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Treating staff as family

ACS staff, Information Age

12/04/2006 12:14:52

His name is synonymous with success in the Australian ICT sector, a proven achiever who is respected and esteemed not only by his peers and staff, but also by his competitors, both locally and internationally.

Peter Kazacos has enjoyed a 30-year career in ICT, the highlight of which was co-founding KAZ in 1988 and growing it into Australia's largest locally owned ICT services company before he sold it to Telstra in 2004.

Today, he continues to serve on the KAZ board, and several other Telstra subsidiary boards, although he stepped down as CEO of KAZ last year. He also serves in a part-time capacity as managing director of business development for Telstra Business and Government and is chairman of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).

His many achievements in the ICT arena were recognised with an inaugural Australian Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2001 and he has since been inducted into the IT&T Hall of Fame.

Ask him the secret of his success and he points to his team. "My staff, customers and suppliers all helped make me where I am," he says. "I've always looked after my staff, maintained great relationships with both customers and suppliers, and put my energy into solving problems and finding better ways to do things."

They're principles he applied to great effect within KAZ, which enjoyed a solid reputation for quality, innovation and service.

"I set the culture, but my staff carried it through," Kazacos says. "I've always understood the importance of having the right people in key positions and I built up a core group of very good people who had a great work ethic."

In the early days when KAZ was still small, he sometimes found it difficult to attract people with the skills he needed. Refusing to allow this to hold KAZ back, he decided to grow his own people.

"I remember when Lotus Notes came out, I recognised its potential but couldn't get anyone with Notes expertise. So I decided to find someone who was willing to learn and train them.

"I hired a young woman for her attitude, aptitude and interpersonal skills and she not only became a very competent developer and trainer with Lotus Notes for KAZ, but she became so well respected in the industry that Lotus itself used her for some of its training work. Incidentally, she is still with KAZ today, despite having raised a family in the meantime."

That kind of loyalty is common, because he not only attracted the right people, but looked after them and made sure they had good reason to stay.

"I believe in treating staff as family. When I was running KAZ, I made sure that everyone received presents on their birthday. There was an annual family picnic day and at Christmas time, we had a big function with gifts for everyone, and the longer they had been with us, the more presents they received. There were also Easter Eggs at Easter and chocolates for the female staff on Valentine's Day.

"I had e-mails some from employees who said our birthday gifts were the only presents they received. Yes, it cost the company money to do it, but the return we got in terms of loyalty and staff satisfaction was immeasurable," he said.

"We also hired graduates every year and got them to work in different areas of the company so they understood how the various divisions contributed to the organisation. I was fortunate in having a similar experience back at Overseas Containers and believe the time I spent working in operations back then really helped me to understand and make the most of the outsourcing opportunity," he said.

It was also at Overseas Containers that Kazacos established a relationship with IBM that was to serve him well over the next two decades.

"Overseas Containers was very adventurous with technology and purchased one of the first System 38s in the country. I took it on myself and decided to learn everything about it, spending seven years there which culminated in my becoming the database administrator before I joined Aspect and ran their System 38 division," he recalls.

He learned all about running an IT business at Aspect, holding multiple roles as salesman, programmer and trainer as well as learning how to work with IBM. When Colgate-Palmolive wanted a new enquiry system, Kazacos designed his own programming language and used it to develop the new application in record time.

In 1987, he designed a superannuation system for Hunter-Douglas that paved the way for him to win a major contract with AMP the following year, the contract that led to the formation of KAZ.

"I had always dreamed about doing my own thing and riding the technology wave, so when I heard the AS400 was coming, I put together a tender to write AMP's new industry superannuation system.

"AMP's IT department had said the project would take three years, but we said we could do it in nine months using our own language and the faster power of the AS/400. I won the contract in 1988 and KAZ was born."

AMP set up a separate organisation to administer the superannuation system called AAS, which contracted its IT services to KAZ in one of Australia's first outsourcing arrangements.

KAZ relied heavily on IBM hardware and leveraged the strength of the IBM brand. It was late in 1989 when IBM approached KAZ and identified an opportunity to help support three automotive customers, including Rover, with IT services.

"These contracts transitioned our business from hardware and software sales with lumpy cash flow to giving us a guaranteed revenue stream with continuous cash flow. That guaranteed revenue really excited the investment community when we floated the company in 2000," he said. Just two years later, KAZ acquired Aspect for $210 million, unlocking access to lucrative government outsourcing contracts that further fuelled the company's growth.

He has always placed a high value on professionalism and joined the ACS during his Overseas Container days. He has maintained an active interest and involvement in his profession ever since, participating in industry panels and committees on numerous occasions. His current role at AIIA Chairman means a demanding schedule, but one that he is willing to accommodate in the interests of helping to grow and develop the Australian ICT sector.

He divides the rest of his time between other directorships and a range of personal projects, including a small farm in the Southern Highlands of NSW where he keeps sheep, alpacas and a rogue billy goat, along with an orchard of olive trees.

"We sheared the alpacas and I have the wool at home and am planning to make something out of it. I've even bought a spinning wheel from an antique shop and am trying to find someone to teach me how to use it. I'll have an alpaca jumper one day," he said with a smile.

Family has always been a very high priority and he maintains clear distinctions between work and family life. "My philosophy has always been to leave work at work and I don't take it home with me. Nor have I ever been one for working on weekends - that time I reserve for my family," he said.

The closest he's ever come to taking work home is his current hobby of investigating new technologies for use within his recently renovated house in Sydney.

"I'm a technologist at heart and am having fun putting some technology into the house, such as IP cameras, VoIP phones and other automation gadgets," he said.

There's also an underlying agenda to check out technologies that he might invest in as part of a future business venture.

"People often ask me if I'll do another KAZ. I'd like to do something that is less people intensive since it's more the stuff that interests me," he said. But he won't make the mistake of chasing after technology that won't sell.

"When you're growing a business, you have to differentiate between stuff that is interesting for its own sake and stuff that makes money. I've seen a lot of IT companies get into trouble because they're still spending money on something that's past its use-by date.

"Early on, I developed a programming language but abandoned it because I recognised that not enough people would buy it. IT outsourcing is boring, and many people won't do it for that reason, but it makes a lot of money.

"We always had a part of the business that focused on the latest whiz-bang technology such as imaging, multimedia and so on. We won a lot of awards for the work we did in our advanced technology area and occasionally got competitive advantage from it. Our customers loved that we were involved in it and they could play with it at no cost, and sometimes we even used them as guinea pigs, but they actually bought the boring stuff," he said.

In terms of future projects, Peter admits he still hasn't achieved his dream of building an international product. "I contributed to Aspect achieving that goal, but it happened after I left and I wasn't there to see it. It's still a goal and it will happen," he said, with the same quiet confidence that has driven many important decisions over the years.

Peter sees opportunities not only in domestic automation, but also in telecommunications-driven solutions.

"I think the next big wave is about everyone being connected and providing solutions that make the most of that," he said. "It's been very useful for me working within Telstra, because a telco is completely different from an IT company and you don't realise that until you've been on the inside."

Regardless of what he does next, you know that Peter Kazacos will choose carefully and the next chapter in his life is sure to be at least as successful as the last.