March 31, 2024 • 49 mins
Welcome to 'The Power Time Show,' your one-stop-source for insightful conversations with influential figures in the technology industry. In today's thrilling episode, we present you an exclusive dialogue with John Kelly, the Global Microsoft Alliance Lead at NCS, a co-founder of Eighty20, and an influential figure in the Microsoft ecosystem. Through this profound discussion, John shares the story of his transformative journey from a sought-after program manager to a successful business owner.
Our guest takes us through the foundation of Eighty20, a revolutionary entity designed to serve as an end-to-end solutions, driven by values and accountability. Through numerous challenges and victories, John nurtures his vision into a well successful enterprise. You'll hear everything from John's first intimidating yet thrilling visit to the Microsoft conference, Inspire, to the real-life experiences and insights he gained while navigating the rapidly evolving world of IT.
John offers candid insights into the sector, sharing his journey of building a booming IT business from scratch, and the principles that helped maintain its stellar growth. He bravely conveys the realities of entrepreneurship, spotlighting the key role of resilience, passion, and determination in the face of adversities. Through John's experiences, you'll realize that hard work, sacrifice, and strategic risk-taking far outweigh luck in the path to success.
John touches deeply on the importance of investing in the right team members and fostering a robust company culture. Gain inspiration from how his team's shared values, unity, and collaborative spirit acted as vital assets in the fast-paced growth of his business. This episode serves to enlighten aspiring entrepreneurs and IT enthusiasts on the key factors driving the growth of an IT business.
We further explore the journey of Eighty20 as it grew into a major global force in the technology sector, drawing attention from significant players leading to interesting investment and acquisition projects. Explore how John managed to launch various specialized practices within 8020's ecosystem while sustainably maintaining their unique culture. Learn about their successful acquisition by NCS and their future endeavors under NCS Australia's guidance.
Ultimately, find motivation from John's inspiring career journey as he persistently aimed to scale businesses and nurture his partnership with Microsoft. With a strong focus on his team's success, financial strategies driven by passion, and maintaining employment during uncertain times, John portrays the beneficial prospects arising from an acquisition by a trendsetting Singapore business. Lastly, catch some valuable tips on effective cash flow management, the significance of strong business partnerships, and insightful lessons from John's life outside business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome to the Power Time Show with Matt and Scott, and on today's show...
Our Microsoft partnership is a cornerstone to our success as a business.
It has been and it always will be.
Music.
If the worst comes to worst, I'll go back to what I was doing before or I'll become the bricklayer.
(00:22):
Terrible um you've got to have grit determination um and you've got to have
that in spades more than most people will blue that kept us together was culture
can i swear on this podcast,
get ready let's go unlocking secrets leaders should know.
(00:46):
Music.
It's a very special privilege to introduce a special guest to the show, John Kelly.
So John has been in the Microsoft ecosystem for a long time,
worked across a lot of major projects.
(01:08):
He's currently the Global Microsoft Alliance Lead at NCS and also one of the co-founders for 8020.
So we're really excited today to have him in on the show to chat about the transformation,
what it takes to build a company, what it takes to move that company into a
larger entity like NCS, and of course, moving forward, what's super exciting
(01:30):
around the Microsoft practice within NCS throughout Asia.
So I'm sure, Matt, you've got a couple of words you'd like to say about John
as well. So from your point of view, Matt?
Obviously, I know John very well, considering obviously he's been a massive influence on my career.
He's also an extreme character, so it's a great conversation today.
(01:51):
But JK, why don't you go introduce yourself to the audience?
And then from there, I've got hundreds of questions to ask you.
So away you go, mate. Introduce yourself.
Yes. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Really excited. I've never done a podcast
before. I'm quite excited about it, particularly with you two guys hosting it.
So John Kelly was the artist formerly known as the CEO of 8020.
I was also a co-founder, not the sole founder, so I was a co-founder in 8020.
(02:16):
And I had a bunch of different roles, both in the business when we started up
and we scaled up the business.
So I was co-CEO, founder, head of Microsoft Alliance, head of sales,
head of HR, unbelievably all at one time.
And when we started the business in private, I had a lengthy career in Australia
(02:36):
and outside of Australia, in North America and Europe.
Running large transformational programs predominantly in
fsi and probably 50 50 split between fsi
and government so which led me towards you
know launching 80 20 and and giving giving that a
go how do you get from you know running projects and and working with you know
(02:59):
a lot of those top companies to creating your own business and really going
on that journey what was what was What was in your mindset around that when
you created 8020 and what was kind of driving you to do that?
It's a good question. I think the ultimate, the catalyst was fatigue.
Fatigue of dealing with the same problems over and over again with the traditional
(03:21):
IT vendors in the market.
The stage that we launched 8020, and I always talk about this,
Matt knows on Salesforce, I was literally looking at becoming a bricklayer or
a carpenter or a stomach where I was so exhausted from running these large transformations,
dealing with the same problems over and over.
And I was getting paid really well. I was always a gun for hire, right?
(03:41):
So I was like, you pay me this much money, I don't care, I'll eat glass for
six months, 12 months, three years to get the job done.
And I always got the job done. I'm a dog.
Once I've got a goal, I just go after it and I do not quit to my own demise a lot of the time.
So, you know, looking at that career and I'd already had a fairly lengthy career,
(04:02):
I was about 35 at the time and felt like I was about 105 because the amount
of stress you're continuing under running these large transformations.
So I was really fatigued and looking at the change careers or give something,
do a Hail Mary and give something to go.
And I did the Tom Brady and I threw the ball and 80-20 was launched and it did really well.
But fatigue was definitely a major element of it.
(04:24):
Market opportunity, obviously, like you're not going to go, I'm really tired.
So let's go risk everything I've ever had and all my parents' savings and their
retirement money and try to launch this really unique idea which doesn't have
a lot of substance behind it.
So second thing was obviously a unique market opportunity.
Which we saw, I mean, just to elaborate on that, when I used to run large transformational
(04:47):
programs, the typical problems I would run into, accountability from vendors.
So we've signed a contract.
You know what I want. I want a house with four walls, three windows.
And then suddenly I get a house with four walls and three windows, but no roof.
It's like, guys, come on. You know the house needs a roof.
Well, it wasn't in the contract. So that's going to be another change request.
And that's going to be another change request.
(05:08):
And this plagued my whole career to the point where I was continually,
all my job day-to-day was fighting with vendors, right?
Purely because of those accountability and values questions, right?
There's an accountability, there's a kind of honor component to that.
You know the outcome we were trying to reach and get it.
(05:28):
Having to hire multiple vendors to get an outcome is a very disparate model, which is very hard.
So you're trying to run a $50 million program with six vendors to get one outcome,
extremely hard. So six different cultures, six different contracts,
six different personalities running those separate teams.
I mean, if you looked at that equation from the top down, you would say it would never work.
(05:50):
But no one really took the time to unpack and go, why do we need six vendors to get this one outcome?
So the model was broken, in my opinion. There was a distinct lack of accountability in the market.
And I'd already had a team that had been following me from place to place for
many years. So I built the Galaticas of project delivery, right?
(06:10):
So I had the best architects.
I had the best project managers, the best program managers, the best BAs that
I've had years and years to hand select.
And in the teams that I built, either you made it or you didn't, i.e.
If you're playing with Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi and you're kind of a little
bit below, you're going to be shown up pretty quickly, right?
(06:30):
And it wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like we're out there hunting for people,
but people would naturally go, okay, this is probably not for me.
Because of the pace and the ferocious kind of nature of our teams right so had
a really capable team and the only bit we didn't do was engineering so i used
to write the business case from my perspective work for cio,
we get that approved i build the program structure i bring in my team so the
(06:51):
project managers the bas we then and the change of the options specialist we
then govern another vendor which would go to i'd run the rfp you know the usual
suspects we go through we bring them on board and always found that my team
was much higher skill level than the traditional tech guys on the market.
So I'm going, the only bit we don't do is build servers.
We've managed a project. We've got architects who govern their architects.
(07:13):
We've got project managers who manage it. We've got BAs who then interface with their BAs.
And change and adoption was an unspoken thing. No one ever invested a time into it.
And that was crazy considering my mentality was always technology is only as
good as the people using it.
So if you add all these elements together, the only bit we didn't really do
or I didn't do was the engineering component and then the further you move into
(07:36):
the stack with microsoft as you know.
There's not that much engineering anymore, right? You're just moving into the cloud, right?
And so when I add all that together, I said, look, there's a unique market opportunity
to be a really accountability kind of driven supplier.
I had all the contacts in the market. I had a really good personal reputation,
so did my business partner, Justin, at delivering projects.
(07:59):
Small facts is a lot of program managers in the market getting paid 2K a day
don't actually deliver projects.
You look at their track record, they bail when it gets too hard,
And they go, well, we kind of got 80% there, so I've done my job.
But Justin and I saw things through, you know, rain or shine.
So we had a really good personal brand, and we had a great team.
(08:21):
And the market opportunity, I just explained, was to have a really talented
team of people that are accountable, values-driven, and end-to-end.
So 80-20 was launched.
We write the business case. We do the roadmap for customers.
We build the program. We do all the project management. We do your business analysis.
Do all the technical component, and we do change it up from training.
(08:41):
So it's kind of like Lord of the Rings. We have one vendor to rule them all.
And if you look at that, it's just so much simpler. You've got one throat to
choke or shoulder to pat for a great job.
You don't have all these commercial constructs. We integrate with your team.
We've got our own reporting style, our own government's layer,
and all these kind of things. We would come along and say, hey,
we'll fit into your business operation.
(09:02):
We'll report into your governance boards because we work for you.
You kind of see the mind shift, the mindset shift. So combination of all those
things was a market opportunity.
Fatigue was the reason and just the definition of insanity is keep doing the
same thing, right? Yeah.
Thought we'll we'll take a risk if the worst comes to us i'll go back to what
(09:24):
i was doing before or i'll become the bricklayer or carpenter or whatever i
was going to do i'm not that handy so that we wouldn't have worked and and we'll
go from there so that's kind of how we got started,
what a story and i'm definitely familiar with some of this jk you talk about
that all the time when we sort of introduce to customers and it's really compelling
and it really relates talk to me about you one and how was year one for you
(09:45):
this particular story of you traveling over to i I think it was Inspire,
I'm meeting Judson for the first time, that maybe you can share that with the viewers.
I often find that a really classic JK story as well.
But talk to me about how you won, what were the challenges, how did you get
started, all of that kind of stuff, and maybe drop a little sprinkle of that
story because it is a classic. So back over to you.
Yeah, so how we got started was
(10:05):
my business partner finished before me Transport, which is our last gig.
That was a five-year, couple of hundred million dollar initiative to bring Transport
New South Wales together.
We co-ran that. that. And we started looking for clients.
We went to our previous bosses, who are quite influential CIOs,
and said, look, we've given you everything.
