Striking it lucky

Wine distribution sounds like a dream job, doesn’t it?

For Chris Ryan and business partner Adam Rock, it was perhaps a love of the product that lead to an early – and unsuccessful – business foray.

“Back in 2000 my business partner and I had a number of failed businesses,” he recalled.

“We were a couple of young guys in our twenties who were extremely green with hotheaded ideas about starting our own business and taking over the world. Our first attempt at a proper business was wine distribution in Australia. While we were selling the wine we also spent a long time drinking it – as young people do – and we convinced ourselves that this was solid product knowledge and R&D.”

But while the wine business didn’t turn out to be as fruitful as first planned, it did plant the seed for telecommunications distribution company Strike, which Ryan and Rock now head up.

“Late in 2000 we got a phone call from a customer in South Africa where we were buying some wine saying ‘do you know anyone in telecommunications?’. We said ‘yeah, of course we do, we are!’.

“We ended up buying some telecommunications equipment from London and selling it into South Africa and made some money – this was the first time any of our businesses had made any money.

“It was really exciting stuff and we were high-fiving each other and convincing ourselves that we would be gazillionaires by the time we were 21. Naturally our opinion of ourselves outweighed our ability and we worked really hard in the following three or four months but it wasn’t as big or as fruitful as we would have liked.”

Nevertheless, the deal did set the pair up for a contract to run a wholesale department for a multi-national company in Hong Kong.

“We really learnt how to cut our teeth – it’s a very quick and cash based economy where a lot of goods flow through there,” Ryan recalled.

“When we came back at the end of 2001 we started Strike. We saw there was a need for a professional edge where people add value to the distribution supply chain.”

While admitting that technology distribution could be considered boring –
“it actually is because a lot of players in it
are logistical agencies with warehouses that just send out goods” – Ryan said the company added a lot of value to the products that it sells. The products we sell are world-leading products and we are the exclusive distributors for many of them,” he added.

“We do PR for them, marketing and representation, we supply training to people in the channel, we do market research and a full product launch for each product and we also offer support.”

And with many of the products in high demand – the company has seen a big spike in interest for its handsfree kits since laws were passed requiring drivers in southern Australian states to use them – Strike has continued to grow strongly.

A key to its success, Ryan said, is maintaining focus.

“We believe in focusing on one brand specifically and backing the best brand,” he said.

“[Strike’s tipping point was] when we decided that we were not going to sell everything and to focus on key brands. It is interesting when you look at a company like Apple – it really only has six lines and a couple of products. But what they do, they do really well.”

It has not all been a smooth ride, however.

“We made all the usual mistakes of business owners. We thought we knew more than we did and we thought we could survive on instinct and gut feel alone, which is ridiculous,” he remembered.

“Our biggest mistake when we started was to hire the wrong people, but then the best thing we did was to get cutting edge HR systems so that we hired the right people and then gave them intense feedback while they are here, especially in the first six weeks about how they are going in relation to performance and also company values.”

Maintaining strong company ethics was a crucial driver of Strike’s success, Ryan said.

“Honesty and transparency and good ethics are extremely important,” he said.

“You can make as much money as you like and financial performance is one of the scoreboards for how well the business is going, [but] it is more important to me personally that we are an honest and ethical organisation and that people believe in it.

“I think we have learnt that over the years. When you first get into business people talk it up as a tough game and say ‘business is business’ and there is no room for the faint hearted. It’s not about being faint hearted or not, it is about being a good honest person.

“We are extremely open and honest. Everyone in Strike knows how much money the company makes. Everyone from our general manager down to our junior who is learning the ropes sees the full P&L every week and can tell which divisions are performing and where money is being spent.”

So what’s next for the company?

“A number of our competitors are falling over, so we are gaining market share through that,” Ryan added. “We will focus on what we do well. When things start to pick up we will consider growing our market share, possibly through acquisitions – although that is not something we are really considering in the next 12 months.”