How Arnoux Maré Went From R32 Million to R780 Million in 4 Years Arnoux Maré is a quintessential entrepreneur. Not only is he wildly competitive (if his business doesn't triple its own annual projections and targets he'll review the company top to bottom), but he's also reengineered the art of 'adapt or die' to, 'adapt and thrive'.

Vital Stats

• Player: Arnoux Maré
• Company: Innovative Solutions Group
• Launched: 2011
• Turnover: R780 million
• Growth: From R32 million to R780 million in four years
• Accolades: Winner of Best Outsourcing Service Provider in Africa, Africa Leadership Awards 2017. Arnoux Maré: Winner of CEO of the Year, Africa Leadership Awards 2017
• Visit: innovative-group.co.za

In 2011 Arnoux launched a labour consultancy with R500 that grew into a staff outsourcing company. By 2013, recognising the inherent issues in his industry, he completely reworked his business model to create a solution that employers, employees and trade unions alike could benefit from and support.

Not only did this move allow the business to survive — it's thrived. Within one year he grew his turnover from R20 million to R32 million. Four years later and Innovative Solutions Group has hit the R780 million turnover mark. Here's how he did it.

The start-up: Be brave, believe in your idea and sell your vision

Imagine waking up at 6am and spending the next 12 hours on the road between Pretoria, Johannesburg and Middelburg in Mpumalanga, knocking on doors and trying to sell your services.

At 6pm you return home (aka your office), spend time with your infant daughter, and then sit down to study by 9pm. By 3am you're able to crawl into bed, catch a quick three hours of sleep, and by 6am the alarm is going off and you're up, out the house and doing it all over again.

This was Arnoux Maré's life for nine months. In 2011 he started his business with R500, which was all he had left of his salary after paying his bills. It was a big move. He was leaving the safety of corporate employment, but he knew he wanted more, and that the only way he would achieve his goals was to do it for himself.

"I had a list of SMEs I wanted to target. Corporates have HR and payroll divisions filled with human capital specialists. SMEs do not. After five years in corporate I'd seen the common HR problems we faced. I particularly believed SMEs needed this solution.

"Human capital is a specialist field, and yet any available manager tends to be assigned the role. This is such an important part of an SME's business; I thought there was room for an expert."The reality was far more complicated.

"Having a list wasn't enough. Business doesn't work like that. You need to prove yourself in the market before people will trust you. I had to go from company to company. I'd been a sales rep earlier in my career, and I was back to doing what I'd done then: I was knocking on doors, explaining what I did.

"I heard "no' 15 times for every yes, but I didn't let that deter me. I stayed focused. The most important step is to get started.

"You need to be brave. You have to find the courage to go out and sell yourself as the brand you're planning to be, not what you are at the moment. You can't be dishonest, but you do need to sell your vision. I had a plan and everything worked around that plan. It was painstakingly slow in the beginning, but I kept plugging away and knocking on doors until slowly I built up a client base."

Arnoux signed his first client, Yankee Diners for a retainer of R780 per month. For that princely sum, Arnoux gave his client the full benefit of a vast experience in labour relations that a full-time employee would provide at a cost-to-company of R50 000 to R60 000 per month.

The owner of Yankees had a friend who ran a butchery. His referral secured Arnoux his second client. He was essentially the in-house HR manager for two businesses while he focused on selling and completing his labour law studies at night.

"I was determined to become the expert in this field. South African labour law is complex, but if you're prepared and understand procedures and legislation, you will always be on the right side of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). This was the function I performed for my clients".

Arnoux was soon consulting for clients and dealing with human resources cases that had been taken to the CCMA. After a year he was providing consulting services to companies in the areas of fair labour practices, labour legislation and industrial relations.

"I knew that to build a name for myself in this industry I needed to take a big risk. In the early days of a start-up you're in make-or-break territory, so I went big and put everything on the line. I guaranteed clients that we would pay the settlements if we lost a case – provided we were involved in the process from start to finish."

Arnoux admits that although he still takes risks today, he doesn't bet the business on them — not with 7 500 full-time employees relying on his company. But those start-up days were different. He needed to go all in, and the result was that he never lost a case. He made sure he was prepared and up-to-date with all labour legislation.

"There are two things you need to prove in every labour dispute: Was the case procedurally correct and was the sanction substantively fair? If you can prove these two things, you'll win. If you can't, you either haven't followed procedures correctly, or you're in contravention of South Africa's labour legislation."

It was 2011. Labour broking and outsourcing were big business in Europe and the US, and Arnoux's own experiences showed him the benefits of the industry. However, it was at this point that he realised he needed to go back to the drawing board. In no way should he be considered a labour broker or temporary employment service. In South Africa, labour brokers weren't yet persona non grata, but the writing was on the wall.