(10:26):
We want to start this business. Will you give us your support? They said yes.
We went to Microsoft, who I'd had a great relationship with over the years as
a customer, and said, to John Barrett, actually, the godfather of Microsoft,
and said, look, John, I'm thinking about doing this.
Can I get your support? He gave me his support very kindly.
And then we went looking for our first client. We landed Endeavor Energy and
(10:47):
things kind of kicked off from there.
They'd been working with a
large GSI for I think a year on a piece of work and couldn't get a result.
We got a result in about three weeks. I thought, okay, well,
there's something in this.
And our client base started expanding from there.
The first day working on the business for me was flying to Inspire.
And I walked into the Las Vegas, into the hall there and I was a fish out of
(11:10):
water. And I was introducing myself.
I'm John Kelly from 8020 and people are like, 6040, who are you?
It was quite daunting, you're just wandering around there with no brand,
you're developing your elevator pitch and all that kind of thing.
And it was quite daunting.
I ended up building a number of relationships out the back of that.
(11:30):
As we scaled the business, obviously, more clients came aboard.
Woolworths were, I think, our third client, and they really put us on the map.
I think the rhetoric in market was, if you do get to work with Woolies,
they're a large organization. There's a bit of risk involved with that.
But we had nothing but a good time with Woolies once we got in the door.
They really put us on the map as a business.
(11:52):
And today, they're still our number one customer. So they've been our number
one customer for five, six years, long embedded relationship to build a trust
and getting things done.
And the business started to kind of scale from there. As our Microsoft partnership
grew, I went back to Vegas again for the Inspire and I was heading back there.
And Kim Yardley from Microsoft, who's always been a massive advocate of ours,
(12:12):
who wouldn't be there, be here without Kim. Massive shout out to Kim.
She said, look, there's an opportunity to meet someone senior at Microsoft.
And by virtue of my personality, I'd say everyone was the same.
So you can put Barack Obama, who I'd love to meet, by the way,
in front of me. And I don't think he's any better or worse than me necessarily.
So it's just a mindset my parents have always been, you know,
(12:33):
be respectful to everyone.
But we're kind of all the same. If you carry yourself in the right way,
there's no reason there should be necessary levels to, you know, to that element of life.
So I've always looked at life that way. And Kim said, look, you can meet someone
from Microsoft, you know, who would you like to meet?
And of course, I want to meet Satya, which is something I've always wanted to
do. And hopefully I will one day.
(12:55):
So she was like, no, seriously. And I was like, no, seriously,
I'd like to meet Satya. So I got onto Google and I started researching what
things that Satya was passionate about.
And then I tailored by a response to elements that I also believed in,
but kind of would resonate with him.
And I filled out the form and it was about two weeks before Inspire and I found
(13:18):
out that I wasn't getting to meet Satya.
I was a bit disappointed, but said, look, you can meet Judson and you're the
only Australian partner who's meeting him. And I think there's seven different partners globally.
So I went to Inspire and I researched who Judson was. I didn't know exactly
who he was at the time. And I realized, oh, this guy's quite a big deal as well.
And we got to the roundtable and, you know, sat down with Judson.
(13:40):
Lovely, lovely man. Very, very intelligent. I was pretty clear early on.
And he said, you know, in kind of a bit of banter, he said, look at you, the 80 or the 20.
The names are in front of us, the name cards with the company and your name.
And they spelled my name wrong. And I said, mate, that's a really good question,
but I'm not falling into your trap.
Let's talk about the real issues here. you spelt my name wrong and we had a
(14:01):
bit of a laugh and it kind of broke broke the it broke the everyone was kind
of really uptight and i mean i think people quite nervous to meet someone of
that seniority again i'd kind
of see people you treat them respectfully then we're all human right so
had a great meeting with judson and yeah i i've dated contact with him over
the years and it's always appreciated you know i think he's a very senior person
(14:22):
and must have a similar mentality that,
We're all here. We're all delivering the Microsoft ecosystem.
Partners are important.
And yeah, it's always a funny story that Matt and I kind of come up here and now there.
But yeah, our Microsoft partnership is a cornerstone to our success as a business.
It has been and it always will be.
Maybe Judson will listen to this podcast and then send the invite to Satya.
(14:45):
We'll take him or email him. He'll email him the body link. I know him,
so that'll definitely be happening.
Matt's on the speed card to a lot of these people now.
So, you know, let's see what we can do there. I think we'll organize that.
But at the end of the day, when you're undertaking like a business like this,
there's probably a lot of people listening to the show that are going,
you know, it's hard, right? Like it's a difficult thing.
(15:09):
So what are the top considerations?
Like what are you thinking? Like if I was going to go and start a business right
now, I can see a gap in the market. And obviously AI is hot, right?
Like so the obvious thing right now is we're on the AI wave.
You know, there's a big gap in the market. there's not many partners embracing
it so there's probably a lot of people listening going i'm going to get on
this first mover advantage what are the top three things i'm talking about tech
(15:32):
right i'm talking about you know is it people is it getting the right you know
the right team is it funding where where did you think you know you would have
what would you have done better i guess to accelerate there's probably the question
around that yeah yeah so i think the first.
Thing i mean if you go from a chronological order the
first thing would be what is your business idea is it a solid
(15:55):
business idea who's out there doing it are they doing it
well are they not doing well for the guys that are doing well is it something you
can augment off the back of that to do it slightly differently you know
what is your usb what's your unique selling point right first point
and you need to have that really really clear we didn't have
it as clear as we maybe should have when we started but a passion we have was
so passionate about the problems we face as a customer like i talked to you
(16:18):
about before and why are we launching this business It kind of overrode our
need at that time to have a really clear USP.
We thought we knew the reasons, but we could have personalized that more.
Having that is obviously key.
Having grit and determination, like this is not for the faint-hearted.
We had a business that started and sold in five years, one of the fastest growing
(16:41):
businesses in Australia.
I think we were the fastest partner to be managed by Microsoft.
It doesn't, I think people think a lot of time, Particularly since I've sold
the business, it's osmosis.
The guys tripped over. They landed on a leprechaun and it was a lot of luck.
And COVID must have been because of COVID.
There's obviously an element of luck involved, right? But grit and determination.
(17:04):
My business partner and I worked harder than most people are willing to work.
That's the reality of the situation. For a long time, we put ourselves under
a lot of duress, chronic stress.
When you're growing a business at that speed and that pace...
A lot of things can break. And it came at a lot of personal costs to both of us.
(17:24):
And that's something people don't see. And when you say that it's all luck and
it's this or that, you're kind of taking away from the hard work that was put into that.
So I always go with grit and determination. I don't think starting a business is for everyone.
You've got to have the right characteristics and you've got to be – you need
to be – and once you start, there's no – it's like having kids, right?
I delayed having kids actually for our business because 80-20 was my baby.
(17:47):
And now that I have kids and people say to me once you have kids your life will
change yeah absolutely they're right and my life has changed now that I've had
kids but you can't just abandon having a hard day oh well you know I'm out and
it's the same with the business once you're in you've got to have grit determination.
And you've got to have that in spades more than most people will you need to
(18:07):
have a really strong team I mean our business is a people business without the
human beings and having talent I mean you're you're dead in the water, right?
So we started with a team of about 60 people who'd been following us for over 10 years, Justin and I.
So when we launched 8020, these guys are the best in the market.
(18:27):
And when I say best, I mean the best Matt knows.
And we just shifted them across. So rather than follow Justin or John individually,
we, okay, we're now part of 8020.
And everyone was bought into it. These guys had seen the same problems that we'd saw.
So talent is a massive part of it. You can have the best value prop in the world
without the talent. you're a paperweight.
So having talent is obviously important.
(18:50):
And having culture, right? As a business, the glue that kept us together was culture.
So when you're scaling at the pace that we're scaling our business,
which was astronomical right from year one to year three, I think we were about
200 headcount or close to, and about $35 million in revenue.
So it's massive growth. growth.
(19:11):
But it's like putting a Ferrari motor in a Hyundai i30.
A Hyundai i30 is not built to go 280 kilometers an hour. It'll do it,
but probably a few doors and panels are going to start falling off.
And it was like that. So you had to strap in and go, okay, well,
where are these problems going to come and how are we going to solve them?
Because you don't have time to have prolonged problems impact the business.
(19:33):
So a big part of that was having a team that believed in the business.
We were there for to one another.
We're a values driven business, honesty, integrity in a collaboration.
We set a bunch of company values. I'm not going to go through them all,
but one of them was the, be the change you seek. You know, we're a very young business.
We're not going to have everything perfect. We're not an NAB who's been around for 50 years.
(19:56):
So you've got a problem and you can solve it and you're part of the team,
well, step up and don't complain about it. Actually, let's work together to solve the problem.
And then when you do that, you're all part of the same fabric.
So the culture of the business was a massive component that kept us together
as we scaled at incredible pace and a major, major part of our success. And it still is today.
(20:17):
People commented externally, you guys are like a tribe, which we are.
We're a very tribal bunch.
We all want to win together. We want to celebrate together.
We have... Can I swear on this podcast? We've got a... We had a no dickhead
policy in the business, right? We're like, okay, you can be God mode.
I used to sit in there as a program manager and watch two architects,
(20:39):
Gandalf and the other guy, go at it in a room full of people thinking,
what is this? What are you guys doing?
And they just wanted to be the smartest person in the room. I never think I'm
the smartest person in the room, so that's easy for me. But what are you guys
doing? What is this posterizing that's going on here?
So when we had started the business, it was like, okay, you can be the smartest
person in the world, but if you're abrasive to our team and our customers and
(20:59):
you think you're the smartest person in the world, this is not the place for you.
I'll take a guy two levels down from you in your alleged IQ or whatever your metric is.
Are they a good person? Are they a value-driven person? Do they want to be part
of a team? in, I'll take that guy every day of the week. And that's what we did with the business.
If you look at our team, you wouldn't survive here for five minutes if you were
(21:20):
that abrasive, I'm smarter than everyone mentality.
So the culture of the business is very important. And when you say it's very
important, you need to maintain that integrity by going, okay,
if you've got a rotten apple, they're going to go quickly.
And as a business, we did that really well because we want to protect the culture
of the business at all costs.
John, I'm so aligned with what you've just said. Having run my own business
(21:40):
before, all of those qualities, I think, are super important.
I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of work and the sacrifice,
the financial burden, the impact on your family, these kind of things that people
actually put in behind the scenes to make some of this work.
Thank you so much for your honesty around that because most of the time when
(22:01):
we're interviewing interviewing people or chatting to people,
you know, they don't expose that side of running the business, right?
Which is the truth to it. So yeah, fantastic comments.
Just context on that. I mean, just to be perfectly open, so you're listening.
We didn't take a salary for three and a half years.
So I went from earning very good money as an IT program manager on a contract rate.
(22:29):
At $1,600, $1,700 a day for many, many years to $0 for three and a half years.
