Company-X saw astounding growth in its first decade. Co-founders and directors Jeremy Hughes and David Hallett explore why.
Company-X was recognised by Deloitte as one of the fastest growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region for three of its first ten years.
The Deloitte Fast 500 is an annual ranking of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The ranking is based on percentage revenue growth over three years.
In 2017, the Waikato software specialist ranked 330 on the Deloitte Asia Pacific Fast 500 list with a revenue growth rate of 138 per cent. The following year, Company-X ranked 387th on the list with a revenue growth rate of 135 per cent. At the same time Company-X was named the Fastest Growing Technology Company in the Central North Island. In 2019, Company-X ranked 496th on the list with a revenue growth rate of 98 per cent.
Company-X co-founders and directors David Hallett and Jeremy Hughes said Company-X being recognised by Deloitte was a testament to their team’s hard work and dedication to clients.
“The Deloitte Fast 500 is widely regarded as one of the most objective rankings of technology companies worldwide,” said Hughes.
“What drove our growth was our success delivering on projects and delivering to what we quickly uncovered as our three key values,” Hughes said.
“Making our clients look good, doing what we said we’d do and giving our clients choices.
“Those three things gave us a history of delivering innovative projects, a history of service excellence, and word-of-mouth did the rest in the overseas market and in the New Zealand market.”
Hughes also credits a recruitment policy that saw the team reach out to like-minded and more than capable experts.
“We were phenomenally successful in bringing on more great people. And I’m happy to say, that continues today.”
Those experts, when applied to the right projects, helped Company-X win many awards.
“If there's one thing that helped us grow it was making people look good,” Hallett added.
“As soon as you make your clients look good, they're going to tell their mates, ‘These guys are the guys. This is the team.’ Our reputation was enabled through a very deliberate methodology of hiring the best people for the best roles, and the best kind of people with the right kind of attitudes. What fuelled our growth was successful outcomes. That created raving fans and goodwill in terms of referrals both domestically and internationally.”