Arnoux firmly believed in the concept that companies should not employ their own employees though. "It's such a specialist field — managing a workforce involves recruitment, HR, processes, management and so on — these are all highly specialised, and yet managers who are specialists in other fields are tasked with them."

Arnoux had another problem as well. There was a loophole in labour legislation that all consultants at the time exploited. The law said that a company employee had to represent the company at a CCMA hearing, so that outside consultants couldn't. The loophole? Accept temporary employment and handle the hearing anyway.

By 2012 this loophole was closing. Arnoux's entire business model was built on the fact that he would personally be at each hearing, handling the full process. Add to this the fact that Namibia had outlawed labour brokers, even going so far as to jail some directors, and South Africa was heading in a similar direction, and he knew it was time to radically change his model. The question was, to what?

Ultimately, this question and the sheer volume of mediation and CCMA cases Arnoux was handling for clients would lead to the start-up's first subsidiary, Innovative Staffing Solutions, in 2013. Assuming the responsibility and accountability for each clients' labour needs, ISS was not a labour broker, however, it did grow from a labour law consultancy into a full-scale outsourcing company, boosting turnover growth thanks to the pivot.

Start-up Lessons

• Offer advice and share your expertise freely. The more your clients are educated, the more empowered they will feel, and the more they will view you as a trusted advisor. I gave my clients material to help them develop the best labour policies and procedures. It didn't make my service redundant — it built trust between us.
• Don't hold back when you're a start-up. You'll need to change this down the line, but in the early days, you're building a brand and relationships. You need to give as much of yourself as possible to achieve this. Later you can find ways to build what you do into systems and processes others can follow.
• Don't be emotional about your business. Entrepreneurs tend to be very emotional, and this leads to subjective decisions that aren't always best for the business. Treat employees well, understand their side, but make a business decision and move on. Always ask the question, is this the best decision for what the business needs? Remember, it's also your duty to support the majority of your employees who rely on the business doing well. Sometimes that requires tough choices.
• Never stop learning. This is important throughout your business journey, but particularly as a start-up. The more you're able to build your expertise, the more gravitas you will have with clients and prospects.

The Pivot: Business is managing your risk – even if that means changing the business

Many large successful businesses have failed because they didn't see the landscape changing. Technology, legislation and community pressures have all played hugely disruptive roles across various industries over the years, resulting in the now standard business phrase that businesses need to "adapt or die'.

Unlike many other businesses, Arnoux did just that. He took his business apart and re-engineered it before he became a casualty of the times.

"I pulled a big white board into my office and started mapping two things. First, how do we ensure that we are truly a staff outsourcing company, and second, what challenges were we facing as a business? Where did these intersect, and how could we develop solutions that addressed both areas?"

The exercise revealed a number of key points that would ultimately help Arnoux develop the business model Innovative Solutions Group has today. Within a year his turnover went from R20 million to R32 million based on the new model, and four years later this has grown exponentially to R780 million.

The lesson? Never take anything for granted. Arnoux was forced to evaluate his business and industry, which led to real solutions. Too often, businesses do what they've always done — or an industry has always done — simply because that's the way it's always been done. If you want to grow, you need to start challenging those assumptions.

In Arnoux's case, the exercise revealed the following key points, some were strengths, and some were weaknesses:

• CCMA commissioners were becoming stricter about consultants representing companies at the CCMA. The loophole his company relied upon was closing.
• Arnoux was making large, sweeping promises to protect clients. As the business grew, the risk associated with these promises was no longer acceptable.
• As an extremely competitive individual, Arnoux wanted to achieve higher growth than the company was currently delivering — he knew he'd need a different model if he wanted to exceed his current results.
• On the positive side, labour legislation is an ever-growing field of inter-connected laws. Only an expert dedicated to staying up-to-date can understand them all.

Arnoux didn't just analyse his own business — key to the exercise was understanding the difference between staff outsourcing and labour broking as a whole.

"I started by researching labour broking internationally. What were the roots of the bad sentiments around labour broking in South Africa, and why had Namibia criminalised an entire industry?

"I realised two main things: Locally, a labour broker is actually recognised as a temporary employment agency. This brings with it a host of problems. First, temporary employers can do what they want. Limited duration contracts don't need to give you notice. There's no protection for employees, and this was at the heart of the problem for trade unions.

"I then reviewed what we did — we focused on payroll outsourcing and admin, labour law, and contractor pack outsourcing, which included recruitment. These are specialised, intense functions. I looked at everything relevant to the function, including invoicing and a cost analysis for us and our clients.