And I borrowed my mom and dad's retirement money. So this didn't work.
There was no del boca vista for mom and dad. So it was, there was so much risk.
I imagine that this thing doesn't work and your mom and dad,
(22:51):
that was what we had to do. I mortgaged my apartment on top of this.
I mean, these are things that not many people are willing to do.
So that's the thing I say about people when they go, okay, well,
there's a lot of luck involved, or they perceive there's a lot of luck.
Actually, there's probably a bit of luck with market timing.
We hit a peak in M&A when we sold. We're always a very attractive company buyer.
(23:14):
But that doesn't take away from the grit, determination, and risk.
If you look at the equation, you've got grit, determination, great idea, risk.
I am a risk taker. I've always been a risk taker. I'm a gambler. Matt knows that.
We go to the races together now and then, and he sits back and says, what is this guy doing?
But risk is a massive part of the equation. And I think a lot of people succeed.
(23:36):
It's like, well, how much risk are you willing to take versus the guy next to
you who's got a very similar, great idea?
And same with sports. It's the same with a lot of things. So you can't underestimate
the sacrifice that it takes, or we took in our business, and it takes to be
a successful business and the risk element you have.
You've got to have an educated risk and you've got to weigh that up and go,
In for a penny, in for a pound, I'm willing to go the distance on this thing.
(24:01):
So that's another key element. Yeah, amazing. Amazing.
Yeah, I completely agree. And Jack, we've known each other so well for so long
and I can definitely see all the hard work.
It's not the fruits of your labor at the end. There's a shitload of work that
goes into it and I've seen it all firsthand myself, all the late nights and
all the challenges and teething problems when you grow and all that kind of stuff.
(24:22):
But I think everyone kind of stuck together. and everyone kind of had that common
goal to make sure that it was all successful as part of it.
A funny story, before I actually joined 8020, I had another job lined up and
pretty much signed and sealed.
And before I spoke to JK and Jus at the time, Kieran Mott, the Factor CEO,
actually introduced me to JK.
And out of my friendship with Kieran, I was like, oh, I better go have this interview with JK.
(24:43):
And then after talking to those guys within five minutes, I was immediately
about to sign the contract with 8020 as well.
So that whole culture that JK talks about is definitely real.
And sort of 80-20 has always been really founded as
part of that a really culture and sort of tribe that jk talks
to as well so proves in the pudding with me when i would literally
had another job signed and i have to speak to these guys for five minutes i'm
(25:04):
still here what three and a half four years later as well so john talk to me
about i guess the time of you originally a modern work business what was the
decision to kind of pivot to these azure and you know all these other sort of
technology stacks and and how did you go about sort of that as well yeah so
we launched as a a modern workplace because that's where our history was.
So all of our team and my history and Justin's history, that was very much predicated
(25:25):
on EUC, modern work, transformations.
So that's a logical place to launch a business.
Once we launched and we were gaining traction and were quite successful in that
space, we became a premier kind of partner in Microsoft ecosystem in modern work.
Our business model was, as I explained, one vendor to rule all the more or minimize
(25:49):
the vendors through all the more.
So we were then going, okay, well, we work with our customers from inception,
writing the business case, writing a technical roadmap, standing up programs,
delivery of those programs, technology, changes, option, and training.
And you look at it and go, okay, we're across that end-to-end elements of delivering a transformation.
(26:10):
If we were then stuck to just one workplace, we kind of would have had that
breadth, but not the depth. So what we then looked at and said, look.
There's no reason that our delivery model and our partnering model with customers
shouldn't span across the Microsoft Cloud.
So you've got one partner that can do this end-to-end from a program perspective,
but they should also be able to do it from a technical perspective.
(26:30):
So then we went to market and we launched our Azure practice first.
I mean, to launch a practice is fairly easy, in my opinion. You find an expert
in the market who is passionate about growing something, like their own business,
and you bolt them onto your business and you get your first sale and you start
building your team beneath them and that starts to grow and that grows to a
(26:52):
certain point and then you look for the next one, which we did when we were
very fortunate to get Matt.
The next practice we launched was our BizApps practice and we were very fortunate
to get Matt, aka the Sweet Prince.
I was waiting for that to come out. It took you about 30 minutes for the JP's
nickname. Wait a minute.
We just go back here, the Sweet Prince.
Scott, you haven't heard this? No. No, this is used to me, and this is gold,
(27:17):
John. So, yeah, let's delve into that a little bit.
Well, we launched this Azure practice. We got Sayan Ghosh, who's now gone back to Microsoft.
I don't even know Sayan, Scott, but he was one of the smartest people I think I've ever met in my life.
I sit in the room, and I was just being really quiet because I was intimidated by his IQ.
But he was a massive part of our business, and he really put everything into
(27:39):
it, and then he went back to Microsoft.
But he launched the Azure practice.
Then we went to launch our BizApps practice. I got the intro to Matt.
And when his name came across my desk, I was like, you know,
I haven't met someone with the last name Noble.
And the first thing I thought about when I think of Noble is like a noble prince.
And then from went from there, I think I got an interview with him and I called
(28:00):
him sweet prince on the interview.
And it kind of, I didn't know him from Barra. So, and he's probably thinking, who is this guy?
And then it went from there. And then everyone just started calling me.
So everyone in the whole company calls him sweet prince.
Everyone tells me in the internal chat, it's Prince, Sweet Prince, everything.
So he's giving away the secret in JK's phone on the Sweet Prince as well.
(28:21):
And all JK's friends call me the Sweet Prince.
I won't tell you anything I got about 10 years ago that kind of stuck with me
because it's taken me 10 years to shift it. Maybe that's for another time.
But I feel you now, Matt, but you're now the Sweet Prince to me as well.
So that's where we're at.
Yeah, there's a logical connection. Matt Noble, Noble Prince,
the Sweet Prince, you know. Let's roll with it.
(28:44):
So, John, I've got another question for you. Fantastic comment so far, right?
But the number one question everyone's probably thinking right now is,
why NCS? Why the move to these guys?
What kind of prompted that? And how's it going?
Yeah, so, good question.
Given the growth of the company, we were approached a number of times.
(29:07):
It happened twice, actually, in 2020.
2020. So we're a three or four-year-old business at the time.
Again, because we won a few awards. We placed fourth in the CRM.
We're in Deloitte top 50.
Twice we're in the CRM, sorry.
And we made a real name for ourselves in the market as a premium Microsoft partner.
Business was going really well.
(29:28):
I started to pay myself so I could stop eating baked beans. It was fantastic.
And I got approached by two of the top top four consultancy firms.
We've taken a lot of work off them. So I still love competing against the big
guys because I'm competitive. So I love winning.
I think we had a really good compete against some of the bigger players,
(29:52):
being a niche boutique expert player in this space with all the cultural and
values things that I mentioned.
So we kind of disrupted the market. We were massive disruptors.
And I got approached once and I thought nothing of it. I thought,
you know, three and a half year old business, how would people be interested?
But our numbers were really strong. For a professional service business,
(30:15):
I challenge you probably to buy numbers that strong.
Because we're very lean and we're very conscious about where our money went
as a business. So I was approached once.
I was flattered and laughed it off.
And then I was approached again and I went to my business partner and said,
Look, something in this. We've been approached twice by the big guys.
(30:35):
We had a five-year plan from the outset.
It was to go hell for leather and sell the business in five years if we could
get to the top of that mountain.
Or get investment and scalacing and go from a small or medium player into like,
this thing's going to be $100, $200 million business, right?
(30:56):
And like more of a household name.
And then after being approached twice, I said, look, there's something in this.
We're going to suspect someone. And I went and spoke to a couple of advisors.
And they said, look, even though you only had three and a half years of trading,
your numbers are incredible.
You should run a process. We ran a process, started in November 2021,
(31:16):
finished in November 2020, and there was a ton of interest through that process.
We had more interest than these guys, our broker, Alia Capital.
Shout out to Alia Capital. These guys were amazing at running our process.
They said there's more interest in the company than we've seen,
(31:37):
again, because of the growth of the company, the market reputation,
and the numbers were great.
And so we came down, we had four offers in the end.
And from those four offers, there was three global companies that you guys would know.
I won't go through them, but household names.
And then there was investment, private equity firm, a big name as well.
(32:01):
And their model was to roll us up and us to be the centerpiece and then build a much larger company.
And the other offers were, we want to bring you in and be part of our company
and we want to buy your business.
So we looked at the different profiles of those offers and then we did,
okay, we're going to go with the acquisition path because it made sense for us at the time.
(32:23):
And we thought there'd be a lot of opportunity for our team.
So we weren't the kind of people that go, okay, well, let's sell the business
and go sit on a yacht somewhere and we don't care what happens to it because
we're passionate about every single person that works in the business and our customers.
So we were very purposeful around, okay, well, this is our baby.
Who's going to... Where is the most opportunity?
And culture was a massive driver for us. It was almost our number one decision point metric.
(32:48):
And we looked at NCS and the conversations we were having were about,
okay, well, John, tell us, dig dive on the culture of the business.
How did you guys... But NCS were asking the right questions about culture and
their plans to grow the business were really impressive.
I didn't know at the time. I never heard of NCS. But then I learned they're
obviously owned by Singtel, owned Optus.
And in Asia, there are 8,000 to 10,000 person companies. These guys are massive.
(33:15):
And they're very focused on the future, being prepared for the future,
growing solutions that are leading edge and all that type of thing.
And when we mixed all this together, NCS presented as the obvious choice for
us. It was a hard decision. decision.
But the people we were doing business with, Howie Lau and Andre Conti,
who represented NCS, they were really honorable.
(33:37):
Not that ours weren't, but we just really, it's a connection as well.
But a major focus was where are people going in the future? What's our opportunity for our team?
And that was almost a key decision making point along with the culture of the company.
So NCS represented very well in that space.
And as a result, we went with NCS.
Fantastic comments, John. I think what I love about your story so far is it's
(34:01):
never really been about money, right?
It's culture, it's people, it's how can we drive a different outcome for our
customers, how can we have a better experience. you know, and I think that's
really key to the success of 8020.
And, you know, having been on the vendor side, you know, working for Microsoft
and you guys, I saw the result of that firsthand over the last few years,
(34:21):
and it's been truly transformational and amazing and, you know,
really enjoyed the engagement.
It's just been a fantastic journey. So it's good to see, to sit on the outside
and watch the impact of the way that you've worked through that.
So what do you think now? Now that it's all said and done, what are you looking
forward to in NCS and going and creating and doing differently over the next year or two?
(34:46):
Yeah, so, and thanks for that comment, Scotty. It's great to,
I was always very proud of our brand in market because our values and our quality
and all those things were really, you know, our brand was really stellar and still is.
Yeah, they really shone through. Like, I'm serious, the brand really shone through.
So, you did a fantastic job.
