LEADING THE WAY

Liam Mullaney Managing Director Sage Ireland

According to Liam Mullaney when growing a business the most important thing to remember is that people are the greatest asset. Niamh MacSweeney spoke to him about leadership style and creating the right culture

Sage Ireland was established in 1999 with a staff of eight people. In 2000 Sage made its first acquisition, a company called Apex. Shortly after that Sage purchased Computer Resources, which was a significant move for Sage as it was a clear indicator of the companies’ growth potential. Sage in the UK then acquired TAS Software. At the time TAS was the market leader for accountancy software and Liam Mullaney was managing director. In 2001 Mullaney and his team moved to Sage and he took on the MD position there.

“Within 18 months going from eight people to probably in the region of about 100 people was a fairly challenging thing to do. Everything is about people in the business we are in and that’s not a cliché, because what we do is develop software so our business is all about our people,” Mullaney explains. Integrating those three companies into the Sage world was a challenging task and involved a lot of change in order to consolidate all the businesses. Continuing along the acquisition route Sage acquired GFK Technology in 2002.

Scaling the Business

According to Mullaney, “having acquired four companies in the space of two years was a challenge and Sage were obliged to consider a new structure of leadership and management. You need quite a different style and indeed qualification and competency in managing a business of 150 people than you would if you were managing a business of 25 people,” he says.

It became apparent that leadership skills would be crucial to developing the right culture. Mullaney explains that managing and consolidating so many companies was an ‘interesting scenario.’ He also admits, “there were many fires to be put out and there were many opportunities to be developed. We really didn’t have the time or indeed the leadership team at that stage to solicit opinions, or gain consensus – all the things that we do today.”

Managing the Melting Pot

Mullaney reflects that although this was not a particularly nice time it was imperative to the development and growth of the business, because being a Footsie 100 company there were profits to be made and revenue targets to be reached. “We had spent €40 to €50 million and people were looking for a return on their investment,” he explains. However challenging a time it was for Mullaney and the team they did get through it and in 2004 they acquired another company, Core Time, a time management specialists. Shortly after that acquisition Sage bought SSAP, a tax software specialist and in doing so continued along the expansion route.

Leadership Style

It became apparent that Sage needed a more empowered leadership and management culture. “We needed to impart accountability to the team and that set us off on a whole leadership and development programme, which meant that all our managers and leaders went through an awful lot of training and development to ensure that they felt empowered and indeed had the tools and competency required to manage their people in the correct way so that we would have the right culture, a culture that really inspires people to achieve and to reach for the stars,” Mullaney says.

He argues, “the whole essence of change has been with Sage since 1999. All those acquisitions, all those cultures and different leadership styles led to where Sage is today, which is a leadership style that empowers people to excel in their roles.”

Future Ambitions

Sage hasn’t stopped acquiring and in 2005 they purchased Delta Systems a company that specialised in CRM software. Mullaney maintains that it is crucially important to get to know customers better, ‘getting up close and personal with them’ while expanding into new areas such as CRM, to cover all spectrums of Irish business.

Sage is now more focused on customers and customer centric initiatives. “We are re-organising ourselves along customer lines, providing customers with much more powerful tools to drive their business growth to profitability. But in order to do that we have to begin to speak the language of those customers and speaking that language we really have to go through an almost psychological shift to be thinking along customer lines instead of product lines,” he concludes.