Kahl Betham, chief Executive of the Gallagher Group based in Hamilton. Photo / Supplied
Kahl Betham is chief executive and executive director of Hamilton-based Gallagher Group, which provides high-tech solutions across the animal management and security industries.
How was 2021 for your business?
Our global team have together uncovered our true purpose to "Protect what matters most" and we re-articulated the wonderful values that sit at the heart of all that we do and all that we can become. This has been a powerful experience that continues to ground our culture and bind us together even stronger, in a time where there has been the greatest risk of societal and cultural division.
2021 saw us deliver five years of average growth in a single year. I am so proud of the way the global Gallagher team of over 1300 people responded to protect one another, protect our customers, and protect our business.
The middle of the year brought a potentially catastrophic supply crisis. Supplies of critical components for our high-tech animal management and security products became scarce and seriously delayed, which could have meant we were unable to manufacture over 21 product lines. This would have impacted over 200,000 customers around the world from hospitals to transport hubs, national grid operators to military bases, universities to global tech companies, to farms and ranches.
People from right across our business pulled together to redesign 54 of our products to use more readily available componentry all while ensuring we didn't compromise on product spec or quality. We moved our servers into the cloud and increased our cyber security protection. Our operational teams in Hamilton, who worked onsite as an essential service, not only kept up with volume but did not miss an hour of production time and with 228,000 production hours across the year, created 43 million products.
Our security research and development team created product enhancements to support customers with Covid contact tracing and proximity services, and in animal management we acquired a leading developer of virtual fencing technology, Agersens.
Over 320 people joined our teams across the world in 2021. Our security sales teams in the US and UK doubled, our manufacturing team in NZ grew by half, and we invested in our support teams. We also welcomed 80 new distribution partners.
All of this has set us up for our next phase of growth.
How is your business planning to tackle 2022?
We continue to take a courageous long-term view and invest in the future needs of our customers. We continue to double down on looking after and developing our people - never has this been more important.
We're continuing to scale for growth and leverage the investments we have made over the past two years – growing the capability and size of our global team, investing heavily in innovation as we always do, executing our plan to triple our production capacity over time, and opening a new customer innovation and logistics centre in the UK.
And we're focused on creating a compelling environment for success for our people.
What will be the major challenges and opportunities in 2022 for your business and sector?
We are increasingly concerned about the talent shortage. With unemployment at an all-time low and restrictions on international arrivals, it's getting harder and harder to find tech talent here in New Zealand. Our innovative edge has always been at our core, and ensuring that sustains us into the future relies on being able to find great developers, testers, engineers, architects, analysts, designers and more.
To give an indication on the scale of recruitment under way at Gallagher to support our growth, we have around 25 roles being advertised over the Christmas and New Year period, with at least an additional 30 roles to be advertised throughout January and February.
What are two key things the Government should do for New Zealand's economic recovery?
The tech export sector in New Zealand is performing very well, growing very quickly, and it is a great source of future prosperity for the country. In 2021, we've seen just how important tourism and the primary industry is for our economy, and I must say we've been exposed. Supporting the growth of exporting companies who choose their home in NZ is a strong no-brainer investment. Specifically nurturing the growth of technology and science-based innovation within the export sector will certainly strengthen the country's economy.
The talent shortage will continue to bite the high-tech sector in New Zealand unless we as a nation focus on it. It needs attention on multiple levels: enabling highly skilled offshore talent to come into New Zealand, and investing in local training and development to build our pipeline of new talent.
What are your predictions for 2022?
We will continue to see massive changes as a result of digital transformation. There is a real need for increased supply and logistics expertise, and business intelligence systems, to navigate the unstable and fast-changing supply and distribution challenges.
Horticulture and dairy are both being digitised and we see huge opportunities for pastoral farming too. Bringing all the data to a farmer's phone means they can make immediate, high-quality decisions on where to focus their energy.
In the security market, solutions that were previously only available to the largest companies and government departments are now in the cloud. That means small and medium businesses, who don't have onsite security expertise, can now manage their physical building security from their phone.
What's the best move/response you made to the pandemic?
Being privately owned, we can make quick investment decisions – such as the decision to free up an additional $30 million to fund alternative componentry during the supply crisis or adding a significant number of new roles throughout the globe.
What's the best advice you've ever received as a CEO?
It might sound a bit cliche, but once you get a culture right, everything else falls into place. We've been in business for 83 years and our strong culture will continue to sustain our customers, communities, and our families into the future.
What's the worst advice?
Over the last decade or two there has been a trend and lots of advice to take manufacturing, R&D and support services to low-cost economies in order to achieve cost savings. We are delighted that we've retained all of these capabilities in New Zealand as a central core.
We feel that NZ companies can base their head office locally and dominate their markets on a global basis. If organisations focus on delivering ridiculously compelling value to customers through innovation and service excellence, then NZ is an outstanding place to launch from. That said, we will always develop strong capabilities and capacity offshore to augment our NZ capability in areas where we need to.
Where are you holidaying this summer?
I'm looking forward to spending time with my wife and four children at the beach. I'm also going to work on my fitness which has taken a bit of a back seat this year given everything else that's been going on!