Yeah it's a proud dad moment for me right because you know in my opinion you're
(35:09):
only as good as your reputation in a lot of ways and you're used to be saying
you're only as good as your last project but.
I was really proud to know that our team has thought about that way in the market
and our brand, which started from scratch four or five years ago now.
So to get a brand from zero to where it is today in that period of time is just
(35:30):
incredible. Again, I'm really proud of it.
In terms of what's next for me, I'll talk about me and the company.
So the company is in the process of being integrated into the broader NCS group.
NCS purchased Arc, who I think are predominantly an AWS player,
Riley, who are a Google player.
The Microsoft business is 8020, which has now become the Microsoft Solutions Group.
(35:52):
So NCS Australia is very quickly now forming into this T1 consultancy.
The plans, which I love big, hairy, audacious goals, right?
And Howie, who's one of the senior leaders out of Singapore,
said, look, John, I want to create an Avanade 2.0.
And I love big goals that are hard to reach. So I was like, okay, I'm on to this.
(36:13):
So 8020 has become the solutions group in Australia. Our plans are to solidify
the integration in Australia and then create a true APAC-Asian relationship.
As Microsoft has shifted to that model, we're shifting to that model as well,
where we're sharing solutions, IP, resources, go-to-markets across the region.
(36:33):
To underpin that, they asked me to move to a global role. So I'm head of global
head of Microsoft for NCS and I report into a Singapore leadership team now.
So my goal is very much focused on growing our Microsoft relationship.
When I started the business, I spent about 80% of my time doing sales and growing
(36:54):
the Microsoft relationship from the ground up. So it's a natural happy place for me.
I love working with Microsoft. I understand Microsoft really well.
I just enjoy growing a Microsoft partnership. It was something I was really
good at, I found out later, and something I was really passionate about.
So I've stepped back into, it's like starting the business again for me.
(37:15):
So I'm like a phoenix rising through the ashes type thing. I started a business
very much focused on sales and growing a Microsoft partnership.
So I scaled the business, we sold the business, I'm back now doing this at a
much bigger scale. I use the term standing on the shoulder of giants.
NCS are a $44 billion company with 10,000 people.
So it blows my mind that I'm now back to this origin of the business.
(37:36):
I'm an employee again, which is bittersweet in some ways, but it's nice at the same time.
With a big goal in front of me of kind of growing their Microsoft alliance and
into this global behemoth, I love shooting towards massive goals like that.
So that's my personal position.
80-20 is an approach that's being integrated into the business as the Microsoft
(37:58):
Solutions Group. So any opportunities for NCS, the Microsoft-related,
the Microsoft Solutions Group, Deliver, and our team have taken really prominent roles.
Our leadership team have taken prominent roles, including Matt,
who now runs our biggest practice, I think, in scaling out those different practices
from a Microsoft perspective.
So I said earlier that I was really focused on a team getting into great positions
(38:21):
in whatever new company we went with, and it's starting to happen,
which I'm really proud about. I was never the guy to never be money-focused,
I've never been money-focused.
I'm too frivolous with money to be money-focused to be honest,
so for me, I enjoy winning.
I have goals that aren't necessarily financially driven. And what I find is
(38:42):
if you drive towards something you're passionate and you believe in, the money will come.
I think people that say, I want to be a zillionaire, I don't know.
I think you struggle to get there personally. If you go, I want to grow something
different, I want to be proud of what I do, I want to create something unique
in the market, I want to keep this many people employed for this long.
(39:03):
We kept people employed through the pandemic when everyone else was letting
go of people. We just took no money as founders.
And that's putting your money where your mouth is. You know what I mean?
We paid bonuses where the big banks weren't paying bonuses.
And we were a small little company paying bonuses through the pandemic.
So there's things like that that I look back and I'm proud of.
But then the other element is now as we kind of stand on the shoulder of giants,
(39:26):
that's Matt and members of our team are taking much more senior roles in the
business. There's opportunities for people to go to Singapore and work from
Singapore now because we got bought by a Singapore business.
And I think we're going to see a lot of that happening in the future.
We're going to see a lot of people going across over to Singapore and working
and growing their careers in this.
I used to work for enterprise businesses, started a business because I wanted
(39:48):
to get out of enterprise and do something different. And I wound up back up
in the enterprise business.
That's not necessarily a bad thing because I'm actually in a position where
I can influence the way things go as opposed to before.
It's like snakes and ladders. I was in the matrix. I was in the game and I couldn't influence.
So I got out of the game. I started my own business, did all this,
(40:08):
scaled it, sold it, and now I'm back in the snakes and ladders or the matrix.
But I do have a somewhat influence in the way things go.
So it's kind of cool how life has played out and the way things have played
out. But outside of business, I've got two young daughters now.
I actually delayed that part of my life.
I was only 20 when I was a baby. I joke about it, but it's not really a joke.
So I had my first daughter when I was 40. I'm 43 now.
(40:31):
I've got a two-year-old and a six-month-old, which is a whole new challenge.
And I'm very much focused on that next stage of my life with my family.
And I spend a lot of time working on the business.
My wife talks about filling cups. People need to fill each other's cups.
I think I've got a water cooler over here and I need to shift some of that back towards the family.
(40:54):
So outside of the business, my focus is finding balance with my family.
Awesome. And shout out to Ash. I know Ash has been the biggest support for you
on your journey. Obviously, being in the role that you've got,
there's a lot of time away from family.
I'm sure she's going to be listening if you started sort of 80-20 again from scratch.
What's that one thing that the listeners can go away with and go,
(41:15):
hey, that's really good advice if they're looking to explore down this path?
I had to learn it. I had to learn quickly and luckily, my business partner was
very good with numbers and great with money. His cash flow is king.
So you're scaling a business. We went from zero to 190 staff in the first three
years and you go at an average rate of call it $1,000 a day.
(41:35):
That's a lot of cash flow, right?
We had so much work, but you've got to be able to fund the business.
There were points in time, just to be transparent, where we're like,
I don't know if we can afford to keep. And this is without paying ourselves.
This is without paying back my mom and dad and my apartment already mortgage.
So it's funny. I think businesses get to a point where they're going to either,
(41:56):
you need to stop growing and plateau, or you could break the machine.
And we got to that point a few times.
And I'll look back with fond memories, but I'm talking, I couldn't sleep.
I'm like, oh, I don't know where we go from here.
We had offers to buy into the business. We had a lot of offers to buy into the business.
I could honestly tell you I came this close 10 times probably to going,
(42:19):
yeah, we'll take the money.
You get this shareholding. And I'm really glad we did it and we held out.
But it came so close that you wouldn't believe.
So managing cash flow is an absolute art form.
If you want to scale a business, it's the heartbeat of the business.
It's a lifeblood of the business from a financial perspective.
And getting your head around that for someone who can barely count to 10 and
(42:43):
is not educated and I haven't done an MBA and I haven't done all these things,
it was hard. I was like, what do you mean?
We've got so much money coming in the door. Like, you know, this is going great.
And, well, John, you need to also pay our people and there's payment terms of
this and, you know, projects pausing and starting.
You know, milestones start here and there. and I fundamentally understood it.
(43:06):
I think I just didn't want to.
So learning about cash flow, managing cash flow, I'd say would make a break of any business.
Probably the other element is I think people that go it alone, it's very hard.
I had one business partner and he and I had some really challenging times,
but we were generally always there to support one another. I don't think I would
(43:27):
have got through it on my own.
So a lot of people come to me now for business advice, which is funny because
again, Again, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, maybe the most passionate
guy in the room, but I'm not the smartest.
And I always say, look, if you have an opportunity to partner with someone that
can add a lot of value to the business, then I would do it because we just made it through.
(43:50):
And I mean, just with two of us working incredibly hard, two completely different
skill sets, personalities, but we knew we could get a result together.
We thought we could get a result together. other.
So if we didn't have that partnership, I'm pretty sure that Justin would agree
that we probably wouldn't have got there.
And I would say the same. So having a strong partner, I think, is really important.
(44:13):
I think business is very, very tough and going it alone is extremely challenging.
So they're kind of the two key things outside of the fundamental building blocks of the business.
They're the key things I would focus on and the advice that I would give.
Maybe there's one more, John, and that's to find a prince pretty early in the
(44:34):
journey, right? There's only one prince to cut.
He's a racehorse, man. Yeah. If you can find a sweet prince,
then hold on to him with both hands and don't let go.
Yeah. Winks, at least on the Flemington Strait.
Well, thank you, JK, for that time with us.
(44:56):
Yeah, just an amazing story. A lot of impact. I'm sure people listening to the
show are just going to be amazed at your journey and you know this will be the
number one streaming podcast now for the next 12 months and take Matt and I
to a whole new place hopefully so.
Thank you very much and Matt have you got some closing remarks for Joel?
(45:18):
Yeah so JK's been the biggest influence on my career the lessons I've learned
from JK professionally and personally has been you know second to none yeah
Yeah, JK talks about walking into the room and thinking you're the equal.
I remember walking into the room and you're presenting to the CIO of big banks
and shitting yourself basically.
But you kind of got over that quick. You got that confidence and trust.
And now that's been really invaluable for my career. Everyone's equal and I
(45:41):
don't have those nerves.
And I'm really confident when having these large-scale presentations and presenting
and they're in front of thousands of people and all that kind of stuff.
So I think I'm not the only one that would thank JK for really giving 8020 as
an organization to launch their own career.
There'll be hundreds within the organization as well. well. But just a special
shout out to JK. He's always been a massive supporter.
Firstly, coming onto the podcast and secondly, with my career and also personally
(46:04):
as well. We're obviously very, very good friends as part of it.
So just a massive thanks, JK, for everything you've done for me and obviously
the others that have come with you on the Andy20 journey. We definitely appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks, guys, and applaud you for getting started.
It's pretty cool what you're doing here. Again, it's the first podcast I've
ever been on, and you guys are great at hosting it.
I think you talk about important topics, obviously, for your listener base.
(46:27):
Well, I've got the platform on. I want to thank everyone who's been a part of
our business and journey.
One person doesn't get here on their own. We've done it as a team,
and I thank every single person that's helped me along the way.
I had a lot of people that influenced my career and were sounding boards for
me, as well as our team. I don't see our team as much as I'd like to these days,
given my global role, but it's something I'd like to rectify.
(46:50):
I'll get some more time, but I thank everyone, our customers,
our team, our partners at Microsoft.
I didn't get here on my own, as I said, and including you, Matt,
you've been a massive part of our business.
I thank everyone that's helped me on the journey along the way because it's
been an incredible ride.
Would I do it again? and maybe in another life, but you could run the same result
(47:14):
and get the same outcome and get five different results.
We've got to where we have and I'm really proud of our achievements,
but there's still a lot more to go.
And a massive thank you to everyone who supported me along the way because there's
been a lot of people who have.
And thanks for having me again on the podcast, guys.
Anytime. You're a friend of the show now, John. So anytime.
