With sales growth of more than 1500% in the past three years, ZB Homes Bay of Plenty shot to the top of the 2017 Deloitte Fast 50 index, the first time a construction company has topped the annual list in its 17 year history.
“I’m proud of that but I can see why it hasn’t been done before, it’s a lot of hard work,” says ZB Homes Bay of Plenty managing director Rik Flowerday.
“There are a lot of moving parts in the construction game, and like any business that goes through rapid growth, the problems come at you a lot quicker. “You’ve got to deal with them, and not let growth get in the way of delivering a quality product.”
A common theme across all 50 companies on the 2017 Deloitte Fast 50 index is their focus on finding and capitalising on their points of difference.
For ZB Homes Bay of Plenty, Rik says its point of difference is its team, the experience they give to their clients, and the consistency of that experience.
“When we were growing the company, the systems we had in place for building 25 houses a year started to break down when we were doing 50 houses. “Now we are building around 100 houses a year, and so have had to re-look at our systems again.
“We have a culture of continuous improvement, it’s standard agenda at our fortnightly team meetings, improving our systems and processes and not repeating mistakes.”
“When mistakes happen it’s okay, but repeating mistakes is not. We take the learning out of it and change what we need to so it doesn’t happen again.”
Rik credits the team with the company’s success. “You can’t grow a business rapidly without having an awesome team.
“Our team brings a diverse set of skills to the table and share our desire to consistently deliver a quality product, despite some inevitable obstacles along the way.
The ZB Homes Bay of Plenty team – a culture of “continuous improvement” has driven their impressive results.
“We definitely come up against problems – it is not a straight road to success, but having the right team can actually help us win the race.”
The team includes 19 sales, preconstruction, and project management staff in the office, and more than 100 builders and subcontractors out in the field. Rik still does every handover himself, and is proud of the product ZB Homes Bay of Plenty delivers.
Meanwhile in the Bay of Plenty, the construction market is slowing down and also changing with smaller section sizes resulting in smaller homes.
“We will happily build whatever size house people want, but with the smaller ones it’s about having funky, creative designs which utilise the space. You don’t have to have a big house to fit everything in it, but it takes a lot more skill to design a compact house and still include everything.”
ZB Homes Bay of Plenty has i ts third show home currently under construction at Nui Living, Papamoa. Nui Living is ZB Homes Bay of Plenty’s house and land project which will eventually comprise 23 unique residential homes. Two other show homes can be found at The Lakes and Terrace Views.
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