Business acquisitions can be a hassle and can present a lot of challenges – especially when it comes to the integration of management, culture, and way of working. My special guest, Ross Eades, believes that as challenging as it may be, strategic acquisitions can effectively lead your business to phenomenal growth! Hear his experience and approach on how he built recruitment powerhouse businesses and how he kept his current organization’s business growing despite the pandemic.
Ross is the CEO of RED Commerce, a global leader in placing SAP professionals with 250 employees and six locations around the world. Prior to joining RED Commerce in 2018, Ross was the CEO of Horton Group International – a global executive search and leadership firm with 50 offices in 32 countries. Ross has a phenomenal track record as a CEO within the recruiting and staffing industry.
Episode Outline and Highlights
- Ross shares his journey of building up InterQuest Group PLC – his challenges and key learnings.
- Increasing the business by 10x in 5 years – four key success factors for such a phenomenal growth rate.
- Moving to Horton International – Ross’s enormous undertakings and significant contributions.
- Strategic planning in growing your business – hear Ross’s key takeaways on the planning process and collaboration.
- What attracted Ross to join RED and how he steered the organization through the pandemic.
- Post-pandemic adjustments – what are the learnings that organizations should keep even after things go back to ‘normal’.
- What are secrets to attracting and retaining good people for your recruitment business?
Increasing the Business by Ten Times in Five Years
One of Ross’s amazing feats when he was with InterQuest was growing the business from 10M to 100M USD in five years. So I had to ask him, what were the key success factors that enabled him to achieve that phenomenal growth rate? Ross responded, “I put a lot of it down to the focus of the teams we had and the businesses we bought in. The idea was to have a selection of specialist teams.” This ‘specialist approach’ contributed highly to the growth and success of InterQuest.
Ross also added his thoughts and practices in growing a business through acquisitions. Mainly in three areas:
- Management Due Diligence
- Pre-Acquisition
- Post-Acquisition
He also elaborated on the benefits and value of growing through strategic acquisitions. It is not easy to integrate new businesses, so best-practices and learnings from personal experiences to overcome difficulties were shared. Best to hear all these pieces of gems from Ross himself.
Steering Through the Pandemic
Ross eventually joined RED SAP Solutions. One of his notable accomplishments as CEO is steering the organization to success during the pandemic. The company is still doing an amazing job during the crisis and continues to grow. Were there any things they would have done differently? Ross answered, “I have not given it that much thought to be honest. There isn’t anything… I can’t identify anything that we haven’t done that if I had our time again last year we would have done. I think we were very quick to put the right things in place and to try and protect the business and as many people’s job as we possibly can.”
So now things that are ‘normalizing’, what learnings or changes could organizations adapt to retain post-pandemic? I asked this question to Ross for RED, and his answer was definitely insightful. Hear his thoughts on a hybrid model of working in the office and remotely.
Retaining Amazing Talents
A key factor when growing your recruitment business is attracting and retaining great talent. This is definitely a challenge, ironically, to the recruitment industry. So if you ask Ross of the secrets in attracting and retaining talent, he mentioned these key factors:
- Brand
- Market
- Career development path
- Your own growth
In this episode, you’ll hear Ross explain these points in detail.