(47:35):
Let me know when you get the video happening. I'll go work out at the gym beforehand.
We'll get Judson on here. We'll get Judson on here. You can interview Judson
on the podcast, mate. Scott, that's a challenge.
I think it starts here and John together on the podcast.
That's day out. Sign me up. Sign me up. Don't go such as listening to this. All right.
(47:56):
Have a wonderful day, John, and we'll chat soon. Thanks, guys. Take care. Peace. Bye.
Music.
Hey that's a wrap for today thanks so much for
everyone for listening to our podcast just a few reminders so
we've set up a linkedin page so we'll endeavor to put some updates on that linkedin
(48:16):
page so go on there and click follow for us also don't forget to go to powertime.au
and subscribe to our newsletter and lastly if you could please click a follow
on this podcast so you get the latest this episode as they come out.
We're trying to get the podcasts out every two to three weeks,
so there should be a good cadence with a whole bunch of new guests coming on.
(48:37):
Now, lastly, don't forget that the views on this podcast are not the views of
MCS on Microsoft, but they're the views of Matt and I and our guests.
Thanks again. See you. I can't wait to see you on the next podcast.
Music.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Power Time Show with Matt and Scott, and on today's show...
Our Microsoft partnership is a cornerstone to our success as a business.
It has been and it always will be.
Music.
If the worst comes to worst, I'll go back to what I was doing before or I'll become the bricklayer.
(00:22):
Terrible um you've got to have grit determination um and you've got to have
that in spades more than most people will blue that kept us together was culture
can i swear on this podcast,
get ready let's go unlocking secrets leaders should know.
(00:46):
Music.
It's a very special privilege to introduce a special guest to the show, John Kelly.
So John has been in the Microsoft ecosystem for a long time,
worked across a lot of major projects.
(01:08):
He's currently the Global Microsoft Alliance Lead at NCS and also one of the co-founders for 8020.
So we're really excited today to have him in on the show to chat about the transformation,
what it takes to build a company, what it takes to move that company into a
larger entity like NCS, and of course, moving forward, what's super exciting
(01:30):
around the Microsoft practice within NCS throughout Asia.
So I'm sure, Matt, you've got a couple of words you'd like to say about John
as well. So from your point of view, Matt?
Obviously, I know John very well, considering obviously he's been a massive influence on my career.
He's also an extreme character, so it's a great conversation today.
(01:51):
But JK, why don't you go introduce yourself to the audience?
And then from there, I've got hundreds of questions to ask you.
So away you go, mate. Introduce yourself.
Yes. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Really excited. I've never done a podcast
before. I'm quite excited about it, particularly with you two guys hosting it.
So John Kelly was the artist formerly known as the CEO of 8020.
I was also a co-founder, not the sole founder, so I was a co-founder in 8020.
(02:16):
And I had a bunch of different roles, both in the business when we started up
and we scaled up the business.
So I was co-CEO, founder, head of Microsoft Alliance, head of sales,
head of HR, unbelievably all at one time.
And when we started the business in private, I had a lengthy career in Australia
(02:36):
and outside of Australia, in North America and Europe.
Running large transformational programs predominantly in
fsi and probably 50 50 split between fsi
and government so which led me towards you
know launching 80 20 and and giving giving that a
go how do you get from you know running projects and and working with you know
(02:59):
a lot of those top companies to creating your own business and really going
on that journey what was what was What was in your mindset around that when
you created 8020 and what was kind of driving you to do that?
It's a good question. I think the ultimate, the catalyst was fatigue.
Fatigue of dealing with the same problems over and over again with the traditional
(03:21):
IT vendors in the market.
The stage that we launched 8020, and I always talk about this,
Matt knows on Salesforce, I was literally looking at becoming a bricklayer or
a carpenter or a stomach where I was so exhausted from running these large transformations,
dealing with the same problems over and over.
And I was getting paid really well. I was always a gun for hire, right?
(03:41):
So I was like, you pay me this much money, I don't care, I'll eat glass for
six months, 12 months, three years to get the job done.
And I always got the job done. I'm a dog.
Once I've got a goal, I just go after it and I do not quit to my own demise a lot of the time.
So, you know, looking at that career and I'd already had a fairly lengthy career,
(04:02):
I was about 35 at the time and felt like I was about 105 because the amount
of stress you're continuing under running these large transformations.
So I was really fatigued and looking at the change careers or give something,
do a Hail Mary and give something to go.
And I did the Tom Brady and I threw the ball and 80-20 was launched and it did really well.
But fatigue was definitely a major element of it.
(04:24):
Market opportunity, obviously, like you're not going to go, I'm really tired.
So let's go risk everything I've ever had and all my parents' savings and their
retirement money and try to launch this really unique idea which doesn't have
a lot of substance behind it.
So second thing was obviously a unique market opportunity.
Which we saw, I mean, just to elaborate on that, when I used to run large transformational
(04:47):
programs, the typical problems I would run into, accountability from vendors.
So we've signed a contract.
You know what I want. I want a house with four walls, three windows.
And then suddenly I get a house with four walls and three windows, but no roof.
It's like, guys, come on. You know the house needs a roof.
Well, it wasn't in the contract. So that's going to be another change request.
And that's going to be another change request.
(05:08):
And this plagued my whole career to the point where I was continually,
all my job day-to-day was fighting with vendors, right?
Purely because of those accountability and values questions, right?
There's an accountability, there's a kind of honor component to that.
You know the outcome we were trying to reach and get it.
(05:28):
Having to hire multiple vendors to get an outcome is a very disparate model, which is very hard.
So you're trying to run a $50 million program with six vendors to get one outcome,
extremely hard. So six different cultures, six different contracts,
six different personalities running those separate teams.
I mean, if you looked at that equation from the top down, you would say it would never work.
(05:50):
But no one really took the time to unpack and go, why do we need six vendors to get this one outcome?
So the model was broken, in my opinion. There was a distinct lack of accountability in the market.
And I'd already had a team that had been following me from place to place for
many years. So I built the Galaticas of project delivery, right?
(06:10):
So I had the best architects.
I had the best project managers, the best program managers, the best BAs that
I've had years and years to hand select.
And in the teams that I built, either you made it or you didn't, i.e.
If you're playing with Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi and you're kind of a little
bit below, you're going to be shown up pretty quickly, right?
(06:30):
And it wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like we're out there hunting for people,
but people would naturally go, okay, this is probably not for me.
Because of the pace and the ferocious kind of nature of our teams right so had
a really capable team and the only bit we didn't do was engineering so i used
to write the business case from my perspective work for cio,
we get that approved i build the program structure i bring in my team so the
(06:51):
project managers the bas we then and the change of the options specialist we
then govern another vendor which would go to i'd run the rfp you know the usual
suspects we go through we bring them on board and always found that my team
was much higher skill level than the traditional tech guys on the market.
So I'm going, the only bit we don't do is build servers.
We've managed a project. We've got architects who govern their architects.
(07:13):
We've got project managers who manage it. We've got BAs who then interface with their BAs.
And change and adoption was an unspoken thing. No one ever invested a time into it.
And that was crazy considering my mentality was always technology is only as
good as the people using it.
So if you add all these elements together, the only bit we didn't really do
or I didn't do was the engineering component and then the further you move into
(07:36):
the stack with microsoft as you know.
There's not that much engineering anymore, right? You're just moving into the cloud, right?
And so when I add all that together, I said, look, there's a unique market opportunity
to be a really accountability kind of driven supplier.
I had all the contacts in the market. I had a really good personal reputation,
so did my business partner, Justin, at delivering projects.
(07:59):
Small facts is a lot of program managers in the market getting paid 2K a day
don't actually deliver projects.
You look at their track record, they bail when it gets too hard,
And they go, well, we kind of got 80% there, so I've done my job.
But Justin and I saw things through, you know, rain or shine.
So we had a really good personal brand, and we had a great team.
(08:21):
And the market opportunity, I just explained, was to have a really talented
team of people that are accountable, values-driven, and end-to-end.
So 80-20 was launched.
We write the business case. We do the roadmap for customers.
We build the program. We do all the project management. We do your business analysis.
Do all the technical component, and we do change it up from training.
(08:41):
So it's kind of like Lord of the Rings. We have one vendor to rule them all.
And if you look at that, it's just so much simpler. You've got one throat to
choke or shoulder to pat for a great job.
You don't have all these commercial constructs. We integrate with your team.
We've got our own reporting style, our own government's layer,
and all these kind of things. We would come along and say, hey,
we'll fit into your business operation.
(09:02):
We'll report into your governance boards because we work for you.
You kind of see the mind shift, the mindset shift. So combination of all those
things was a market opportunity.
Fatigue was the reason and just the definition of insanity is keep doing the
same thing, right? Yeah.
Thought we'll we'll take a risk if the worst comes to us i'll go back to what
(09:24):
i was doing before or i'll become the bricklayer or carpenter or whatever i
was going to do i'm not that handy so that we wouldn't have worked and and we'll
go from there so that's kind of how we got started,
what a story and i'm definitely familiar with some of this jk you talk about
that all the time when we sort of introduce to customers and it's really compelling
and it really relates talk to me about you one and how was year one for you
(09:45):
this particular story of you traveling over to i I think it was Inspire,
I'm meeting Judson for the first time, that maybe you can share that with the viewers.
I often find that a really classic JK story as well.
But talk to me about how you won, what were the challenges, how did you get
started, all of that kind of stuff, and maybe drop a little sprinkle of that
story because it is a classic. So back over to you.
Yeah, so how we got started was
(10:05):
my business partner finished before me Transport, which is our last gig.
That was a five-year, couple of hundred million dollar initiative to bring Transport
New South Wales together.
We co-ran that. that. And we started looking for clients.
We went to our previous bosses, who are quite influential CIOs,
and said, look, we've given you everything.
(10:26):
We want to start this business. Will you give us your support? They said yes.
We went to Microsoft, who I'd had a great relationship with over the years as
a customer, and said, to John Barrett, actually, the godfather of Microsoft,
and said, look, John, I'm thinking about doing this.
Can I get your support? He gave me his support very kindly.
And then we went looking for our first client. We landed Endeavor Energy and
(10:47):
things kind of kicked off from there.
They'd been working with a
large GSI for I think a year on a piece of work and couldn't get a result.
We got a result in about three weeks. I thought, okay, well,
there's something in this.
And our client base started expanding from there.
The first day working on the business for me was flying to Inspire.
And I walked into the Las Vegas, into the hall there and I was a fish out of
(11:10):
water. And I was introducing myself.
I'm John Kelly from 8020 and people are like, 6040, who are you?
It was quite daunting, you're just wandering around there with no brand,
you're developing your elevator pitch and all that kind of thing.
And it was quite daunting.
I ended up building a number of relationships out the back of that.
(11:30):
As we scaled the business, obviously, more clients came aboard.
Woolworths were, I think, our third client, and they really put us on the map.
