Enigma Draws on 24HR Business Plan Expertise to Drive its Growth Ambitions
“We identified an incredibly ambitious goal of doubling in four years, and that's not doubling a start-up, we’re a mature business. So the 24 Hour Business Plan helped us set parameters for what that looks like.”
- Peter Chapman, Managing Director, Newcastle, Enigma
Enigma was formed nearly 30 years ago in Newcastle to bring creativity to its clients' business challenges. Its services span advertising, media buying, public relations and branding, all underpinned by strategies to help stimulate growth for clients.
Since participating in its first 24 Hour Business Plan session in 2019 Enigma has experienced significant growth and expanded its business presence.
"We knew we wanted to grow and take on the world in our own way, and the 24 Hour Business Plan ultimately helped us understand what we need to do to make that happen," explains Peter Chapman, Managing Director of Enigma's Newcastle office. "The work we did together really helped us turbocharge the Sydney office and open the Brisbane office. It has also helped bring focus to the business and given us a set of guardrails to work within so we can achieve our goal of doubling in size."
Growing a multi-city business
Enigma's management always intended for it to be much more than a single-city dominant agency. Though as Chapman explains, everyone who works in the head office loves its location and the lifestyle flexibility it offers. And its roster of national and international clients is solid proof the HQ doesn't need to be in a capital city.
The more Enigma steadily grew, the more ambitious its senior management became – and vice versa. So, when Andrew ‘Billy’ Baxter (an industry leader he'd long admired) told Chapman about the newly launched 24 Hour Business Plan, he organised one of the earliest sessions.
"I've known Billy for a long time: we were both in Melbourne ad-land together, and when I heard what he was doing, I was really interested to get involved," says Chapman. "It's incredibly helpful for our business having access to such a senior team at 24 Hour Business Plan who've been there and done it before – it creates an incredible confidence."
Chapman reports the Market Context session – the first of the four workshops – was an eye-opener for him, because having spent his entire career in advertising and marketing he thought he knew it all:
"But of course, seeing a different perspective just shines a whole new light on it," he says. "The Market Context session helped us understand more about how our market is segmented and how we can differentiate so we find our lane. The experience of the 24 Hour Business Plan is like doing a boot camp, but you're doing it for the business. It brings the team together and gets you energized, thinking about the business differently."
"These workshops help us look at what we can do from a broader perspective, rather than the day-to-day view, which really creates focus on clear goals for the business year-on-year."
One of the ideas explored during the sessions led by senior advisers from 24 Hour Business Plan was creative leadership, and it became clear to Chapman that Enigma needed to "inject some firepower into it" and strengthen its workforce.
To begin with, management and the 24 Hour Business Plan senior advisers created plans to elevate both the company culture and career development opportunities for all staff.
Next, they set a goal to formalise a couple of strategic partnerships to help the business increase its firepower.
“Actually, those strategic partnerships were the easiest things to execute on the Top 10 list”, observes Chapman, “because Enigma had been working with some great businesses for a long time, and simply needed to put some structure around the relationships."
Chapman acknowledges the pandemic in 2020 created some challenges, but it also created opportunities:
"We bought two businesses in 2020 and they've added incredible strings to our bow, putting us in a great position to reach our goals."
Enigma now operates three offices across Newcastle, Sydney and Brisbane, and in the first two years of its three-year business plan rapidly grew its teams from 45 to 74 people.
"Achieving growth is really about focus: focus on solving client problems creatively and focus on creating a great culture," says Chapman. "Get those two things working and the growth happens. It’s also critical to work hard and give a damn. And there’s plenty of that around here."
Chapman believes the overarching benefits of having the Top 10 Must Do's are alignment and focus for the leadership team:
"Two of those Must Do's looked the hairiest to me: one was achieving a really high staff satisfaction, which we hadn't tracked before, and we've since achieved 92%,” he says. "The other was creating a series of highly effective case studies and effectiveness award programs, and of course that feels tricky before you do it, though we've been very successful there too."
Enigma continues to build on its success year-on-year: it achieved all its Top 10 Must Do's for two years running and in Autumn 2021 the business once again engaged 24 Hour Business Plan Senior Advisors to help it develop its Top 10 for a third year.
Chapman believes the Top 10 Must Do's gave the leadership team confidence to make decisions they'd otherwise not make.
"Anyone who hasn't created a plan or developed a strategy for a while can be forgiven for thinking it's just another thing that sits in the drawer. But we found the pragmatism of the Top 10, the fact it is all condensed onto one page, means you've got a roadmap for the future of the business."
"It's vital to have goals that are well-planned, clear and measurable," he adds. "Particularly for a business with really ambitious growth plans to double in size. And we're well underway with achieving that."
A pragmatic strategy for business growth
Now most leaders hope they can grow the business, but as Chapman points out, a surprising number don't update their business plans at all – and if they do, they don't refer to them enough.
The key one pagers developed during the 24 Hour Business Plan workshops include the Market Context, Growth Plan and Strategy on a Page, plus the Top 10 Must Do's for Year 1 of the three-year business plan. Chapman says leaders at Enigma frequently reference each plan, particularly the Top 10s, partly to check how the business is tracking against its goals and often simply to help them focus.
"I think the 24HR Business Plan came at a perfect time for us," he says. "Enigma is nearly a 30-year-old business, it's been incredibly successful and incredibly well run. But taking it truly to the national stage is another story."
The seniority of the 24 Hour Business Plan advisers who've been there, done that, helped Enigma's leaders create the platform they now stand on – and helped them set a very ambitious goal of doubling the business in four years.
"That's not doubling a start-up, we're a mature business," he says. "So, through the course of the 24 Hour Business Plan we built a bunch of parameters for what it looks like if we double this business in four years."
Chapman says the process helped leaders crystallise Enigma's purpose of being the relentless growth agency that delivers unfair market share to clients.
And the proof is in the pudding, he declares:
"We're talking to CEO, CFO, CMO and other C-level clients every week, and their ears prick up when we talk about those two things: relentless growth and unfair share to our clients. We're working with blue chip national clients that any agency in the country would be delighted to be on the roster of and, you know, that's huge for us. Winning those national accounts has helped us prove you can work anywhere and create excellent work."
"Now Enigma’s attracting the best people in the industry and winning some of the best accounts in the country. And I think that's bloody good."
