{"id":38307,"date":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-8-billion-australian-tech-giant-rea-group-maintains-its-startup-spirit-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","slug":"how-8-billion-australian-tech-giant-rea-group-maintains-its-startup-spirit-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-8-billion-australian-tech-giant-rea-group-maintains-its-startup-spirit-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How $8 billion Australian tech giant REA Group maintains its startup spirit – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"REA<\/div>\n

Despite being a giant of the Australian tech scene, REA Group still manages to maintain the spirit of a small startup.<\/p>\n

The company recently moved from its\u00a0Melbourne offices to a significantly larger site to help achieve its\u00a0lofty ambitions, and REA Group head of enterprise technology Damian Fasciani says the “20-year-old startup” still maintains its agile spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m most excited about our global growth – a lot of people think we\u2019re just an Australian company,\u201d Fasciani tells\u00a0StartupSmart.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to what new markets we move into whether its Europe or other parts of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

To instill confidence and empower employees during this transition and rapid growth phase, Fasciani says the company has\u00a0had to cultivate a strong culture of high productivity, collaboration and innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture and performance are a reflection of leadership,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur executive team gives autonomy to people in the organisation, if people want to inflict change \u2013 they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to the people to grow that, they just need to have the right mindset to be able to deliver on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it is a large organisation, he says REA Group isn’t your usual corporate busines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [REA Group CEO] Tracey [Fellows] has matured how we think as an organisation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The former Microsoft APAC president \u00a0joined REA Group as CEO in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re maturing the way we operate but at the same time, we are hugely flexible,\u201d Fasciani says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a fabric there between how people work and how they communicate that is still very much non-corporate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very much in a hybrid stage where we\u2019re maturing the way we operate but at the same time we are hugely flexible.\u201d<\/p>\n

As REA Group aims for\u00a0global domination, Fasciani shares three tips for new founders with growing teams to enable and empower their people for success.<\/p>\n

1. Build a purpose<\/h3>\n

When Fasciani interviews people at REA Group, he asks what type of business they\u2019d run.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you there and what is your purpose?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are the values they would implement in that business?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s around generating a purpose and set of values, humanising those, and getting people to work together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can get people on the same page and fill that fabric between people, that\u2019s the foundation of success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s built on basic principles around building sentiment, asking people if they\u2019re okay, mentoring people, having useful conversations outside of laborious meetings, and making sure the team is connected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all sorts of ways you can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Work out your technical strategy and involve your people in that<\/h3>\n

As a startup grows and begins\u00a0implementing new systems and strategies, Fasciani says it\u2019s critical to involve and communicate with the team through this process.<\/p>\n

At REA Group, he\u00a0says communications are powered by video-conferencing, Slack, Zendesk, Office 365 and Jive.<\/p>\n

To ensure they stay agile, Fasciani\u2019s mentor REA Group CIO Nigel Dalton enlightened him to Japanese production concepts Kaikaku (radical change) and Kaizen (incremental change).<\/p>\n

The philosophy has origins in Toyota.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Dalton] came in as the god father of agile, he took it out of IT and embedded it into the broader organisation,\u201d Fasciani says.<\/p>\n

Under Dalton\u2019s mentorship, Fasciani learnt about the Japanese method of planning, implementation and execution.<\/p>\n

\"Damian<\/p>\n

He says it has transformed how they work as they switch from incremental change to disruptive growth through enterprise technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really engaging way to be able communicate a strategy to the organisation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very compelling for people to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Create an environment of happiness<\/h3>\n

High growth can\u2019t come without a happy workforce, Fasciani says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing you can\u2019t change is people\u2019s personalities but what you can do is build on technical skills so we will hire culture first, and as long as they\u2019ve got those technical fundamentals we can build on that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in the game of changing how you think.\u201d<\/p>\n

From this, he says it\u2019s important to breakdown the workplace in a way that people are having fun doing what they do.<\/p>\n

\u201cLego in Denmark, their\u00a0mission said instead of play hard, work hard, we\u2019re going to play hard but work smarter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a lot from that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo optimise and think of efficiencies of how you work but celebrate success along the way and acknowledge the efforts of your people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite being a giant of the Australian tech scene, REA Group still manages to maintain the spirit of a small<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}