I think the rhetoric in market was, if you do get to work with Woolies,
they're a large organization. There's a bit of risk involved with that.
But we had nothing but a good time with Woolies once we got in the door.
They really put us on the map as a business.
(11:52):
And today, they're still our number one customer. So they've been our number
one customer for five, six years, long embedded relationship to build a trust
and getting things done.
And the business started to kind of scale from there. As our Microsoft partnership
grew, I went back to Vegas again for the Inspire and I was heading back there.
And Kim Yardley from Microsoft, who's always been a massive advocate of ours,
(12:12):
who wouldn't be there, be here without Kim. Massive shout out to Kim.
She said, look, there's an opportunity to meet someone senior at Microsoft.
And by virtue of my personality, I'd say everyone was the same.
So you can put Barack Obama, who I'd love to meet, by the way,
in front of me. And I don't think he's any better or worse than me necessarily.
So it's just a mindset my parents have always been, you know,
(12:33):
be respectful to everyone.
But we're kind of all the same. If you carry yourself in the right way,
there's no reason there should be necessary levels to, you know, to that element of life.
So I've always looked at life that way. And Kim said, look, you can meet someone
from Microsoft, you know, who would you like to meet?
And of course, I want to meet Satya, which is something I've always wanted to
do. And hopefully I will one day.
(12:55):
So she was like, no, seriously. And I was like, no, seriously,
I'd like to meet Satya. So I got onto Google and I started researching what
things that Satya was passionate about.
And then I tailored by a response to elements that I also believed in,
but kind of would resonate with him.
And I filled out the form and it was about two weeks before Inspire and I found
(13:18):
out that I wasn't getting to meet Satya.
I was a bit disappointed, but said, look, you can meet Judson and you're the
only Australian partner who's meeting him. And I think there's seven different partners globally.
So I went to Inspire and I researched who Judson was. I didn't know exactly
who he was at the time. And I realized, oh, this guy's quite a big deal as well.
And we got to the roundtable and, you know, sat down with Judson.
(13:40):
Lovely, lovely man. Very, very intelligent. I was pretty clear early on.
And he said, you know, in kind of a bit of banter, he said, look at you, the 80 or the 20.
The names are in front of us, the name cards with the company and your name.
And they spelled my name wrong. And I said, mate, that's a really good question,
but I'm not falling into your trap.
Let's talk about the real issues here. you spelt my name wrong and we had a
(14:01):
bit of a laugh and it kind of broke broke the it broke the everyone was kind
of really uptight and i mean i think people quite nervous to meet someone of
that seniority again i'd kind
of see people you treat them respectfully then we're all human right so
had a great meeting with judson and yeah i i've dated contact with him over
the years and it's always appreciated you know i think he's a very senior person
(14:22):
and must have a similar mentality that,
We're all here. We're all delivering the Microsoft ecosystem.
Partners are important.
And yeah, it's always a funny story that Matt and I kind of come up here and now there.
But yeah, our Microsoft partnership is a cornerstone to our success as a business.
It has been and it always will be.
Maybe Judson will listen to this podcast and then send the invite to Satya.
(14:45):
We'll take him or email him. He'll email him the body link. I know him,
so that'll definitely be happening.
Matt's on the speed card to a lot of these people now.
So, you know, let's see what we can do there. I think we'll organize that.
But at the end of the day, when you're undertaking like a business like this,
there's probably a lot of people listening to the show that are going,
you know, it's hard, right? Like it's a difficult thing.
(15:09):
So what are the top considerations?
Like what are you thinking? Like if I was going to go and start a business right
now, I can see a gap in the market. And obviously AI is hot, right?
Like so the obvious thing right now is we're on the AI wave.
You know, there's a big gap in the market. there's not many partners embracing
it so there's probably a lot of people listening going i'm going to get on
this first mover advantage what are the top three things i'm talking about tech
(15:32):
right i'm talking about you know is it people is it getting the right you know
the right team is it funding where where did you think you know you would have
what would you have done better i guess to accelerate there's probably the question
around that yeah yeah so i think the first.
Thing i mean if you go from a chronological order the
first thing would be what is your business idea is it a solid
(15:55):
business idea who's out there doing it are they doing it
well are they not doing well for the guys that are doing well is it something you
can augment off the back of that to do it slightly differently you know
what is your usb what's your unique selling point right first point
and you need to have that really really clear we didn't have
it as clear as we maybe should have when we started but a passion we have was
so passionate about the problems we face as a customer like i talked to you
(16:18):
about before and why are we launching this business It kind of overrode our
need at that time to have a really clear USP.
We thought we knew the reasons, but we could have personalized that more.
Having that is obviously key.
Having grit and determination, like this is not for the faint-hearted.
We had a business that started and sold in five years, one of the fastest growing
(16:41):
businesses in Australia.
I think we were the fastest partner to be managed by Microsoft.
It doesn't, I think people think a lot of time, Particularly since I've sold
the business, it's osmosis.
The guys tripped over. They landed on a leprechaun and it was a lot of luck.
And COVID must have been because of COVID.
There's obviously an element of luck involved, right? But grit and determination.
(17:04):
My business partner and I worked harder than most people are willing to work.
That's the reality of the situation. For a long time, we put ourselves under
a lot of duress, chronic stress.
When you're growing a business at that speed and that pace...
A lot of things can break. And it came at a lot of personal costs to both of us.
(17:24):
And that's something people don't see. And when you say that it's all luck and
it's this or that, you're kind of taking away from the hard work that was put into that.
So I always go with grit and determination. I don't think starting a business is for everyone.
You've got to have the right characteristics and you've got to be – you need
to be – and once you start, there's no – it's like having kids, right?
I delayed having kids actually for our business because 80-20 was my baby.
(17:47):
And now that I have kids and people say to me once you have kids your life will
change yeah absolutely they're right and my life has changed now that I've had
kids but you can't just abandon having a hard day oh well you know I'm out and
it's the same with the business once you're in you've got to have grit determination.
And you've got to have that in spades more than most people will you need to
(18:07):
have a really strong team I mean our business is a people business without the
human beings and having talent I mean you're you're dead in the water, right?
So we started with a team of about 60 people who'd been following us for over 10 years, Justin and I.
So when we launched 8020, these guys are the best in the market.
(18:27):
And when I say best, I mean the best Matt knows.
And we just shifted them across. So rather than follow Justin or John individually,
we, okay, we're now part of 8020.
And everyone was bought into it. These guys had seen the same problems that we'd saw.
So talent is a massive part of it. You can have the best value prop in the world
without the talent. you're a paperweight.
So having talent is obviously important.
(18:50):
And having culture, right? As a business, the glue that kept us together was culture.
So when you're scaling at the pace that we're scaling our business,
which was astronomical right from year one to year three, I think we were about
200 headcount or close to, and about $35 million in revenue.
So it's massive growth. growth.
(19:11):
But it's like putting a Ferrari motor in a Hyundai i30.
A Hyundai i30 is not built to go 280 kilometers an hour. It'll do it,
but probably a few doors and panels are going to start falling off.
And it was like that. So you had to strap in and go, okay, well,
where are these problems going to come and how are we going to solve them?
Because you don't have time to have prolonged problems impact the business.
(19:33):
So a big part of that was having a team that believed in the business.
We were there for to one another.
We're a values driven business, honesty, integrity in a collaboration.
We set a bunch of company values. I'm not going to go through them all,
but one of them was the, be the change you seek. You know, we're a very young business.
We're not going to have everything perfect. We're not an NAB who's been around for 50 years.
(19:56):
So you've got a problem and you can solve it and you're part of the team,
well, step up and don't complain about it. Actually, let's work together to solve the problem.
And then when you do that, you're all part of the same fabric.
So the culture of the business was a massive component that kept us together
as we scaled at incredible pace and a major, major part of our success. And it still is today.
(20:17):
People commented externally, you guys are like a tribe, which we are.
We're a very tribal bunch.
We all want to win together. We want to celebrate together.
We have... Can I swear on this podcast? We've got a... We had a no dickhead
policy in the business, right? We're like, okay, you can be God mode.
I used to sit in there as a program manager and watch two architects,
(20:39):
Gandalf and the other guy, go at it in a room full of people thinking,
what is this? What are you guys doing?
And they just wanted to be the smartest person in the room. I never think I'm
the smartest person in the room, so that's easy for me. But what are you guys
doing? What is this posterizing that's going on here?
So when we had started the business, it was like, okay, you can be the smartest
person in the world, but if you're abrasive to our team and our customers and
(20:59):
you think you're the smartest person in the world, this is not the place for you.
I'll take a guy two levels down from you in your alleged IQ or whatever your metric is.
Are they a good person? Are they a value-driven person? Do they want to be part
of a team? in, I'll take that guy every day of the week. And that's what we did with the business.
If you look at our team, you wouldn't survive here for five minutes if you were
(21:20):
that abrasive, I'm smarter than everyone mentality.
So the culture of the business is very important. And when you say it's very
important, you need to maintain that integrity by going, okay,
if you've got a rotten apple, they're going to go quickly.
And as a business, we did that really well because we want to protect the culture
of the business at all costs.
John, I'm so aligned with what you've just said. Having run my own business
(21:40):
before, all of those qualities, I think, are super important.
I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of work and the sacrifice,
the financial burden, the impact on your family, these kind of things that people
actually put in behind the scenes to make some of this work.
Thank you so much for your honesty around that because most of the time when
(22:01):
we're interviewing interviewing people or chatting to people,
you know, they don't expose that side of running the business, right?
Which is the truth to it. So yeah, fantastic comments.
Just context on that. I mean, just to be perfectly open, so you're listening.
We didn't take a salary for three and a half years.
So I went from earning very good money as an IT program manager on a contract rate.
(22:29):
At $1,600, $1,700 a day for many, many years to $0 for three and a half years.
And I borrowed my mom and dad's retirement money. So this didn't work.
There was no del boca vista for mom and dad. So it was, there was so much risk.
I imagine that this thing doesn't work and your mom and dad,
(22:51):
that was what we had to do. I mortgaged my apartment on top of this.
I mean, these are things that not many people are willing to do.
So that's the thing I say about people when they go, okay, well,
there's a lot of luck involved, or they perceive there's a lot of luck.
Actually, there's probably a bit of luck with market timing.
We hit a peak in M&A when we sold. We're always a very attractive company buyer.
(23:14):
But that doesn't take away from the grit, determination, and risk.
If you look at the equation, you've got grit, determination, great idea, risk.
I am a risk taker. I've always been a risk taker. I'm a gambler. Matt knows that.
We go to the races together now and then, and he sits back and says, what is this guy doing?
But risk is a massive part of the equation. And I think a lot of people succeed.
(23:36):
It's like, well, how much risk are you willing to take versus the guy next to
you who's got a very similar, great idea?
And same with sports. It's the same with a lot of things. So you can't underestimate
the sacrifice that it takes, or we took in our business, and it takes to be
a successful business and the risk element you have.
