It was while working on-site at the mines of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia that a tempting window of opportunity presented itself to Adam Wilson.
Amid those rugged rust-red landforms, it became increasingly clear to the West Australian that not only did he and his colleague Kade Lang have a profound understanding of the roles required for success in the mining industry, but further the attributes and skill sets best suited to fill them.
“One of our greatest challenges is that there’s not enough people for the number of jobs out there.”
“There was a high turnover happening and we were getting people sent to site who just weren’t suitable for those jobs,” Wilson tells The CEO Magazine.
“Since we had an understanding of what those job roles meant and the type of people best suited for those roles, we realized we could have a massive edge over our competitors while reducing high client turnover.”
Building a Legacy
With this in mind, mining, civil and construction services firm KCA Site Services was born, although Wilson, now Managing Director, admits getting the company up and running was not without its difficulties – most notably getting that all-important funding from the banks.
“The vision was there, but it was unpacking that vision and getting everyone on board,” he recalls.
“When you’re a private company and you’re not listed, cashflow is tight and you have no choice but to grow stage by stage within your capability. You can grow reasonably quickly, but it’s definitely taken a little longer than it would for a listed company, because you don’t have investors throwing you money.
“We’ve done this largely on our own.”
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The skills shortages that have dominated the employment landscape over recent years have also posed difficulties for the growing firm.
“There’s not a lot of people in the market,” he explains. “We’re lacking the right trades – the right skill sets. One of our greatest challenges is that there’s not enough people for the number of jobs out there.”
Nonetheless, eight years later, the business is going strong, with Wilson eyeing a number of growth opportunities. Whether that’s in the form of acquisitions or simply building on its current strengths by enhancing systems, Wilson is keen to improve the company.
“We’re working off about 35 percent growth per year, which is pretty significant,” he says.
In the Right Place
It’s this momentum that continually convinces Wilson he is on the right path.
“Every day excites me,” he says. “It has really been an exciting journey. I’ll be brutally honest, KCA is probably bigger now than I thought it would ever be.”
Wilson finds profound satisfaction in helping KCA Site Services’ clients by tapping into the company’s collective knowledge and experience bases to solve complex problems.
“It’s that mining site-based experience where we understand our clients and what their real needs are,” Wilson says.
“We really are a problem-solving company that thinks about how we can help the client in their unique scenario; everything falls into place after that.”
“I’ll be brutally honest, KCA is probably bigger now than I thought it would ever be.”
This approach helps to build trust and mutual respect, enabling KCA Site Services to build the long-term partnerships that are so crucial in ensuring that a business is sustainable.
“It’s our knowledge and our experience that enables us to solve complex problems for our clients,” Wilson expands. “If you put your client first and you focus on solving that problem, then the rest follows relatively easily.”
Another key factor in the KCA Site Services strategy is treating suppliers like they are part of the team, seeing these partnerships as an opportunity to utilize their knowledge and experience.
“We’re definitely straight down the line with our suppliers and they have undoubtedly helped us get to where we are today,” he says.
Its working relationship with heavy duty diesel maintenance business HDD Solutions is one such example, with the pair working together for several years on KCA Site Services’ asset fleet.
“HDD is a great and accommodating business whose quality of work is second to none,” Wilson says. “It has been an integral part of KCA’s ability to deliver quality machinery with maintenance reliability.”
Meanwhile, internal offshoot Your Financial Controller has enabled KCA Site Services to ‘dig deep’ into its financial numbers, supplying valuable real-time reports. “This has helped make strong and calculated decisions for the business and its growth plans,” he says.
Both tie-ups are indicative of the company’s broad vision and spirit of collaboration. “We rarely say no, which is both a good and bad thing,” Wilson confesses. “But we do what we say we’re going to do and that’s pretty much all there is to it.”