"How could we get employees off the books of employers without the labour broker function, in such a way that employees are protected, companies are protected and we offer a sustainable solution to both parties?"

To answer these questions, Arnoux went out into the field. "I approached one of our engineering clients and played open cards. I knew I needed to understand the problem from all sides. I let him know this was an idea that was still in development phase, and then I asked him if he'd be willing to be our guinea pig.

"We called it "staff management', and developed a system that ensured we were the employer of a pool of employees rather than our clients. This starts with who an individual takes instruction from, and who they believe they report to.

"In our test case, we took over the full employment of 63 employees. I personally negotiated with their union, so that everyone was on board. We were not temporary employers, but full-time employers — everyone had a permanent contract with all the benefits and legal protections that come with full-time employment."

This signalled the birth of Innovative Staffing Solutions, and within two months Arnoux's client referred him to another business. Although the owner was sceptical, he agreed that Arnoux could take over the employment of 103 of his 160 employees.

The third company Innovative Staffing Solutions secured was in Middleburg, and had close to 300 employees in the hospitality and agricultural sectors. Today, Innovative Solutions Group employs 7 500 people based on this model.

"Every site we manage has a contract manager, and in-house IR and HR functions are their responsibility. They also have administrative support based on the size of the site. The contract manager is completely responsible for our employees on the site. The client goes to them. For example, if the client plans to plant 500Ha, they do the ops planning, but the manager gets the employees inducted, ready and briefed on the ops planning."

Today, the holding company, Innovative Solutions Group, operates in transport, engineering, manufacturing, agriculture, hospitality, retail, admin and labour.

Lessons in Pivoting

• Is it riskier to stay the same or to change? All business is a risk, and we tend to resist change as a result. Often however, it's even riskier to stay the same. Only 40% of our initial clients moved over to Innovative Staffing Solutions' model, but the word-of-mouth referrals we received from that 40% based on the new offering skyrocketed our growth.
• Market your offering in a way that customers understand what you do. It's easy to come up with fancy terms and names. If your customers don't understand exactly what you do though, it's meaningless. We called our solution Staff Management because it let everyone know exactly what we did. We could have used a sexier name, and no-one would have understood what Innovative Staffing Solutions was.
• Business is all about managing risk. I believe you need to take risks to grow, but you also need to mitigate them as much as possible. You can't foresee all problems and plan for all eventualities, but you can evaluate all the risk factors within your operations. Based on this, develop a solution to nullify risk functions and implement methods to minimise risk as much as possible.
• Focus on cash reserves. We've always banked a percentage of income to save up for retrenchments. This is a legislative requirement, and it's essential for all businesses. You never know what's headed your way, and how cash reserves will protect you.
• Communication is key, but results are more important. I often hear business owners talking about how important it is to be transparent with clients. I agree. But I also think results are more important. If you make a promise, stick to it. Make it a non-negotiable, instead of thinking that as long as you're transparent it will all be okay. Your promise influences the operations of your client. Rather plot and plan properly to ensure delivery, and then you won't need to be transparent about problems.
• Don't sell services; sell a solution. When you sell a solution, you're talking about your client's needs, instead of what your business does.
• Operations are the bedrock of any business. We are operationally strong. 60% of what I do today is operationally focused. We plan extensively, which means we are always prepared. I train the contract managers, and I wrote the procedures and training manuals they use.

Scale-up For Growth: What do our clients need? What do we need? What do our employees need?

Shortly after the birth of Innovative Staffing Solutions, Arnoux recognised that if he wanted to aggressively scale the business, he would need to offer his clients solutions across the labour spectrum. He didn't want to do this through Innovative Staffing Solutions alone, but rather through specialist divisions that could work together and share client bases.

"We needed strong foundations in place before we could aggressively start scaling the business, but by 2013 I was confident that we had the right systems in place and the company was running smoothly. It was time to spread our wings."

At that stage, Innovative Staffing Solutions outsourced its accounting function to a small entrepreneurial accounting firm. "I already knew that I wanted to start a group of companies, of which Innovative Staffing Solutions would be one division. The vision was to offer all labour and human capital related solutions under a roof. However, I recognised that it's easy to be seen as a jack of all trades and master of none, and wanted to avoid that perception."

The solution was to ensure subject matter experts ran each division, and the best way to do that was to purchase existing companies and bring them into the fold, rather than starting from scratch. "In this case our accounting firm already had all the necessary registrations in place as well as an existing client base."