You've got to have an educated risk and you've got to weigh that up and go,
In for a penny, in for a pound, I'm willing to go the distance on this thing.
(24:01):
So that's another key element. Yeah, amazing. Amazing.
Yeah, I completely agree. And Jack, we've known each other so well for so long
and I can definitely see all the hard work.
It's not the fruits of your labor at the end. There's a shitload of work that
goes into it and I've seen it all firsthand myself, all the late nights and
all the challenges and teething problems when you grow and all that kind of stuff.
(24:22):
But I think everyone kind of stuck together. and everyone kind of had that common
goal to make sure that it was all successful as part of it.
A funny story, before I actually joined 8020, I had another job lined up and
pretty much signed and sealed.
And before I spoke to JK and Jus at the time, Kieran Mott, the Factor CEO,
actually introduced me to JK.
And out of my friendship with Kieran, I was like, oh, I better go have this interview with JK.
(24:43):
And then after talking to those guys within five minutes, I was immediately
about to sign the contract with 8020 as well.
So that whole culture that JK talks about is definitely real.
And sort of 80-20 has always been really founded as
part of that a really culture and sort of tribe that jk talks
to as well so proves in the pudding with me when i would literally
had another job signed and i have to speak to these guys for five minutes i'm
(25:04):
still here what three and a half four years later as well so john talk to me
about i guess the time of you originally a modern work business what was the
decision to kind of pivot to these azure and you know all these other sort of
technology stacks and and how did you go about sort of that as well yeah so
we launched as a a modern workplace because that's where our history was.
So all of our team and my history and Justin's history, that was very much predicated
(25:25):
on EUC, modern work, transformations.
So that's a logical place to launch a business.
Once we launched and we were gaining traction and were quite successful in that
space, we became a premier kind of partner in Microsoft ecosystem in modern work.
Our business model was, as I explained, one vendor to rule all the more or minimize
(25:49):
the vendors through all the more.
So we were then going, okay, well, we work with our customers from inception,
writing the business case, writing a technical roadmap, standing up programs,
delivery of those programs, technology, changes, option, and training.
And you look at it and go, okay, we're across that end-to-end elements of delivering a transformation.
(26:10):
If we were then stuck to just one workplace, we kind of would have had that
breadth, but not the depth. So what we then looked at and said, look.
There's no reason that our delivery model and our partnering model with customers
shouldn't span across the Microsoft Cloud.
So you've got one partner that can do this end-to-end from a program perspective,
but they should also be able to do it from a technical perspective.
(26:30):
So then we went to market and we launched our Azure practice first.
I mean, to launch a practice is fairly easy, in my opinion. You find an expert
in the market who is passionate about growing something, like their own business,
and you bolt them onto your business and you get your first sale and you start
building your team beneath them and that starts to grow and that grows to a
(26:52):
certain point and then you look for the next one, which we did when we were
very fortunate to get Matt.
The next practice we launched was our BizApps practice and we were very fortunate
to get Matt, aka the Sweet Prince.
I was waiting for that to come out. It took you about 30 minutes for the JP's
nickname. Wait a minute.
We just go back here, the Sweet Prince.
Scott, you haven't heard this? No. No, this is used to me, and this is gold,
(27:17):
John. So, yeah, let's delve into that a little bit.
Well, we launched this Azure practice. We got Sayan Ghosh, who's now gone back to Microsoft.
I don't even know Sayan, Scott, but he was one of the smartest people I think I've ever met in my life.
I sit in the room, and I was just being really quiet because I was intimidated by his IQ.
But he was a massive part of our business, and he really put everything into
(27:39):
it, and then he went back to Microsoft.
But he launched the Azure practice.
Then we went to launch our BizApps practice. I got the intro to Matt.
And when his name came across my desk, I was like, you know,
I haven't met someone with the last name Noble.
And the first thing I thought about when I think of Noble is like a noble prince.
And then from went from there, I think I got an interview with him and I called
(28:00):
him sweet prince on the interview.
And it kind of, I didn't know him from Barra. So, and he's probably thinking, who is this guy?
And then it went from there. And then everyone just started calling me.
So everyone in the whole company calls him sweet prince.
Everyone tells me in the internal chat, it's Prince, Sweet Prince, everything.
So he's giving away the secret in JK's phone on the Sweet Prince as well.
(28:21):
And all JK's friends call me the Sweet Prince.
I won't tell you anything I got about 10 years ago that kind of stuck with me
because it's taken me 10 years to shift it. Maybe that's for another time.
But I feel you now, Matt, but you're now the Sweet Prince to me as well.
So that's where we're at.
Yeah, there's a logical connection. Matt Noble, Noble Prince,
the Sweet Prince, you know. Let's roll with it.
(28:44):
So, John, I've got another question for you. Fantastic comment so far, right?
But the number one question everyone's probably thinking right now is,
why NCS? Why the move to these guys?
What kind of prompted that? And how's it going?
Yeah, so, good question.
Given the growth of the company, we were approached a number of times.
(29:07):
It happened twice, actually, in 2020.
2020. So we're a three or four-year-old business at the time.
Again, because we won a few awards. We placed fourth in the CRM.
We're in Deloitte top 50.
Twice we're in the CRM, sorry.
And we made a real name for ourselves in the market as a premium Microsoft partner.
Business was going really well.
(29:28):
I started to pay myself so I could stop eating baked beans. It was fantastic.
And I got approached by two of the top top four consultancy firms.
We've taken a lot of work off them. So I still love competing against the big
guys because I'm competitive. So I love winning.
I think we had a really good compete against some of the bigger players,
(29:52):
being a niche boutique expert player in this space with all the cultural and
values things that I mentioned.
So we kind of disrupted the market. We were massive disruptors.
And I got approached once and I thought nothing of it. I thought,
you know, three and a half year old business, how would people be interested?
But our numbers were really strong. For a professional service business,
(30:15):
I challenge you probably to buy numbers that strong.
Because we're very lean and we're very conscious about where our money went
as a business. So I was approached once.
I was flattered and laughed it off.
And then I was approached again and I went to my business partner and said,
Look, something in this. We've been approached twice by the big guys.
(30:35):
We had a five-year plan from the outset.
It was to go hell for leather and sell the business in five years if we could
get to the top of that mountain.
Or get investment and scalacing and go from a small or medium player into like,
this thing's going to be $100, $200 million business, right?
(30:56):
And like more of a household name.
And then after being approached twice, I said, look, there's something in this.
We're going to suspect someone. And I went and spoke to a couple of advisors.
And they said, look, even though you only had three and a half years of trading,
your numbers are incredible.
You should run a process. We ran a process, started in November 2021,
(31:16):
finished in November 2020, and there was a ton of interest through that process.
We had more interest than these guys, our broker, Alia Capital.
Shout out to Alia Capital. These guys were amazing at running our process.
They said there's more interest in the company than we've seen,
(31:37):
again, because of the growth of the company, the market reputation,
and the numbers were great.
And so we came down, we had four offers in the end.
And from those four offers, there was three global companies that you guys would know.
I won't go through them, but household names.
And then there was investment, private equity firm, a big name as well.
(32:01):
And their model was to roll us up and us to be the centerpiece and then build a much larger company.
And the other offers were, we want to bring you in and be part of our company
and we want to buy your business.
So we looked at the different profiles of those offers and then we did,
okay, we're going to go with the acquisition path because it made sense for us at the time.
(32:23):
And we thought there'd be a lot of opportunity for our team.
So we weren't the kind of people that go, okay, well, let's sell the business
and go sit on a yacht somewhere and we don't care what happens to it because
we're passionate about every single person that works in the business and our customers.
So we were very purposeful around, okay, well, this is our baby.
Who's going to... Where is the most opportunity?
And culture was a massive driver for us. It was almost our number one decision point metric.
(32:48):
And we looked at NCS and the conversations we were having were about,
okay, well, John, tell us, dig dive on the culture of the business.
How did you guys... But NCS were asking the right questions about culture and
their plans to grow the business were really impressive.
I didn't know at the time. I never heard of NCS. But then I learned they're
obviously owned by Singtel, owned Optus.
And in Asia, there are 8,000 to 10,000 person companies. These guys are massive.
(33:15):
And they're very focused on the future, being prepared for the future,
growing solutions that are leading edge and all that type of thing.
And when we mixed all this together, NCS presented as the obvious choice for
us. It was a hard decision. decision.
But the people we were doing business with, Howie Lau and Andre Conti,
who represented NCS, they were really honorable.
(33:37):
Not that ours weren't, but we just really, it's a connection as well.
But a major focus was where are people going in the future? What's our opportunity for our team?
And that was almost a key decision making point along with the culture of the company.
So NCS represented very well in that space.
And as a result, we went with NCS.
Fantastic comments, John. I think what I love about your story so far is it's
(34:01):
never really been about money, right?
It's culture, it's people, it's how can we drive a different outcome for our
customers, how can we have a better experience. you know, and I think that's
really key to the success of 8020.
And, you know, having been on the vendor side, you know, working for Microsoft
and you guys, I saw the result of that firsthand over the last few years,
(34:21):
and it's been truly transformational and amazing and, you know,
really enjoyed the engagement.
It's just been a fantastic journey. So it's good to see, to sit on the outside
and watch the impact of the way that you've worked through that.
So what do you think now? Now that it's all said and done, what are you looking
forward to in NCS and going and creating and doing differently over the next year or two?
(34:46):
Yeah, so, and thanks for that comment, Scotty. It's great to,
I was always very proud of our brand in market because our values and our quality
and all those things were really, you know, our brand was really stellar and still is.
Yeah, they really shone through. Like, I'm serious, the brand really shone through.
So, you did a fantastic job.
Yeah it's a proud dad moment for me right because you know in my opinion you're
(35:09):
only as good as your reputation in a lot of ways and you're used to be saying
you're only as good as your last project but.
I was really proud to know that our team has thought about that way in the market
and our brand, which started from scratch four or five years ago now.
So to get a brand from zero to where it is today in that period of time is just
(35:30):
incredible. Again, I'm really proud of it.
In terms of what's next for me, I'll talk about me and the company.
So the company is in the process of being integrated into the broader NCS group.
NCS purchased Arc, who I think are predominantly an AWS player,
Riley, who are a Google player.
The Microsoft business is 8020, which has now become the Microsoft Solutions Group.
(35:52):
So NCS Australia is very quickly now forming into this T1 consultancy.
The plans, which I love big, hairy, audacious goals, right?
And Howie, who's one of the senior leaders out of Singapore,
said, look, John, I want to create an Avanade 2.0.
And I love big goals that are hard to reach. So I was like, okay, I'm on to this.
(36:13):
So 8020 has become the solutions group in Australia. Our plans are to solidify
the integration in Australia and then create a true APAC-Asian relationship.
As Microsoft has shifted to that model, we're shifting to that model as well,
where we're sharing solutions, IP, resources, go-to-markets across the region.
