The Kynection Inspirational Sides of ISO Series
In the previous article we have discussed the key aspects of successful leadership and touched on some key points that make a business stand out, using the empowering triumph of the Snowy Hydro Project.
Today we are going to talk about business planning, and take you on a sustainable ride of growth and compliance.
Put on your seatbelt because our key is in the ignition and we are ready to go!
Have you ever heard the phrase “Size doesn’t matter”? Say no more… but it’s true! It doesn’t matter if your business is big or small today – if you can think big and plan big, then your business can take you on a journey of growth and an expansion into new markets and destinations! Just ask Lindsay Fox from the Australian icon LINFOX.
Today LINFOX prides itself on being strongly associated with names like Schweppes, BP, Coca-Cola, Coles, Woolworths, Avalon and Essendon Airports, Mayne Group, the Phillip Island Grand Prix, and the Australian Securities Exchange, plus many more private, national and international contracts and large scale acquisitions. Linfox is HUGE and they are not planning to stop any time soon.
But long before you could see dozens of trucks in one day all with the same iconic bumper sticker “You Are Passing Another Fox”, there was only one Fox on the road to pass, and most of us would be highly unlikely to have ever come across it.
Winning in one of Australia’s biggest and toughest industries was not an overnight sensation… and LINFOX was most certainly not an overnight success! Yet, here they are… one truck turned into ten within two years, ten turned into sixty a few years later, and so on and so forth.
Was Lindsay Fox sitting in his first truck in 1956 planning in minute detail how he is going to reach a net profit of $134.6 million in 2018, or over 24,000 employees in over 10 countries by 2020? While we did not ask him directly, it is quite possible that the answer is NO. It is quite possible that like many other Australians, Lindsay simply wanted to secure himself a good stable income and live a happy life in a nice town or suburb. But he surely identified and planned for something… and he must have done something differently that helped him stand out. Otherwise our article today would be talking about James, John, Bill or Garry. So what did Lindsay plan for? What did he do? What did he have, that others did not?
Lindsay understood very quickly that opportunities are coming his way and that in order to get the most out of them, he needs to work ON his business and not IN it. He understood that he can achieve a lot more by carefully mapping out his strategy and his next big move, than by driving his truck from shop to shop and unloading goods. Surely his young, sporty nature helped him get his name out there and get along with people – but success demands a lot more than a happy-go-lucky attitude. What Lindsay really needed was a strong growth mindset, and have it he did in spades!
Lindsay was not afraid to take his chances! This is why LINFOX grew hand-in-hand with the Australian spirit and economy and still continued to keep making a mark on Australia one load at a time!
Here at Kynection we are very impressed by LINFOX. And we are very impressed that you are reading our articles – because this means that just like Lindsay you too have a growth mindset – and with a bit of business planning it can take you very far!
But what do we mean by business planning? What is there to plan?
Clause 6 of the ISO Standards 9001:2015, 14001:2015 and 45001:2018 talks about Planning. Yet, unlike the day-to-day routine business planning, jobs, and scheduled tasks, this explores the bigger unit-blocks of your business. Such as:
- Risks and Opportunities
- Business HSEQ Objectives and how to achieve them
- Management of planned and unplanned changes, and more.
Going back to LINFOX, if Lindsay had focused all of his attention on what he has to do today (e.g – deliver X amount of things from point A to point B), that would have been a short-sighted type of business planning. It would probably still help him get his daily work done – but doubtfully it would have taken him any further than that.
Instead, Lindsay analysed the opportunities the market offered him, addressed any financial, political, environmental, health, safety, and quality risks, and worked on creating his objectives and targets through business planning. He invested in an endless search (that’s what Total Continual Improvement is) for all of the things he needed to know and do in order to achieve his goals, and on top of that he had to make sure his growing team took part in his vision and stayed inspired and strong through the challenges of growth his business faced at any given time.
Of course he did this under a defined strategy and he invested in people, processes, and systems. He always maintained that his fleet was the safest, that his service was the best, and that you were guaranteed to get a great outcome for fair value. He was a visionary and he made sure that he was able to scale his vision.
The bad news is that not everyone is a true-born fearless leader with a clear method to success. But the good news is that Kynection has been growing over a decade helping smaller companies scale successfully.
Our vision is YOUR success, which is why our Electronic HSEQ Management System, KIM, is filled to brim with all the business planning tools you will ever need. This includes:
- Accounting and Payroll,
- HR, Onboarding and Training,
- Risk, Opportunity and Compliance Management,
- Incident, Accident and Near Miss Management,
- Projects and Jobs Scheduling,
- Vehicle and Driver Safety solutions and CoR,
- Timesheets and EWDs,
- Maintenance and Calibration records,
- Internal Auditing and Quality Assurance,
- SWMS, Work procedures and Checklists,
- Electronic forms with forced workflows,
- Policies, Procedures and more.
You can add as many users as you like – and they will be able to access and complete their tasks and reports in real-time on any Android or Apple phone or tablet, making your journey to success 100% paperless!
Stay tuned for our next article, where we are going to discuss what support your team needs from you in order to help your orgnisation shine! And if you are serious about planning for success, please jump on our site or send us an email because we have many great growth examples from a range of industries including transport, building, field services, agriculture, manufacturing, and other services.
© 2022 Autolync Pty Ltd, trading as Kynection