Over the last three weeks Adactin has been recognised in three very different forums for its performance. First, at the end of October the Australian Financial Review (AFR) placed the company in its ranking of Fast 100 companies, based on metrics it has monitored over the last three years. And then in rapid succession in mid November we were recognised by our industry peers by being placed second in the CRNs Fast 50 and 16th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. The CRN was specifically focused on the ICT sector while the Deloitte award is more catholic in its technology tastes. All awards are national awards.

It’s tempting to think that there is a secret formula for achieving the sort of company growth which the AFR, CRN and Deloitte have recognised. There is a formula of sorts but it’s not a secret one. In fact you might find it a boring formula and will want to tell us you have heard it all before. Maybe so, but for Adactin the following tactics lie at the heart of our growth strategy. None make any difference on their own, but when woven together they make for a compelling engagement with our customers and that is what we are all about.

Above everything else we strive for a reputation for excellence in customer service and to comprehensively meet specific customer needs, even when those needs appear at the last minute.

It’s similar but critically different – in delivering excellent customer service we measure our success by the degree of customer satisfaction achieved. And that measure is not simply a customer saying ‘well done’ or ‘we love your work’. It’s measured by customer retention. Will a customer stay with Adactin and place more work with us when the original task is complete? Most do.

Customers are people too. They need to be heard, and they need to know we understand what we have heard. So we take extra care when we bring people onto the Adactin team. It’s not enough to be a good technologist. Our team members need to be careful listeners, empathetic partners and disciplined practitioners too. Care in the process of vetting our staff and contractors prior to assignment on projects pays customer satisfaction dividends. Oh, it also means we have a spectacularly low staff churn rate.

Having identified the right people we are able to focus on speed of execution, and aim to deliver a response in days rather than weeks or months. When we combine this with innovative delivery models we are well on the way to exceeding client expectations, given these have been shaped by large competitors who are most often weighed down by complex processes.

The speed of response is enabled and reinforced by our membership on key service and procurement panels, both in the federal government and state government. A potential customer can take some due diligence assurance from our presence on these panels, but most importantly the panels shorten the time it takes to have a solution directed at a problem. That all goes to the drive for excellence in customer service. Adactin is a member of Federal Government panels such as the ATO, DTA and Defence, and is on the NSW Government 0020 and 0007 Panels.

Finally we stay on the wave of emerging technologies like digital transformation, (big) data analytics and artificial intelligence. These technologies increasingly solve problems for customers in short periods of time and for dramatically less cost than traditional technologies. We diligently apply ourselves to areas where we can harness new technologies to achieve customer satisfaction.

So, as you can see, there is no secret sauce in what we do. And it may seem like its textbook stuff. But the growth numbers speak for themselves and we are very pleased the AFR, CRN and Deloitte have been listening. Each award applauds this strategy and all those in Adactin who have been so focused on making our customers successful.