From fellow students to fellow business parters

AUTHOR: Lachlan Colquhoun   DATE: 08.12.05   ISSUE 3, 2005

Foster and Williams, MBA (Executive) graduates from 2004 and 2003 respectively, have recently launched their business, Ignite Group, a sales performance solution company which offers an innovative incentive program called i-POINTS™ to clients.

The venture had its germination at AGSM, where Foster and Williams worked together on course assignments and struck up a rapport which saw them commit to the idea of starting a business.

“The skills I learned at AGSM have made being an entrepreneur a reality, not just a wish and a hope.” David Williams

“When we were working together on different assignments it was clear that Glen was stronger on the analytical side and I was stronger in other areas, so AGSM was a really good proving ground that we could work together,” says David Williams.

“Of course people will always caution you about going into partnership but the two of us had gone through fairly stressful periods through being able to balance work and study and home life, and to do that and maintain a good level of confidence in each other was a good foundation I think.”

Williams came to AGSM after more than a decade of working in the sales and marketing areas of multi-national corporates such as Kodak, while Foster was a veteran of the IT industry with nine years in sales and marketing at IBM.

Both were drawn to AGSM for similar reasons: to expand their functional and industry knowledge and acquire a knowledge platform for the next stages of their careers.

“AGSM definitely gave me the confidence and knowledge to pursue my dreams and goals.” Glen Foster

“From my perspective, a big part of AGSM was getting exposure to other industries because I felt I had a narrow view of the world through an IT lens, and it was good to meet and mingle with other people who could tell me something about understanding business pressure in other arenas,” says Foster.

For Williams, AGSM gave him a “strong appreciation of the other functions of the business and the interplay between areas such as finance and HR.”

And for both of them, their time at AGSM fuelled their ambition to be entrepreneurs, and start their own venture.

“It was always bubbling away in me to start my own business, and part way through the MBA program Glen and I formed a common understanding that both of us had this entrepreneurial sprit deep down that we needed to unleash at some point,” says Williams.

“We had the feeling that if we didn’t act on that they we wouldn’t be fulfilling what we wanted to achieve in our career and corporate life.”

So having decided to form a partnership. Williams and Foster next had to decide on a business concept and a business plan, a process which took a lot of intense discussion and planning.

“We started by looking at our immediate experience in sales and marketing, and we looked at where we had identified gaps in the market place where we had outsourced from our organisations, and at the kind of work that we knew managers didn’t want to or didn’t have the time to do,” says Foster.

“We did a series of weekend workshops with a clean piece of paper identifying marketplaces and concepts and building it from the ground up based on what we know and what we are good at and what is marketable.

“And I’d have to say that the AGSM learning provided us with a lot of data and background in helping us go through these stages.”

Both also say that the input and support from the AGSM alumni network was a positive and important factor in the process.

Williams says one of their guiding principles was to create a company that had an “in-built” ability to innovate, and one that wasn’t tied down with infrastructure and capital.

The result was Ignite Group, which offers a rewards and incentive program for employees and customers who accumulate points as they achieve certain pre-determined targets, and who can then redeem the points for merchandise rewards.

The concept was based around both Foster’s and William’s belief that many current cash-based incentive schemes were ineffective, and also cut out a large percentage of the workforce who are not leaders in their areas.

“Under our program, people are competing against their own ability to perform against a set of targets they’ve been set, and we do that very carefully with managers to make sure they’ve got the right set of measures and targets in place,” says Williams.

Foster says he believes it is important that such programs are “egalitarian and don’t exclude anyone.”

“When managers look at trying to drive performance it’s actually the middle 80 p.c. that you aim to improve, and if your program really only incents the top earners then that is really alienating for everyone underneath,” he says.

Although Ignite was launched in April, Foster only left his previous full-time job in June and Williams has only just resigned, so the company is still very much in start-up mode.

“But the response we’ve had so far is very positive, and everyone looks at the model and can see something in it so its pushing the right buttons,” says Williams.

Both partners readily pay tribute to the AGSM learning, not only in bringing them together but in equipping them for this next phase of their careers.

“AGSM definitely gave me the confidence and knowledge to pursue my dreams and goals,” says Foster.

“The skills I learned at AGSM have made being an entrepreneur a reality, not just a wish and a hope,” says Williams.