Scaling a business is no easy task. However, under the guidance of Bellingham Wallace, Chester Consultants is well on its way to becoming a global success.

About Chester Consultants

Chester Consultants is a company that specialises in structural and civil engineering consulting and surveying for the construction industry. From scoping and designing building projects to on-site construction, Chester Consultants offers a full suite of services from start to finish.

Chester Consultants’ commitment to quality has put them in good stead. Since the company was established in 1985, it has grown in size and across borders with offices in Auckland and Fiji. They’ve worked with G.J. Gardener on the Hobsonville Homes and the Customs Street Sofitel Hotel in Auckland, and are the principal civil design engineers for the Vunabaka Bay project in Fiji.

Maturing gracefully

Ironically, Chester Consultants’ success was also its biggest challenge. The company was growing—fast. Expansion was needed: new systems, better accountability and a refined strategy to support their transition from a small-to-medium business (SMEs) to a large corporation.

“Our previous financial and business advisor was quite effective when it came to dealing with the common challenges faced by SMEs, but as we grew, we realised we needed additional help to make the leap to big business,” says Chester Consultants’ Director, Steven Rankin.

While they always had business KPIs and reporting, they were reviewed just once or twice a year.

“We'd meet, briefly discuss our KPIs and then move on,” Steven says, and as a successful small business, that suited them fine. However, once they started growing, it became clear that more regular and structured reporting was needed.

“When you start scaling, KPIs and cash flow and everything associated with that become really important,” Steven says.

To support their remarkable growth, Chester Consultants needed to break their mould and start finding opportunities to expand and stay competitive on the global stage. With over 50 employees relying on the company’s continued success, they had to find a way to do it effectively.

Inefficiencies can cost a business dearly, especially when they’re growing. If productivity is not optimum, then there’s a loss of revenue—revenue that could have helped the business to grow. KPIs that track productivity, time, capital, cash flow and profit are essential to uncovering and improving inefficiencies across a business.

Under the wing of Bellingham Wallace

Knowing the status quo had to change, Chester Consultants set about to build the foundations for their future business success: improved KPI tracking, better reporting and a new governance framework to tie it all together.

That’s where Bellingham Wallace stepped in.

Less gut, more structure

Perhaps the biggest change Bellingham Wallace initiated was to establish

formal reporting and processes to ensure Chester Consultants had the means to grow without hindrance.

“Bellingham Wallace introduced a governance framework, a more strategic approach and succession planning,” Steven says.

Bellingham Wallace refined our KPIs, Steven explains. New non-financial KPIs were introduced, such as the number of quality control issues. Meanwhile, future-focused goals were also put in place—a five-year vision for example—with KPI targets to help them achieve it.

“It’s easy to say you have good KPIs when everything is going well,” Steven says. “However, to enable our growth, we had to go beyond ‘good’. We had to be great.”

Regular leadership meetings were established too. This provided a dedicated time for Chester Consultants’ key stakeholders to review their KPIs and measure them against the agreed targets. This enabled them to evaluate their performance towards the company’s vision and strategy and then make decisions to stay on track with those goals.

What’s more, it was also a chance for Chester Consultants’ management team to explore policies, procedures and processes that would help ensure KPIs were implemented to maximum effect. For example, introducing a system to allow team members to accurately record their time helps uncover new opportunities to improve productivity and workload efficiency.

Improved reporting with a new dashboard

“The key KPIs in our industry are ‘productive time’ and ‘recoverable time’,” Steven explains. “They reveal just how efficient your business really is. Get those two KPIs right and a lot of your other KPI targets fall into place.”

In the case of an expanding business, these KPIs are crucial for workflow planning and gauging how much capacity teams have to work on upcoming projects. Getting the balance correct is important.

With the help of Bellingham Wallace, Chester Consultants’ now uses a new real-time KPI reporting dashboard that allows them to quickly and easily monitor their performance. Any capacity issues can now be identified and resolved before they become problems.

“As a scaling business, you have an understand how you're performing,” Steven says. “You need reporting that can clearly tell you your position and what your objectives are.”

Moreover, the setup has enabled Chester Consultants to track how efficient individual service lines and office locations are. The results? More accountability, better productivity, reduced costs and improved margins, all of which has helped the company to grow.

Gone too are the lengthy, wordy reports. Now, with structured and real-time reporting that’s interfaced across multiple aspects of their business, Chester Consultants receives powerful insights on which to base their decisions.

Positive culture

The new visual reports have also helped improve staff morale. Staff now understand how their performance is critical to the success of their team and the wider business. 

“It’s helped us communicate our KPIs and made complex financial information easier to understand across the entire business – not just at a leadership level,” Steven says.

By taking steps to improve efficiency, Chester Consultants is also helping to reduce some of the procedural pain points that staff experience, which ultimately detracts from their job satisfaction.

From good to great

“Bellingham Wallace are in the professional services industry and are a similar size to us so there's a real synergy in terms of structure and some of the challenges we face,” Steven says.

“Their advice is genuine and personalised, and it's from people who have successfully walked the same path that we're facing now.”

With Bellingham Wallace lighting the way, Chester Consultants has transformed into the enterprise we see today—and it’s still growing. Chester Consultants has learned that it’s not just about monitoring KPIs, but about setting targets and challenging themselves to exceed them.

They know first-hand that the philosophy “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” will only get a business so far. To remain competitive, a business must actively seek out new opportunities to improve and grow. This is what separates a good business, from one that is great.

Want to learn how to use KPIs to maximise your business performance? Download our free ebook!