PEOPLE enjoy visiting and shopping in Berwick for its tree-lined boulevards, heritage buildings, boutique shops and cafe culture.
But nestled in the heart of this quaint village resides an unlikely tenant – an electronics and embedded software development business – quietly making a big impact on the world manufacturing stage.
With a brand promise of “We make electronics work” and 16 major technology and business awards under its belt in the past six years, Successful Endeavours is both its name and nature.
Since being named City of Casey Business of the Year in 2010, Successful Endeavours has won a succession of regional, state and national awards including two of its products recognised at the 2015 state and national iAwards, for leading-edge technological innovation.
While the high quality and innovative products Successful Endeavours makes are driving increased profits for its client manufacturers, the “exponential” mindset of its entrepreneurial owner – Ray Keefe – is just as important in fueling the success of this growing business in an industry where others are down-sizing, going offshore or closing their doors.
“Contrary to what many believe, electronics design and product development in Australia is both practical and profitable,” Ray says.
“In 1946, 90 per cent of all manufactured products used in Australia were made in Australia but in 2006, this figure had plummeted to just 10 per cent.
“It doesn’t make sense to ship raw material overseas then import the finished goods back here. Most of the income and profit is happening for someone else, somewhere else.
“It makes even less economic sense in the context of Australia’s distinct advantages when it comes to manufacturing.”
“Australia has the most cost effective technical workforce of all member countries in the OECD (Organisation for “Economic Cooperation and Development), manufacturing generates more indirect jobs per direct job than any other area of commercial activity (the Victorian Government puts this figure at 5 extra jobs per direct job) and we are well placed to export to Asia!
“In particular, there is a huge opportunity for electronics manufacturing to flourish in Australia. It is the most scalable, given the relative ease with which capacity can be added to products through existing local manufacturers.
“The key to low cost electronics manufacturing is to design a product to be efficiently and flawlessly made so that it continues to work correctly well past its warranty period.
“This is one of the secrets of our success and the strategy we have used to ensure electronics products manufactured in Australia by our clients are indeed competitive and profitable when compared with Asian imports.
“We need government decision-makers to realise this can become the norm for manufacturing rather than the exception.
While governments can help breathe new life back into Australian manufacturing, Ray believes individual business owners also have a key role to play, particularly in the way they think about developing solutions to manufacturing problems, which are really opportunities in disguise.
“Belief is a powerful thing – enabling beliefs enable and limiting beliefs limit,” he said.
“We have been involved in many projects that break through the limiting belief barrier.“
Ray says developing the Skynanny.net child location tracking device, which won the Merit Award in the New Product category at the 2015 Victorian iAwards and was a finalist in the recent national iAwards, was a case in point.
“Two other companies tried to build the electronics platform for the device and gave up before we got involved and came up with a world-first solution,“ he explained.
“The combination of Bluetooth Smart, Qi Wireless Charging, 3G communications and GPS tracking in a device the surface area of a business card was a big technical challenge but by thinking differently, we got a different result than what had been previously thought possible.
“As Albert Einstein famously said, ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’.
“This is how manufacturers need to approach business. The traditional manufacturing business model has been transactional in nature, where the manufacturer gets paid for the component parts it makes. This type of thinking is holding the manufacturing industry back.
“What’s needed is thinking that focusses on leverage; a systems-based approach that gives a greater outcome for effort rather than a component-based approach where the income stream ends once the part leaves the factory.”
Although Ray has been developing market leading electronics products in Australia for 30 years now, Successful Endeavours started from humble beginnings with 1.5 equivalent full-time staff in 2008 to nine employees, and an ecosystem of sub-contractors and other technically-based businesses in 2015. It develops a new product for local manufacture every two weeks.
This growth in business is a direct result of Ray honing his business acumen with the guidance of a business mentor and dedicating himself to becoming a more effective leader of self and others.
“As a small business owner, I made a great engineer. Once I addressed the weakness in my business skillset, I was able to build a successful business that has allowed me to make the difference to local manufacturers that was part of my original vision in starting Successful Endeavours,” he said.
“If you are a small business owner, it is likely that you will have gaps in your understanding of business and how to take your business to the next level. So my advice is to find a business mentor you can trust and let them help you. You don’t know what you don’t know!”
Successful Endeavours is certainly achieving extraordinary outcomes, not only in carving an exciting future for Australian electronics manufacturing, but helping build a stronger Australian economy by helping small to medium manufacturing businesses to grow.
People can connect with Ray at www.linkedin.com/in/raykeefe or www.successful.com.au
