done that very well and that's you know that's why you got so

49:52Far up at the at the train in the sap what service is are you you know are you looking forward to that challenge that new opportunity yeah it's interesting I think we're both pretty excited about the potential but both probably healthily nervous as well because it's different for me I mean I started my sap career almost 19 well just over 19 years ago and did the first seven years in Services selling services but it's a 12 years ago yeah and I've done a lot in sap since but mostly software but also c role you lead the entire business and I guess last role very similar so the the dynamic of sponsoring customers and leading transformation change your customers no problem theual innate knowledge of what you need to estimate and clearly it won't be my role in what we do so I think there's a there's a background of experience but there's also a healthy nervousness of what value I can bring and I think that's a yeah I think it's a positive nervousness I think it's because you want to keep them growing as an individual don't you% and I think it was one of the questions as I was transitioning from sap someone asked me do you want to remain in the sap ecos system or not and it was actually a really good question for me because I was like considering doing other things yeah different software companies different Dynamics are completely away from sap but it actually got me think I love doing Transformations for customers I love what we've done for a long period of time I have a a reputation that sounds quite nice today thank you jet probably a bit overdone as you but I actually do because I think what we can do for customers and the change we can make and and if we do it the right way consistently develop trust and do the right thing the difference we can make

51:24For customers not for sap but for customers is phenomenal and that's exciting for sure so you start next week this will only be a next week anyway or whenever that is don't worry about don't worry about any any blowback from the previous employer what are you going to do you off to Orlando I think this weekend is it my first day Sunday and I fly to Orlando how's that stra away your first days don't want to play for 24 hours but you know what and we had this conversation is that a bit cute a bit forp they leave one day and then next day I turn up and but actually it's a statement and that's that's what we're doing yeah feir we're serious about what we're doing we're serious about the growth we're going to do and why not get there spend time with customers and also for me the connection was of global sap leaders as well it's important and you know M asked should he go and I said absolutely she go unfortunately being born in a RIT tougher bit tougher on getting a Visa quickly but I think that's one of the things we need to yeah we need to invest in those relationships you need to invest in those events so to it if you want to play a big game you've got to be in the game itself you you can't and that's I think is a lot of things that I see with with Founders that are and you know that I've been working with over the last you know eight nine years is that poster syndrome really does happen because generally the the height of a Founders a technical person and they're really good at their domain whatever that is and they then leave and then they can't think they can be a leader in the business so that's pretty you know and if you want to play a big game you got to be at the table to play

52:57The big game so well done on getting peed up and running and getting to to go to Lando it's I've been there a couple of times it's an awesome experience and hopefully next year you get there as well are going early with the visa application get up there for next year I love it do you have a 90-day plan or anything that you could share what you're going to do you're going to get out to customers and no no I don't for me it's getting across the business the leadership team obviously understand the the key differentiation I think I mean I get the vales inside out I get the the quality of the people I know some of them for me it's then exploring okay where are we going to focus what's the strategy and particularly which customer segments do we focus yeah and I guess for me at the moment I'm super excited about being in the ecosystem I think there's over the next three to five years with an sap there just a phenomenal demand and that's not just transitioning customers from the existing you know on premise State it's also n you midm Market sap product where it's going there's just this phenomenal opportunity knew that just excites me so that really is where do we focus where do we invest our effort right and let's hope we have some growing PES as gotion that's the fun so I'm you know I've mean looking forward to seeing this journey extend and and hopefully I'm with you bit longer coaching as well and be part of that Journey because is exciting it is exciting to you know I invest a lot of time with my customers and it's nice to see that they are progressing in the right direction and then doing kicking goals and everyone's having fun on the journey because it's not it's not great having no fun part of any journey I mean that's really what it

54:30Is so I can guarantee you we'll have fun there'll be fun there'll be challenges the the key thing is that you you get through the good and bad times together and and you do it in a way that we've always said like through integrity and transparency right because I think if you lose sight of those values then you've lost the whole purpose of fair for sure just got one sort of thing to ask and then and then we can you know you know call it call it a day I suppose it's really like if you giving advice merb to to you know where you're at now it's amazing company but if someone's really want to start in the consultancy world it Services world and they're like working for other another consultancy firm or end user site whatever that is what is advice do you give them to to to break that and make that leap across to unknown anything any thoughts on that no we don't want competitors now look I think sometimes people might think that being a business owner is you got all the freedom in the world to do whatever you want and you know while that is the case the accountability that you have especially when you also have a lot of people who are depending on you can be overwhelming so I would say you you got to be at a stage in your life where

56:02You're willing to take some risks because it is essentially a risk and you got to be willing to like work hard for for that the return if you get it right is is really good both in terms of the sense of accompl accomplishment but also potentially monetary but I think it's the mindset needs to be that you know it is not just the beauty sides that you look at you have to look at both sides and have a balanced I think mostly it should be that are you in the stage of your life where you're ready to take that and and only you would know right you can go and listen to 100 people and and say see what their experience is but you're never like someone else you you're unique in in where you are your circumstances so looking at from inside perspective if your gut says that you're ready for the challenge and you probably are yeah so I'll take that that's brilliant so are you ready and you will know that yourself I like that really good all right Pete thanks for joining us right at the end and all the best for your new role at fair I really looking forward to see how that accelerates the growth and and how we are on the great journey together and morab thanks for for joining us in the call as well today I appreciate it thanks thanks for also putting up with us in fair cuz I think it's great to have you as a coach and get some external views in sure you know it's it's good to when we get caught

57:35Into the details get a external person looking in cupcake cupcake yeah that is a really good example want to mention that story think embarrassing but sure just putting putting ourselves out there so we you we have anniversaries and sometimes we try to do things for the customers and a few times we sent out cupcakes and other things and I guess you know it demonstrates that because of the passion some small things can be discussed for too long and cupcakes was was an example so I think it took like three meetings and many slack messages back and forth just to get a list of who the customers are and what their addresses are and but it was also during Co I think so it was really hard to get like are they going to be in the office or not going to be in the office but I think at that point you kind of reminded us hey guys there's more important problems in the business to solve like if we get 60 or 80% of the cupcakes right then you know it's fine and if someone doesn't get the delivery hopefully they get it next year well there are amazing cupcakes there are amazing they are good cupcakes yeah they're not just a normal cupcake so great thanks for Shar that because I think people do get involved in their business too much sometimes to think about what is the the pressing need at the time so thanks for sharing that that's a great story thanks L everyone thanks cheers guys thank you thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks don't miss out on our next episode hit the

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