The firm joined Innovative Staffing Solutions, and Arnoux created a holding company, Innovative Solutions Group, with two divisions: Innovative Staffing Solutions and Innovative Accounting Solutions. Both operated as independent companies with their own client bases, and as entities within a group.

By bringing the accounting function in-house, Innovative Solutions Group was also saving on costs — a saving that would increase, thanks to economies of scale.

The next company to join the fold was a small BEE consultancy, and the subsidiary Innovative BEE Solutions was formed.

Today there are 17 subsidiaries in the group as a whole. Some offer services to a Innovative Solutions Group client base, others primarily service Innovative Solutions Group.

For example, Innovative PPE Solutions was created because it made more financial sense for Innovative Solutions Group to source personal protective equipment for its 7 500 employees itself than to outsource this essential function to another company.

"Our focus has always been three-fold: What do our clients need? What do we need? What do our employees need? That's how you grow; you need to keep asking these questions."

Growth does not come without its challenges, and Arnoux's acceptance of a certain level of risk to scale the company has led to some extremely challenging situations that Innovative Solutions Group has needed to weather. One of the first clients signed to ISS in 2012 ended up costing the business R3,6 million one year later. At the time, the loss was the equivalent of 10% of the business's annual turnover.

"Our process was simple: We paid our payroll, invoiced clients, and they paid us. One year into the contract, and the client in question cancelled our service — without paying us the final month's salary bill. We carried the entire R3,6 million payroll ourselves."

This hit the company hard, but it also raised a very real problem for Arnoux and his general manager, Liza Trollip. "We realised that 40% of our sales came from contracts and subcontracts of our biggest client who insisted everyone he worked with used us. On the one hand this was great and had fuelled our growth. On the other, it was dangerous. We had a lot of eggs in one basket and needed to diversify our client base."

There was a more immediate problem at hand though: Innovative Staffing Solutions was faced with a cancelled contract, and the employees who were, for all intents and purposes, Innovative Staffing Solutions employees.

"We immediately looped in the trade union. Some staff members wanted to go back to the client. They saw their current jobs as safe. We were happy to agree to that without implementing restraints of trade. We promote job security, and you need to live by that, even if it means losing good employees — the ethos comes first.

"We then let the union know that we had some positions we could redeploy people into at other sites, but we didn't have positions for everyone. The union was clear that they had agreed to our business model in the first place because we promised job security.

"We knew we had to make this work. That trust is the foundation of our business. You don't mess around with bargaining councils, and for us, that relationship is sacrosanct. We couldn't break our word simply because we'd run into an obstacle, even if it was a big one.

"We ended up with 10% of the workforce whom we couldn't immediately place, and we carried their salaries until we could. That's 32 employees who we had on our books without positions."

As it turned out, having 32 staff members who could start immediately worked in Innovative Staffing Solutions' favour, and today the company always has a few extra people on its books.

The lesson? If you're serious about business growth, look for solutions, don't dwell on the problems — and learn from every challenge you face, it might just provide an unexpected opportunity.

In the case of Innovative Staffing Solutions, this incident cemented trust between the company and the trade unions it works with. It also allowed Arnoux to approach his clients, explain their situation, play open cards that he would be having cash flow issues while the company recovered, but also showed the lengths the business would go to protect its employees and retain good relations with the trade unions. Word of mouth referrals were boosted as a result.

"We started receiving calls from companies we'd never heard of because of the efficiency and professional way we dealt with this. We got smacked to the tune of R4 million, and instead of liquidating, we kept employees on our books and labour relations good; everyone was happy.

"The result was that business owners knew we would protect them, and that we were fighters. We even had to say no to contracts because they were coming in faster than we could open offices around the country to support them. Everything happens for a reason, provided you know how to capitalise on the opportunity."

Scaling Lessons

• When you're challenged, don't mope. Look to the future instead. It's easy to get swept away by emotions and rush to solve problems. We took a completely different stance when we had to cover R3,6 million in lost revenue. We focused on the business problem first, instead of rushing to litigation with our ex-client. Focus on the problem, and most importantly, find a solution. If you can do that, you'll always continue to grow and open new opportunities.
• With big negatives come big lessons. When we get thrown in the deep end, we look for solutions. We always have, and it's allowed us to expand beyond our operational depth.
• Never give up. The uphill battle I faced during my start-up years taught me to never give up, which has been critical in building this business. We suffered three months of hardship, wondering if we were going to make it. But we had worked so hard to build this business, and wouldn't quit. That tenacity saw us through.
• What you put in is what you get out. As an employer, we're strict, but we give back as well. If you're willing to work hard, you'll be rewarded. For example, we run a regional competition where the best drivers on our books win a Chevrolet Utility vehicle.