(36:33):
To underpin that, they asked me to move to a global role. So I'm head of global
head of Microsoft for NCS and I report into a Singapore leadership team now.
So my goal is very much focused on growing our Microsoft relationship.
When I started the business, I spent about 80% of my time doing sales and growing
(36:54):
the Microsoft relationship from the ground up. So it's a natural happy place for me.
I love working with Microsoft. I understand Microsoft really well.
I just enjoy growing a Microsoft partnership. It was something I was really
good at, I found out later, and something I was really passionate about.
So I've stepped back into, it's like starting the business again for me.
(37:15):
So I'm like a phoenix rising through the ashes type thing. I started a business
very much focused on sales and growing a Microsoft partnership.
So I scaled the business, we sold the business, I'm back now doing this at a
much bigger scale. I use the term standing on the shoulder of giants.
NCS are a $44 billion company with 10,000 people.
So it blows my mind that I'm now back to this origin of the business.
(37:36):
I'm an employee again, which is bittersweet in some ways, but it's nice at the same time.
With a big goal in front of me of kind of growing their Microsoft alliance and
into this global behemoth, I love shooting towards massive goals like that.
So that's my personal position.
80-20 is an approach that's being integrated into the business as the Microsoft
(37:58):
Solutions Group. So any opportunities for NCS, the Microsoft-related,
the Microsoft Solutions Group, Deliver, and our team have taken really prominent roles.
Our leadership team have taken prominent roles, including Matt,
who now runs our biggest practice, I think, in scaling out those different practices
from a Microsoft perspective.
So I said earlier that I was really focused on a team getting into great positions
(38:21):
in whatever new company we went with, and it's starting to happen,
which I'm really proud about. I was never the guy to never be money-focused,
I've never been money-focused.
I'm too frivolous with money to be money-focused to be honest,
so for me, I enjoy winning.
I have goals that aren't necessarily financially driven. And what I find is
(38:42):
if you drive towards something you're passionate and you believe in, the money will come.
I think people that say, I want to be a zillionaire, I don't know.
I think you struggle to get there personally. If you go, I want to grow something
different, I want to be proud of what I do, I want to create something unique
in the market, I want to keep this many people employed for this long.
(39:03):
We kept people employed through the pandemic when everyone else was letting
go of people. We just took no money as founders.
And that's putting your money where your mouth is. You know what I mean?
We paid bonuses where the big banks weren't paying bonuses.
And we were a small little company paying bonuses through the pandemic.
So there's things like that that I look back and I'm proud of.
But then the other element is now as we kind of stand on the shoulder of giants,
(39:26):
that's Matt and members of our team are taking much more senior roles in the
business. There's opportunities for people to go to Singapore and work from
Singapore now because we got bought by a Singapore business.
And I think we're going to see a lot of that happening in the future.
We're going to see a lot of people going across over to Singapore and working
and growing their careers in this.
I used to work for enterprise businesses, started a business because I wanted
(39:48):
to get out of enterprise and do something different. And I wound up back up
in the enterprise business.
That's not necessarily a bad thing because I'm actually in a position where
I can influence the way things go as opposed to before.
It's like snakes and ladders. I was in the matrix. I was in the game and I couldn't influence.
So I got out of the game. I started my own business, did all this,
(40:08):
scaled it, sold it, and now I'm back in the snakes and ladders or the matrix.
But I do have a somewhat influence in the way things go.
So it's kind of cool how life has played out and the way things have played
out. But outside of business, I've got two young daughters now.
I actually delayed that part of my life.
I was only 20 when I was a baby. I joke about it, but it's not really a joke.
So I had my first daughter when I was 40. I'm 43 now.
(40:31):
I've got a two-year-old and a six-month-old, which is a whole new challenge.
And I'm very much focused on that next stage of my life with my family.
And I spend a lot of time working on the business.
My wife talks about filling cups. People need to fill each other's cups.
I think I've got a water cooler over here and I need to shift some of that back towards the family.
(40:54):
So outside of the business, my focus is finding balance with my family.
Awesome. And shout out to Ash. I know Ash has been the biggest support for you
on your journey. Obviously, being in the role that you've got,
there's a lot of time away from family.
I'm sure she's going to be listening if you started sort of 80-20 again from scratch.
What's that one thing that the listeners can go away with and go,
(41:15):
hey, that's really good advice if they're looking to explore down this path?
I had to learn it. I had to learn quickly and luckily, my business partner was
very good with numbers and great with money. His cash flow is king.
So you're scaling a business. We went from zero to 190 staff in the first three
years and you go at an average rate of call it $1,000 a day.
(41:35):
That's a lot of cash flow, right?
We had so much work, but you've got to be able to fund the business.
There were points in time, just to be transparent, where we're like,
I don't know if we can afford to keep. And this is without paying ourselves.
This is without paying back my mom and dad and my apartment already mortgage.
So it's funny. I think businesses get to a point where they're going to either,
(41:56):
you need to stop growing and plateau, or you could break the machine.
And we got to that point a few times.
And I'll look back with fond memories, but I'm talking, I couldn't sleep.
I'm like, oh, I don't know where we go from here.
We had offers to buy into the business. We had a lot of offers to buy into the business.
I could honestly tell you I came this close 10 times probably to going,
(42:19):
yeah, we'll take the money.
You get this shareholding. And I'm really glad we did it and we held out.
But it came so close that you wouldn't believe.
So managing cash flow is an absolute art form.
If you want to scale a business, it's the heartbeat of the business.
It's a lifeblood of the business from a financial perspective.
And getting your head around that for someone who can barely count to 10 and
(42:43):
is not educated and I haven't done an MBA and I haven't done all these things,
it was hard. I was like, what do you mean?
We've got so much money coming in the door. Like, you know, this is going great.
And, well, John, you need to also pay our people and there's payment terms of
this and, you know, projects pausing and starting.
You know, milestones start here and there. and I fundamentally understood it.
(43:06):
I think I just didn't want to.
So learning about cash flow, managing cash flow, I'd say would make a break of any business.
Probably the other element is I think people that go it alone, it's very hard.
I had one business partner and he and I had some really challenging times,
but we were generally always there to support one another. I don't think I would
(43:27):
have got through it on my own.
So a lot of people come to me now for business advice, which is funny because
again, Again, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, maybe the most passionate
guy in the room, but I'm not the smartest.
And I always say, look, if you have an opportunity to partner with someone that
can add a lot of value to the business, then I would do it because we just made it through.
(43:50):
And I mean, just with two of us working incredibly hard, two completely different
skill sets, personalities, but we knew we could get a result together.
We thought we could get a result together. other.
So if we didn't have that partnership, I'm pretty sure that Justin would agree
that we probably wouldn't have got there.
And I would say the same. So having a strong partner, I think, is really important.
(44:13):
I think business is very, very tough and going it alone is extremely challenging.
So they're kind of the two key things outside of the fundamental building blocks of the business.
They're the key things I would focus on and the advice that I would give.
Maybe there's one more, John, and that's to find a prince pretty early in the
(44:34):
journey, right? There's only one prince to cut.
He's a racehorse, man. Yeah. If you can find a sweet prince,
then hold on to him with both hands and don't let go.
Yeah. Winks, at least on the Flemington Strait.
Well, thank you, JK, for that time with us.
(44:56):
Yeah, just an amazing story. A lot of impact. I'm sure people listening to the
show are just going to be amazed at your journey and you know this will be the
number one streaming podcast now for the next 12 months and take Matt and I
to a whole new place hopefully so.
Thank you very much and Matt have you got some closing remarks for Joel?
(45:18):
Yeah so JK's been the biggest influence on my career the lessons I've learned
from JK professionally and personally has been you know second to none yeah
Yeah, JK talks about walking into the room and thinking you're the equal.
I remember walking into the room and you're presenting to the CIO of big banks
and shitting yourself basically.
But you kind of got over that quick. You got that confidence and trust.
And now that's been really invaluable for my career. Everyone's equal and I
(45:41):
don't have those nerves.
And I'm really confident when having these large-scale presentations and presenting
and they're in front of thousands of people and all that kind of stuff.
So I think I'm not the only one that would thank JK for really giving 8020 as
an organization to launch their own career.
There'll be hundreds within the organization as well. well. But just a special
shout out to JK. He's always been a massive supporter.
Firstly, coming onto the podcast and secondly, with my career and also personally
(46:04):
as well. We're obviously very, very good friends as part of it.
So just a massive thanks, JK, for everything you've done for me and obviously
the others that have come with you on the Andy20 journey. We definitely appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks, guys, and applaud you for getting started.
It's pretty cool what you're doing here. Again, it's the first podcast I've
ever been on, and you guys are great at hosting it.
I think you talk about important topics, obviously, for your listener base.
(46:27):
Well, I've got the platform on. I want to thank everyone who's been a part of
our business and journey.
One person doesn't get here on their own. We've done it as a team,
and I thank every single person that's helped me along the way.
I had a lot of people that influenced my career and were sounding boards for
me, as well as our team. I don't see our team as much as I'd like to these days,
given my global role, but it's something I'd like to rectify.
(46:50):
I'll get some more time, but I thank everyone, our customers,
our team, our partners at Microsoft.
I didn't get here on my own, as I said, and including you, Matt,
you've been a massive part of our business.
I thank everyone that's helped me on the journey along the way because it's
been an incredible ride.
Would I do it again? and maybe in another life, but you could run the same result
(47:14):
and get the same outcome and get five different results.
We've got to where we have and I'm really proud of our achievements,
but there's still a lot more to go.
And a massive thank you to everyone who supported me along the way because there's
been a lot of people who have.
And thanks for having me again on the podcast, guys.
Anytime. You're a friend of the show now, John. So anytime.
(47:35):
Let me know when you get the video happening. I'll go work out at the gym beforehand.
We'll get Judson on here. We'll get Judson on here. You can interview Judson
on the podcast, mate. Scott, that's a challenge.
I think it starts here and John together on the podcast.
That's day out. Sign me up. Sign me up. Don't go such as listening to this. All right.
(47:56):
Have a wonderful day, John, and we'll chat soon. Thanks, guys. Take care. Peace. Bye.
Music.
Hey that's a wrap for today thanks so much for
everyone for listening to our podcast just a few reminders so
we've set up a linkedin page so we'll endeavor to put some updates on that linkedin
(48:16):
page so go on there and click follow for us also don't forget to go to powertime.au
and subscribe to our newsletter and lastly if you could please click a follow
on this podcast so you get the latest this episode as they come out.
We're trying to get the podcasts out every two to three weeks,
so there should be a good cadence with a whole bunch of new guests coming on.
(48:37):
Now, lastly, don't forget that the views on this podcast are not the views of
MCS on Microsoft, but they're the views of Matt and I and our guests.
Thanks again. See you. I can't wait to see you on the next podcast.
Music.
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